Worldwide angst over possible end to Diversity Visa Lottery

Ahhhh! Whole villages in Ethiopia are sweating, Korean Pop Stars groupies are worried and so is the Soros-funded Center for American Progress that the Gang of Eight plus Grover Senate immigration bill (S.744) would abolish the “popular” program to bring more diversity to your American towns via a lottery.

Rep Donald M. Payne, Jr. from Newark, NJ: Not enough poor Africans are getting to my district! (he didn’t say that, I did!)

Note to readers:  These are not refugees we are writing about, they are 55,000 lucky lottery winners each year from countries where we don’t get enough immigrants.  This is not a joke!  I am not kidding!

Go here to see where your town’s diversity winners are coming from.

If you aren’t a regular reader of Korean Pop Entertainment news you would have no idea about the stressed-out Ethiopians or the New Jersey Congressman who says we aren’t letting enough Africans into the US.

Here is the story from KPopStarz about the “green card lottery:”

The green card lottery, a method through which at least 8 million foreigners wish to obtain their legal permanent residency, has been confirmed not to be cancelled for 2013 and 2014.

Although the odds of winning the green card lottery are not great, foreign hopefuls still have a chance of winning their legal status with a green card.

Just a few weeks ago, there was much speculation that the green card lottery would be taken away this year and that it was likely to be quietly cut. However, the US Embassy Press Secretary confirmed on Thursday that the green card application program will continue as usual for this year and next year.

According to the Armenpress on Thursday, US Embassy Press Secretary Taguhi Jahukyan said, “The Diversity Visa Program is continuing as usual for fiscal year 2013 and fiscal year 2014.”

While Congress has been discussing changes to immigration policy through new immigration bills, President Obama has not yet signed any immigration bill into law.

As the legislative process for changes in immigration policy is ongoing, no comment has been made on whether the green card lottery will continue onto 2015.

Just last year, at least 8 million foreigners submitted a green card application through the green card lottery. Only 55,000 green card applications were able to obtain a green card for themselves, their spouses, and their children.

The green card lottery is extremely popular, and foreigners would be very disappointed if the lottery program had been removed.

One green card lottery winner from Ethiopia said, “In my country, whole cities wait to hear the results of this lottery. I can’t believe they would take it away.”

The Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which issues winners a U.S. green card, started in 1995. Since then, thousands of foreigners have been granted immigrant visas and green cards.

One New Jersey House Representative, Donald Payne Jr. supported the continuance of the green card lottery program saying, “Diversity visas are one of the few ways people from Africa and the Caribbean can come to this country.”  [I guess the Congressman doesn't know about refugee resettlement and asylum---ed]

You know it’s a bad program if the Center for American Progress (read all about CAP here) wants desperately to save it!

Here is what they say in an introduction to an informative “Infographic” (AN END TO DIVERSITY?—Ahhhhhh!):

The immigration reform bill currently being debated in the U.S. Senate, however, would eliminate the diversity-visa program and grant those who are eligible a small number of points in the new merit-based green-card allocations—explained in the infographic below. Without this visa category, immigration from certain low-sending regions would diminish further and would undermine the goal of welcoming immigrants from diverse backgrounds. The infographic below portrays the current distribution of diversity visas and highlights the disproportionate effect that the elimination of this category would have on migration from Africa.

Tell Rep. Payne that there are 100,000 plus Africans arriving in the US each year according to this useful graphic from CAP.  Eliminating the Diversity Visa could knock that number down by 20,000, but they will surely be picked up through whatever changes are made to immigration by the Gang (unfortunately, you can count on that):

USCRI: Hiring a refugee (instead of an American) is good for a business’s bottom line!

Geeez!  I had no idea that they had the audacity to spell out on their website how hiring a refugee trumps hiring an American, and the employment service this refugee contractor offers is FREE!

First, a little background.  USCRI stands for US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. It is one of nine major federal refugee contractors.  It’s head honcho is Lavinia Limon who coincidentally headed Bill Clinton’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) when Clinton brought Bosnians to Iowa for laborers for the meatpackers (just mentioned it here yesterday when I told you about Columbus Junction, Iowa.)  Type ‘Lavinia Limon’ into our search function for more.

