Though President Barack Obama claimed that America must “enlist Muslim communities” to combat terrorism in his Sunday evening Oval Office address, former FBI Counterterrorism Agent John Guandolo said on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily (6AM-9AM EST on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125) that since 9/11, “we collectively have received nearly zero help from the Muslim Community.”
Breitbart: Guandolo, who pointed out on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily that a “vast majority” of U.S. mosques and Islamic centers are a part of a much larger “jihadi network,” told host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that though Muslim community leaders “certainly give the air as if they are helping,” if one looks at the “major Islamic organizations, the major Islamic centers in the United States,” they have “condemned all of the counter-terrorism policies and they’ve gotten the government to kowtow to them, to turn only to them for advice.”
“And what advice do they give them?” Guandolo asked. “That Islam doesn’t stand for this and that everything you’re doing is the reason for what happened—9/11 is your fault because of your policies.”
As Breitbart News reported, Los Angeles CAIR director Hussam Ayloush said last week just days after the San Bernardino terrorist attacks that America is “partly responsible” for the San Bernardino terrorist attacks because “some of our foreign policy” is “fueling extremism.”
Last night, Obama said that “if we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.”
Guandolo said he doesn’t necessarily agree with the idea that “we have to work with the Muslim community in order to solve this problem here in the United States,” but “if you are going to work with the Muslim community, the U.S. government” should not be “exclusively working with Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood entities without exception” like it is doing now. Guandolo named the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim American Society.
“Those are who they’re working with and others that are Muslim Brotherhood or ideologically directly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he added, pointing out that Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke at the Muslim Advocates—another such organization—last Thursday.
Guandolo said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is speaking about Muslim civil rights on Monday evening at The Adams Center in Sterling, Virginia, which is associated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). He said evidence presented at the Holy Land terrorism-funding trial revealed that ISNA is “the nucleus of the Muslim Brotherhood here” and “directly funds Hamas leaders and organizations overseas.” He also pointed out that the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity in America, was a “Hamas organization at the time it was indicted and Hamas is an inherent part of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
He said it will be nearly impossible to so successfully combat terrorists “so long as the U.S. government… emboldens and empowers Muslim Brotherhood organizations here.”
“If you expect FBI and others to aggressively pursue them, it’s not going to happen because our leaders — President, Secretary of State, national security adivsers, generals at the Pentagon—are are turning to their advisers who in fact are Muslim Brotherhood leaders to say what should we and what shouldn’t we do,” he said.
Guandolo said “it gets down to the local ground level where our behavior becomes insane and we do things like” tell FBI agents to take their socks off while arresting people at mosques so “you’re arresting somebody in your socks. It’s not only insane but there’s an officer-safety issue as well.” He added there was absolutely “no real logic about what happened in San Bernardino” when the F.B.I. allowed the media to rummage through the home of the San Bernardino terrorists and said “this kind of mindset” entered the FBI because of Muslim leaders who are advising the federal government on Islam and terrorism.
Bannon mentioned that this mindset dates back to the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and Guandolo said during the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, the Muslim Brotherhood published their “strategic plan for North America and then their implementation manual which implements the plan” in order to start “the real forward push to get their plan implemented.” He said those documents were discovered in a 2004 raid of a Hamas leaders’s home in Annandale, Virginia.
Guandolo also informed listeners that the Muslim Brotherhood has been in the United States since the 1960s because the “very first Islamic organization in America”—the Muslim Students Association—was created by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s in order to “recruit Jihadis on college campuses and on every major college campus in America.”
According to Guandolo, “if you even hint at shutting them down, then you’re immediately a racist or an Islamophobe.”
“The story that is told in between is the story of an Islamic network in the U.S. that was not just established by random Muslims coming here,” he said.
He also called out Saudi Arabia for being the top financier of Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and al-Qaeda projects in the United States. Guandolo said these organizations build lavish mosques that can hold thousands of people in areas where there are only 12 Muslims because their strategy is to claim ground “up to three miles around the mosque.” He said the Saudis help these organizations purchase homes in the area at substantially above-market prices in order to “occupy that space around that mosque.”
Guandolo runs the understandingthethreat.com site and is the author of Raising a Jihadi Generation.
*** Since the Farook and Malik family, the killers of San Bernardino are from Pakistan, it is prudent to look deeper at the genesis of terror there.