As Limon revolved out the ORR door to her job as a federal contractor, USCRI’s Veep, Eskinder Negash, revolved in and now heads the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Resources which gives out grants to USCRI.  Handy huh!

And USCRI sure does get the federal grants!

According to the most recent Form 990 (p.9) available for Ms. Limon’s USCRI they received 94% of their $35 million plus income from you—the taxpayer. So much for that public-private partnership mumbo-jumbo!

So, their services might be FREE to businesses, but not FREE to you!

Here is their website page entitled:

‘Information for Employers on Hiring Refugees’

Refugee workers improve your bottom line.  Strengthened by adversity, refugees make capable, resilient, and loyal employees [Read desperate and can't go home---ed].  USCRI’s partner agencies all over the United States can match your business with the perfect refugee employee(s)!  Our partner agencies offer comprehensive services that ensure employer satisfaction and high employee retention rates.  Best of all, services are FREE.

Find a local agency in your area

USCRI resettlement agencies help employers by:

Pre-screening applicants to find the most qualified workers
Matching employers with dependable employees
Providing a consistent source of reliable workers
Increasing productivity by reducing turnover
Managing external factors so that employees can focus on work at work
Ensuring that refugees have access to English classes
Facilitating communication between the employee and employer
Following up to ensure satisfaction

Why hire refugees?

Skills: Refugees showcase a variety of employable skills.  Refugees are doctors, nurses, small business owners, farmers, construction workers, graphic designers, tailors, cooks, and more.  Most refugees speak several languages.  Some refugees hold Master’s Degrees; others are expert farmers and artisans.  If you’re looking for a skilled employee, USCRI can match you with a qualified refugee.

Strong work ethic, high retention rates: Refugees who come to the United States want to regain self-sufficiency and economic stability for their families.  Strengthened by their experiences, they make capable, resilient, and loyal employees.

Built-in retention support: Local resettlement agencies manage external factors so that employees can focus on work at work.  Agencies provide holistic services to refugees so that child care, transportation, and other barriers to employment are addressed before the job begins.  [That's right and exactly what I said yesterday---refugee families are additionally supported by you, the taxpayer, through welfare while the business gets away with cheap laborers!---ed]

Positive economic and community impact: Refugees are new Americans and they contribute to the economy by spending locally, living locally, and paying taxes.  Hiring refugees promotes self-sufficiency by strengthening families and communities.  They are hard-working, loyal employees who will improve your bottom line, while improving their own lives.

Tax incentives: Some businesses qualify for tax incentives when they hire resettled refugees.  For more information, visit the Department of Labor website or talk to your local DOL representative.

Tax incentives to hire refugees before Americans?  You betcha!   Not that long ago a foreman on a factory production line told me that her company rotated immigrants through the business while turning Americans away at the door every day!

Related!  See the Center for Immigration Studies latest report-–it is not true that there are jobs Americans won’t do!  Americans will do any job!

Also related!  USCRI supports the Gang of Eight bill in the US Senate which will add another 11 million immigrant workers to compete with Americans and with refugees for scarce jobs, go figure!

Meatpackers changing small town America (and you have no say in the process)

The importation of refugee labor is how it is being done.

Here is one more story about Tyson Foods (or it could be Swift & Co, or perhaps Perdue) attracting refugee laborers to a meatpacking town—this time Columbus Junction, Iowa. Hat tip to one of our friends from Tennessee.

Downtown Columbus Junction

I first really began to understand this driver of the State Department’s Refugee Resettlement program here in 2008 when I read about Bill Clinton importing Bosnian so-called “refugees” for meatpackers in Iowa in the mid-1990s.

You see, readers, the meatpackers had discovered cheap immigrant labor from south of the border, but the enterprise became too risky as the feds began busting them in some highly publicized ICE raids. So, where did they turn…to refugees of course. 

Heck they are legal workers and they are basically captive labor—they can’t go home (although some very unhappy ones do find the money to return to their homeland).  In addition, you, the taxpayers, help to subsidize them with ‘social services’ while the meatpacker reaps the rewards—quite a business model!

For awhile the meatpacking giants were enthralled with the Somalis, but they came with one serious problem—they are Muslim and they began demanding workplace accommodation for their Islamic religious practices.  We have a whole category entitled, Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy with 87 posts in it (here) for your further edification.  However, in the story I am about to relate, they wouldn’t have hired Somalis anyway—it’s a pork processing plant.

What to do?  What to do?  We will tell the State Department to bring us some docile workers like the Christian Chin or Karen, or the Bhutanese/Nepalese who don’t complain so much.  And, I’m convinced that somewhere in the bowels of Washington there was such a conversation between big business lobbyists and the federal government.

My scenario is not so farfetched when you see what is going on with the Gang of Eight being driven by Big Business and Grover Norquist,  and you know this immigrant legalization push is not about “humanitarianism!”

Here is the AP story at the Tampa Tribune:

 COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa (AP) — The first Chin Burmese student arrived at Wilma Sime Roundy Elementary School three years ago, a smiling preschooler whose father often checked on his progress.

The school had long been accustomed to educating the children of the Mexicans, Hondurans and Salvadorans who came to work at the sprawling Tyson Foods pork processing plant that sits outside this town of 2,000. But then, principal Shane Rosenberg recalled, Tyson informed school leaders that a new group of workers was coming – the Chin, a largely Christian ethnic minority who were fleeing their homeland in western Myanmar to avoid persecution.

Readers keep reading through all the paragraphs about how wonderful the newcomers are (and surely many are nice people).  Everything is just great don’t ya’ know!  Then we get to the problems …

Tyson spokesman:  Nah! We don’t favor refugees (tell that to the Hispanics!)

Tyson and other meatpacking companies have increasingly recruited non-Latino workers in recent years, including Burmese, Sudanese and others, said Mark Grey, director of the Iowa Center for Immigrant Leadership and Integration at University of Northern Iowa. Since a 2008 raid of a Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse, where 389 immigrants were arrested, companies have become more careful to avoid hiring employees who may have entered the country illegally, he said.

Refugees are in the country legally and may apply for citizenship within five years.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson denied the company was favoring refugees over others, saying the industry has long attracted immigrants for entry-level jobs that do not require experience or English skills. The makeup of its workforce shifts as new immigrant groups come to the U.S., he said.  [There is also a tax break for hiring certain immigrant workers that no one is willing to talk about!---ed]

A little multi-culti friction has developed:

But in town, both the Chin and Spanish-speaking communities feel that more Chin are being hired at the expense of Latinos, which has caused some friction, said Cristina Ortiz, a doctoral student in anthropology who moved to Columbus Junction four years ago to study the town.

“Latinos and Chin people recognize they both have the same goals in life,” she says. “That is to make their lives better and provide for their families and live a tranquil life. But in a certain sense, they are in competition with each other. They are applying for the same jobs. They have the same skills. And that’s tricky. Obviously there is some tension there.”

Burmese Chin are arriving from other states where it’s tough to get a job (But wait!  Isn’t the Gang of Eight telling us we need millions more low-skilled laborers).

In Columbus Junction, Mickelson said, the first five Burmese workers were hired as part of a recruitment effort in Illinois and later encouraged friends and relatives to apply. Burmese started arriving from Indiana, Texas, Florida and other states where they say jobs were harder to come by.

Problems at first with drunk driving, public urination, a few suicides, but once the women got there things calmed down.  Now it’s just a housing shortage.  But, AP wants you to know that Columbus Junction will be just fine.

City officials say some of the first arrivals abused alcohol, which had previously not been as cheap or available to them. Public urination and intoxication and drunken driving were common. But the police chief and other officials warned community leaders about their expectations, and as more women and children arrived, the problems have dissipated.

Two refugees have committed suicide and a third was found drowned in a river near the Tyson plant, said police Chief Donnie Orr. A shortage of mental health and substance abuse treatment is a problem, Ortiz said.

But refugees and city leaders agree the biggest challenge now is finding housing for the newcomers. City officials say there are hardly any available rental apartments, which go for about $450 a month for three bedrooms.