Tom Rogan, NRO: Someone screamed at us to get down and hide below the desks,” he said, adding that the gunmen shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire. “Then one of them shouted, ‘There are so many children beneath the benches, go and get them.’ I saw a pair of big black boots coming toward me.” —
Shahrukh Khan, 16, a victim of the Peshawar school attack, speaking to Agence-France Presse Welcome to the world of the Pakistani Taliban: Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP). Blending Deobandi fanaticism with warped Pashtunwali traditionalism, despising individual freedom and intellectual curiosity, these fanatics found an Army school in Peshawar to be a tempting target. Some might be shocked by this attack, but I am not. This kind of rampage has been coming.
This summer, I warned that Pakistani politicians and security officials were juggling with fire in their flirtation with the TTP. Led by Fazlullah, an unrepentant psychopath, the TTP has escalated its atrocities. Attacking Christian and Shia Muslim religious sites, cafés, and women (Fazlullah directed the attack on the now-famous schoolgirl Malala), the TTP, like the Islamic State, seeks a return to medieval authoritarianism.So now Pakistan has its 9/11 moment. Facing the loss of more than 140 children, will it end its dalliance with terrorists? The early signs are somewhat hopeful. Recognizing the pure horror of this attack, Pakistani politicians of all stripes have reacted with outrage. Imran Khan, for example, sent out tweets that suggested his support for military reprisals. While that might seem an obvious reaction, Khan up until now has played to the TTP for his own interests while blaming America for Pakistan’s problems.Defeating the TTP, however, will take more than a few highly publicized military actions in the coming days. It will require a sea change in Pakistani politics. Supported by networks of local patrons and propelled by paranoia over Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, powerful members of the Pakistani establishment have long regarded the TTP and other terrorist groups as proxies for their own interests. Consider the undeniable support of Pakistan’s primary intelligence service, the ISI, for the Haqqani network, a group responsible for killing NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. Want to understand that relationship? Watch Homeland. Pakistan has been toughening its stance against the TTP over the past year, but this attack is a symptom of Pakistan’s fatal hesitancy to directly confront TTP. Pakistan’s future now rests on the pivot between those who recognize that these terrorists cannot be leashed and those who see them as tools to use for their own ends. This isn’t just a Pakistani concern. Given that India’s new prime minister doesn’t easily tolerate Pakistani support of terrorist groups, the TTP has the potential to spark a war between India and Pakistan — two nuclear powers. And despite recent signs of hope in Afghanistan, the American military there will have to be on watch. We must also be on guard for new TTP plots against the homeland, because the group will probably attempt to emulate the Islamic State in its reach. This is no small concern. After all, TTP was responsible for the Times Square car-bomb plot, and is supported by a small but sizeable element of Britain’s Pakistani community. Western politics also matter here. With so many in the West more concerned with the rights of terrorists than the realities of the threat we face, we must isolate those who would tie our hands in this fight. Start with U.N. special rapporteur Ben Emmerson. Last week, Emmerson demanded prosecutions against CIA officers who have saved American lives. And last year Emmerson issued a ludicrous report that condemned the CIA drone program in Pakistan — the same program that has smashed groups like TTP and that prevent the export of jihadist atrocities to the West. Above all, we must take heed of what December 15 proved — if further proof is needed. Monday morning, hundreds of children woke up full of hope. Tuesday morning, their coffins and the rows of their names on a list of the deceased reveal the bloody price of Islamist fanaticism. Pakistan and the world must honor their memory with our resolve. —
Category Archives: al Qaida al Nusra Boko Haram
Confirmed, Terror Related People Exploiting Refugee Program
Today, December 7, Josh Earnest just declared we are at war because Islamic State has declared war on the West. Wonder if this was approved by Barack Obama himself.
ISIS has targeted refugee program to enter US, Homeland Security chairman says
TheHill: Intelligence officials have determined that Islamic extremists have explored using the refugee program to enter the United States, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee said on Monday.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) declined to go into detail about the determination, which the Obama administration has not announced publicly.
Yet the disclosure could add ammunition to critics of the White House’s refugee plans who have warned that the program is vulnerable to infiltration by adherents of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“ISIS members in Syria have attempted to exploit it to get into the United States,” McCaul said during a speech at the National Defense University.
“The U.S. government has information to indicate that individuals tied to terrorist groups in Syria have already attempted to gain access to our country through the U.S. refugee program.”
McCaul would not say specifically who informed him and other lawmakers about the revelation, only describing the sources as “elements of the intelligence community.” More here.
Congressman, Mike McCaul of Texas, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee is working diligently to stop the abuse of the refugee program to stop terror connected people from entering the United States.