Hey, here is an idea!  How about if Tyson Foods build some housing out of their profits and not with taxpayer money.  And. while they are at it they could kick in the money for the school system to pay for the ESL teachers.

Mayor Bloomberg, super rich, pushing the meme that immigrants are responsible for large percentage of new American businesses

When you read a story like this one in the New Pittsburgh Courier (Hat tip from Tennessee), you know that something stinks.

It makes absolutely no sense that poor refugees and other immigrants are the driving force for the small business community.  The truth is that this is just political spin and new “entrepreneurial” immigrant businesses are heavily supported and funded with special loans and grants that are available to them (and not to Americans!) gratis the US taxpayer.

Diversity is strength, right? Togolese will bring ‘culturally appropriate’ day care facility to Pittsburgh. Well, at least they obviously aren’t Muslims! From Fotopedia

LOL! As my informant from Tennessee says, if the resettlement contractors and immigrant advocacy groups are so good at getting immigrants employed, why don’t they give Americans a little help?

Here is the story which of course in a back-handed way says Americans are just plain lazy, while immigrants work their butts off.   My first thought on reading this was, how many of those Mom & Pop convenience stores being busted for food stamp fraud are in the glowing stats?

The topic of immigration reform has been in the forefront of President Barack Obama’s agenda for several years. His goal is to fix what he calls the broken immigration system so that it can be “fairer for and help grow the middle class by ensuring everyone plays by the same rules.”  The President is requesting approval by the Senate and House of a comprehensive immigration overhaul measure for him to sign into law by years end.  To Rufus Idris, a native of Kogi State, Nigeria and executive director of the Christian Evangelistic Economic Development organization, the Immigration Bill is a wise move. [More immigrants=more government grants!---ed]

For the past nine years CEED has built a reputation for assisting and developing small businesses in the region. A large portion of those businesses have been established by the immigrant and refugee population. “Creating more businesses that strengthens our economy and create jobs for Americans is inevitable.

Idris indicated that businesses under five years old are responsible for all net job creation over the past three decades in America, and a critical driver of new business creation in America has been entrepreneurial immigrants. “Immigrants start small businesses in their quest to become economically self-sufficient and serve the consumer needs of the local and global community,” he said.

In his strong support of the Immigrant Bill he cited that the Partnership for a New American Economy found that immigrants are now more than twice as likely as the native-born to start a business and were responsible for more than one in every four (28 percent) U.S. businesses founded in 2011, significantly outpacing their share of the population (12.9 percent).

If these stats are even true (given their source!), could it be the government grants and government micro-loans are behind the “entrepreneurs?”  You betcha!  And, do we know the failure rate?

It’s for the women, don’t you know!

Partnership for a New Economy is made up of leftwing big city mayors and BIG business leaders with “Nanny” Bloomberg topping the list, thus tainting this whole story!  Marriott hotels (Bill Marriott Jr is a co-chair) wants to be sure their cheap laborers have daycare for the kids (funded by you, not them)—what is wrong with that?

I kid you not!  To give an example of the “entrepreneurial” spirit, the article goes on to discuss all the fabulous work the Pittsburgh area welfare agencies  and quasi non-profits are doing to develop a program to teach refugee and immigrant women how to set up their own CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE DAY CARE facilities—I told you about this Office of Refugee Resettlement federal grant program here in March in a post entitled,  “Come and get it—free government money…!”

So, how many of you think any assimilation is going on when Allegheny County, PA is encouraging separate day care businesses for its Somali, Liberian, Togolese, South Sudanese, Burmese and Bhutanese immigrant populations (at your expense!)?

Caritas of Austin, TX training refugees for employment (with your tax dollars)

This is an all too-familiar story.  You might think that resettlement contractors like this one in Austin are taking care of refugees with their own private charitable Catholic dollars, but they aren’t.  The majority of their funding comes from you—taxpayers of Texas and the US.

From their website:

Budget grows to $6.5 million, approximately 60% governmental dollars and 40% philanthropic.

When the ACLU is busy getting the Ten Commandments removed from public buildings, don’t you wonder why they are silent on all this government money going to a church group—it’s one of those great imponderables motivating Leftwing political action.  Or, could they be busy changing the demographics of red states?

What! No poor and jobless Americans left in Austin?

I guess there are no low-skilled Americans who want to work in Austin and so Caritas has become the headhunter for the hotel and restaurant industry there—paid by you, of course, to teach job skills to refugees and asylees.  From CultureMap.com:

 Caritas also offers job training for its refugee clients and partners with an organization called English at Work to provide vocationally oriented English language classes.

“It’s unusual for a refugee to come speaking English,” says Quinn. “Some of the refugees come illiterate in their own language, so English is very hard to learn. But we have some partners that are creative with us in helping clients learn survival English, especially English that is related to a job that they’re going to get.”

“So we have a food industry and housekeeping training program,” ***says Quinn. “Our trainers have been trained by all the [Austin area] hotels to know the systems to use for the housekeeping and food industry. We have a really good relationship with the hotels and they love hiring our clients, because our clients don’t need training. We’ve already trained them.”Some refugees arrive in Austin with highly advanced degrees, while many others are employed initially in the service industry and work in local hotels and restaurants.

iACT for Refugees, a program of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, estimates that about 1,000 refugees are legally resettled in Austin each year.

Caritas director of development: “Refugees add to this fabric.” [That must be a newfangled  way of saying "diversity is strength."]

By the way, Caritas Austin is hosting a speaker from Clarkston, Georgia at an upcoming event to tell them how great things are in Clarkston.  Only problem is there was so much ‘adding to the fabric’ in Clarkston that refugee resettlement was recently suspended there because the community couldn’t handle any more refugees.  Read all about it here, and here.

*** Question?  When the hotel and food industries (with the Gang of Eight) succeed in getting the 11 million illegal aliens ‘out of the shadows’ and competing for jobs then what happens to the refugees?

In 2012 Texas led the nation in the number of resettled refugees (not counting asylum seekers or those already granted asylum, and probably not the Cubans or Haitians otherwise Florida would be higher on the list); followed by California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Washington, and North Carolina.

Time to contact Congress on Rubio/Gang of 8 amnesty plan!

Update April 16th:  Hearing on massive amnesty bill postponed due to Boston terror attack, here.

See what you must do NOW! at my other blog—Potomac Tea Party Report!

And, for all of you in the refugee resettlement business, I expect you too will be opposing amnesty for 11 million workers who will be in direct competition for work (and welfare) with the low-skilled refugees for whom you are responsible.  Right?

Michelle Malkin gets TPS scam out to a broader audience

We have been writing a lot about Temporary Protected Status lately, here’s our archive, but having Michelle Malkin pen a piece at Human Events assures the topic a much broader audience.  I heard her discussing it on Fox News over the weekend as well.

Entitled, ‘Object Lesson: “Temporary” amnesty never dies,’ it begins:

Does America lack “compassion” and “humanity” for uninvited foreigners? Quite the contrary. While open-borders activists rail against “injustice” and demand new “pathways to citizenship,” official U.S. policy rewards countless line-jumpers with permanent residency and taxpayer-subsidized benefits.

Case in point: the massive “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) program run by the Department of Homeland Security.

In theory, as the DHS website describes it, the Secretary of Homeland Security “may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately.” Those conditions include hurricanes, environmental catastrophes, civil war, epidemics and other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

The U.S. allows illegal aliens from TPS-designated countries to live here, work here, be protected from detention or deportation, and travel freely. It’s essentially a bad-weather pass into the U.S. Whenever a natural disaster strikes, we allow legions of foreigners who entered illegally — mostly from Latin America — to stay here while their homelands recover.  [Somalia, Syria and Liberia too!--ed]

Eligible for Obamacare!

In the meantime, TPS winners can apply for a panoply of other immigration benefits and protections and file for “adjustment of status” to pave the way to permanent legalization. In fact, the official draft application for Obamacare lists “Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Applicant for Temporary Protected Status (TPS)” as an “eligible immigration status.”

Yep, that means you don’t even have to be a legit, approved TPS designee to qualify for Obamacare. If you merely filed paperwork to be an “applicant” for TPS, you’re in like Flynn!