We must listen to the words of our enemies. ISIS has vowed in their words to ‘exploit the refugee process, to sneak operatives, to infiltrate the West.’ They appear to have already done that to attack our allies. Last week the streets of Paris could have just as easily been the streets of New York, or Chicago, or Houston, or Los Angeles.
Rep. McCaul: ‘Make No Mistake: We Are a Nation at War’
FBI investigating 1,000 ‘homegrown terror cases’The chair of the House Homeland Security Committee warned the nation Monday during a wide-ranging address on national security matters, “We are a nation at war.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), in a State of Homeland Security address delivered at the National War College, flatly said: “Make no mistake: We are a nation at war.”
McCaul’s comments come on the heels of a major terror attack in San Bernardino, California that was allegedly committed by followers of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) terror group.
“Our own city streets are now the front lines,” McCaul said. “Indeed, San Bernardino was not an isolated event. Terrorists are on the offensive, working to deploy operatives to our shores and to radicalize our citizens to commit acts of violence.”
McCaul said that the U.S. homeland is experiencing the “highest threat environment since 9/11” and that the FBI is investigating “nearly 1,000 homegrown terror cases” across all 50 states, most of which are related to the Islamic State.
“Already, federal authorities have arrested over 70 ISIS supporters in our country,” he said.
In the wake of San Bernardino, Islamic State affiliates have been connected to 19 “terrorist plots or attacks here at home,” McCaul said.
“These include plans to murder tourists on Florida beaches, to set off pipe bombs on Capitol Hill, to detonate explosives at New York City landmarks, and to live-stream an attack at an American college campus,” he said.
This year has been the “single most active year for homegrown terror we have ever tracked,” according to McCaul, who said “there were more homegrown terror cases in the first six months of 2015 than any full year since 9/11.”
McCaul went on to blast the Obama administration for failing to take concrete steps to battle the Islamic State and prevent further attacks on the United States.
“I was disappointed last night when the president failed to lay out any new steps to fight this menace,” he said. “Instead, he doubled down on a strategy of hesitancy and half-measures.”
He said the mass shooting in San Bernardino should serve as a “wake-up call” to Americans and U.S. lawmakers.
“This attack should not just be a wake-up call. It should be a call to action. For far too long, we have allowed extremists to reclaim their momentum, surging from terrorist cells into full-fledged terrorist armies,” McCaul said.
“As a result, I believe the state of our homeland is increasingly not secure, and I believe 2015 will be seen as a watershed year in this long war—the year when our enemies gained an upper hand and when the spread of terror once again awoke the West.”
McCaul lambasted some of his congressional colleagues for denying that the United States is under attack by terrorist forces.
“We are not acting early enough to keep terrorist groups from spreading, and there are some in Washington who are in denial about the threat we face,” he said.
The Obama administration has repeatedly said the United States is immune from attacks, despite a series of incidents fueled by extremist ideology.
“I have had enough,” McCaul said. “We cannot be blind to the threat before us. ISIS is not contained—it is expanding at great cost to the free world. In November, the group managed to conduct three major terrorist attacks on three separate continents in just three weeks.”
The Islamic State “is now more dangerous than al Qaeda ever was under Osama bin Laden,” McCaul said, adding that the terror group’s extremist ideology has “spread into the West, including into the United States.”
THAT Terror Watch List Includes TSA Employees
People are nominated due to certain conditions and points to go on the terror watch list. The report is here. .
Obama’s solution to terror was to expand the stipulations to be on the list, keeping the country safe?
72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List
FreeBeacon: At least 72 employees at the Department of Homeland Security are listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list, according to a Democratic lawmaker.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.) disclosed that a congressional investigation recently found that at least 72 people working at DHS also “were on the terrorist watch list.”
“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio.
“The [former DHS] director had to resign because of that,” he said.
DHS continues to fail inspections aimed at determining the efficiency of its internal safety mechanisms, as well as its efforts to protect the nation.
Lynch referred to a recent report that found the Transportation Security Administration, which is overseen by DHS, failed to stop 95 percent of those who attempted to bring restricted items past airport security.
“We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said. “We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.”
Lynch said he has “very low confidence” in DHS based on its many failures over the years. For this reason, he voted in favor of recent legislation that will tighten the vetting process for any Syrian refugees applying for asylum in the United States.
“I have very low confidence based on empirical data that we’ve got on the Department of Homeland Security. I think we desperately need another set of eyeballs looking at the vetting process,” he said. “That’s vetting that’s being done at major airports where we have a stationary person coming through a facility, and we’re failing 95 percent of the time.”