The hitch is that temporary “refugees” never go home.  Read it all.

Kentucky furniture manufacturer going out of business; immigrants lose jobs

Hurry!!!  Tell Senator Rand Paul we need to bring in more foreign workers to add to the unemployed refugee workers  in Bowling Green!

Longtime readers of RRW know that Bowling Green is a preferred resettlement site for refugees and has been in the news many times for problems there with the federal refugee contractors, with crime and with its dubious distinction as the home of two Iraqi refugee terrorists (now convicted and in the slammer).

Doors close at Eagle Industries

…by immigrant laborers!

This is the bad news from the Bowling Green Daily News (hat tip: Robin):

Bosnian, Burmese, Spanish, Vietnamese and English were among the languages spoken Wednesday by the more than 150 former Eagle Industries employees who sought help from the Rapid Response Team.

The Bowling Green furniture maker shut down last month with the intention of reopening with new owners. Instead, the company was forced into receivership and 286 people are without a job. So while employees quickly filed for unemployment benefits, they did not fill out all the paperwork needed for continued unemployment benefits, according to A.J. Tutko of the state’s Office of Employment and Career Services.

“You all thought you were going to be called back,” Tutko said, followed by interpreters in different languages.

Workers need to register for job focus career services, a web-based program that matches a person’s skill set with available jobs.

One man asked Tutko if he knew anything about the fate of Eagle. “No, I don’t,” he said.

Tutko was brought in for the meeting by the Rapid Response Team, which is overseen by the Barren River Area Development District. The team helps workers displaced in massive layoffs or closures. The team had two sessions at the BRADD office Wednesday and was scheduled to have two more today. It wasn’t clear how many workers would show up.

Workers in need of health care are desperate!

Jill Lewis, response team coordinator, started talking to workers about COBRA health insurance and how they could find out about those benefits. But workers, through an interpreter, said Eagle had stopped their health insurance benefits three years ago.

“Then they wouldn’t be eligible for this,” Lewis said.

She suggested that people look toward Fairview Health Center for help and suggested they sign up their children under 19 for Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program. It was clear that workers were unaware of that program. Many of the Hispanic women quickly shuffled through their papers looking for information on the program.

Read it all.  There were a few other employers at the event looking for a few workers (maybe!).

For more on the mess the US Office of Refugee Resettlement and the US State Department have made of Bowling Green, type ‘Bowling Green’ into our search function and you will find posts spanning nearly 6 years.

After you let Senator Paul know (his staff person responsible for immigration is Brian Darling, 202-224-4343, Brian_Darling@paul.senate.gov), let Senator McConnell know too!

I have a sneaking suspicion that these employers looking for cheap immigrant labor have been enabling McConnell (and vice versa!) for decades.  Bowling Green would not have become a federal preferred resettlement community without McConnell’s blessing!

Obama extends TEMPORARY “refugee” status to Hondurans and Nicaraguans

Josh Gerstein writing at Politico nails it when discussing our ludicrously-named backdoor immigration program—Temporary Protected Status.

“Temporary refugees!”  They came to America illegally and  Hurricane Mitch (in 1998!) became the excuse for never leaving! Photo: History Files

Here is Gerstein’s most “undercovered” story of the week!  (Emphasis mine):

My candidate for undercovered news story of the week: the extension of TPS for immigrants potentially subject to deportation to Honduras or Nicaragua.

What’s TPS? Unheard of in many communities, it stands for Temporary Protected Status and is well known in places with substantial populations of immigrants from Central America.

[....]

The provision allows the federal government to defer deportations, nominally temporarily, to countries where a problem such as natural disaster or unrest could put added stress on a country or make it unsafe for those abroad to return. Perhaps more importantly than halting deportations, it allows immigrants in the U.S. illegally from those countries to receive authorization to work here. [They can work, but there is no path to citizenship (yet!)---ed]

On Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that she was extending the legal status of immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua for another 18 months. The action was purportedly taken to allow the countries more time to recover from a hurricane. If you’re having trouble remembering a huge hurricane that hit the region recently, it’s not you. The disaster which led to the deportation halt, Hurricane Mitch, took place in the fall of 1998—more than 14 years ago.

Napolitano’s designations for Honduras and Nicaragua are the eleventh extensions of the original grants of TPS. With the passage of time, the findings in the extensions become more and more implausible, as does the notion that there is anything temporary about the program and that the conditions in those countries today are fairly traceable to the 1998 hurricane.  [Technically to receive TPS status the illegal alien had to be in the US before the crisis occurred, but this is just more of the winking and nodding that surely goes on with this program.--ed]

The truth is it has become politically unthinkable to end the TPS designations, especially given how long they’ve been in place. The policies now stretch through three presidential administrations, two Democratic and one Republican [Bush of course!---ed]

In many ways, the extensions are a symptom of the nation’s broken immigration system. About 64,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaraguans are affected by the programs. Another TPS for El Salvador based on earthquakes in 2001 affects even more people: 212,000, making it a major source of remittances* for that country.

Read it all!

They are all waiting now for the big break—amnesty. Yippee! New Democrat voters!

*We told you about the role of remittances here at Potomac Tea Party Report.  The most recent group to receive TPS status are the Syrians—just in time for amnesty!

Non-profit group uses your money to train refugees to compete for your jobs; discriminatory?

What a racket!

This is from a recent press release from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) about their employment training for refugees! in California (where the unemployment rate is very high).

Regular readers know that the IRC is the non-profit group that receives millions from the US taxpayer as a US State Department contractor, one of nine right now, who have a monopoly on bringing refugees to your towns and cities (I recently read that the IRC is bringing refugees to twenty-plus US cities).

Just last week the IRC was all over the news when it hired British former Foreign Secretary and man with a banana, David Miliband, to replace George Rupp as its CEO.

When I read over the IRC press release just now, I wondered when I will see it in its entirety, printed without changes, in some media outlet too lazy to do its own story.   Readers! Let me know if you see this as a news story somewhere!

Does no one ever question whether this type of job training just for refugees, a special class of people, is even Constitutional.  We know it’s legal (here) but doesn’t it use your tax dollars to discriminate against other classes of job seekers?

Someone in California (a white American) should go to the IRC for job training and be turned away then sue their pants off—I don’t think anyone has challenged the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 in this way.

By the way, when that law was passed it was made clear that refugees must work (not just be a drain on social services) and the bottomline now is that the unemployment rate for refugees is really high (46% or more for Iraqis), so these resettlement agencies are in a tizzy to get the refugees a job—any job!

Here is the release:

 Refugees arrive in Los Angeles to rebuild their lives with little more than a few contacts, enterprise and resilience. Getting their first job is the linchpin of the resettlement process as they seek to establish financial stability and independence.

But as refugees enter the marketplace of their new communities, they must overcome a new obstacle: breaking into a competitive job market.

A refugee’s first job sets the stage for their resettlement experience, according to International Rescue Committee Employment Specialist Luisa Gavoutian.

[.....]

The job search in Los Angeles is a struggle for refugees and American citizens alike. Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate increased slightly to 10.4% in January while the state’s unemployment rate remained at 9.8%.

But for recently resettled refugees, the challenge is even harder.

“You’re struggling against not only the economy and job market, but also language, community and capacity challenges to expand your network,” according to IRC Immigration Outreach Specialist Angineh Torosiyan.

Federally-funded but the IRC gets all the credit:

For al Janabi, Norouzi and other refugees in Los Angeles, the IRC is a trusted point of reference as they navigate the job market. The IRC’s Early Employment Program helps refugees with diverse professional backgrounds, as well as those who have never worked before, overcome network and employment barriers.
 
The federally-funded program assists refugees in every aspect of the job search process, from building resumes and submitting applications to interview practice and workplace etiquette. Refugees meet with a job mentor for one-on-one support and attend job readiness workshops each week. Program staff, interns and volunteers build relationships with local businesses in the community and serve as a bridge between refugees and potential employers.  [No bridges for the poor American schlub!---ed]

In a recent Form 990, the IRC received $247 million from YOU in a budget of $431 million!   Maybe they could start using their own privately-raised money for programs like this discriminatory one!   I don’t think this is Constitutional!