“I have even lower confidence that they can conduct the vetting process in places like Jordan, or Belize or on the Syrian border, or in Cairo, or Beirut in any better fashion, especially given the huge volume of applicants we’ve had seeking refugee status,” Lynch said.
*** There are more details:
TheIntercept: Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.
Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.
The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000—surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush.
“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.”
POTUS asked for Unique ISIS Report, Dates Matter
Barack Obama commissioned a special report on Islamic State that was complied by U,S, Southern Command and a few other top intelligence agencies. He received the report before he told the country Islamic State was ‘contained’ and certainly before the Paris climate change summit where countless side meetings were held with other world leaders on the matter of Iraq and Syria. He had the facts, but continued with ‘his’ self concocted strategy, while issuing a full rebuke to others challenging his posture on the war against Islamic State.
Most chilling is Barack Obama received this distinct report, holding all the facts regarding territory and resourcing the military on Islamic State but worse is the State Department is managing the whole conflict with U.S. Southern Command. Since when does a diplomatic agency drive a war?
U.S. Intel to Obama: ISIS Is Not Contained
Dozier/DailyBeast: A new report stands in stark contrast to earlier White House assurances that ISIS had been ‘contained.’ And it is already spurring changes in how the U.S. grapples with ISIS.A new U.S. intelligence report on ISIS, commissioned by the White House, predicts that the self-proclaimed Islamic State will spread worldwide and grow in numbers, unless it suffers a significant loss of territory on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials told The Daily Beast. The report stands in stark contrast to earlier White House assurances that ISIS had been “contained” in Iraq and Syria. And it is already spurring changes in how the U.S. grapples with ISIS, these officials said.
It’s also a tacit admission that coalition efforts so far – dropping thousands of bombs and deploying 3,500 U.S. troops as well as other coalition trainers — have been outpaced by ISIS’ ability to expand and attract new followers, even as the yearlong coalition air campaign has helped local forces drive ISIS out of parts of Iraq and Syria.
The White House commissioned the intelligence report prior to last month’s deadly strikes in Paris, and long before last week’s terror attacks in San Bernardino, California, three senior U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to describe a confidential document and policy changes. It was also commissioned before Obama declared ISIS “contained” in Iraq and Syria — just a day before the Paris attacks — but it was delivered to the White House in the weeks afterward.
After reviewing its grim conclusions, President Barack Obama asked Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford to come up with new options to beat the group back.
The counterterrorism campaign is being stepped up—using the same arsenal of drones, special forces raids, and local proxies previously employed in the global war on al Qaeda. A special operations targeting cell, announced by Carter last week, is one of the recommendations. The roughly 200-strong team will conduct raiding operations in Iraq and Syria, coordinating strikes through a 50-man team that will work inside northern Syria with a band of U.S.-supported guerrillas known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.
Defense chiefs have also tasked the military’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to host an interagency think tank of military, diplomatic, and intelligence representatives to come up with other options, The Daily Beast has learned.
President Obama addressed the nation about the threat of terrorism in a rare Oval Office address Sunday night and made brief mention of the stepped-up campaign but no new announcements to expand it.
“In Iraq and Syria, air strikes are taking out ISIL leaders…In both countries, we’re deploying special operations forces who can accelerate that offensive,” Obama said. “We’ve stepped up our effort since the attacks in Paris.”
The roughly eight-page intelligence report that drove the policy changes was compiled by a team of analysts from CIA, DIA, NSA, and other agencies, all reporting to the director for national intelligence.
“This intel report didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” said one official. “It was lots of great charts showing countries highlighted across the globe, with some groups having pledged allegiance to ISIS and others leaning towards it.”
It described how the terrorist group with aspirations of founding an extremist Islamic caliphate already has a network of groups that have pledged allegiance or are vying for membership in a dozen countries.
The DNI confirmed it had produced the intelligence report, but offered no comment.
The White House and Pentagon would not comment on the intelligence report nor confirm the request to U.S. Special Operations Command to host intergovernmental discussions on the problem. But they did point out that SOCOM already has the job of tracking and planning the military’s response to counterterrorism threats.
“SOCOM plays an important role in the critical analysis of trans-regional threats, providing assessments that look across the seams between geographic commands, and helping the department to synchronize military efforts with all elements of national power,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis Saturday.
What Should you Know About Wilson Fish….
The Wilson-Fish (WF) program is an alternative to traditional state administered refugee resettlement programs for providing assistance (cash and medical) and social services to refugees.
Minneapolis
Vermont
Twin Falls, Idaho
The full government program description is here, from the Health and Human Services website which manages the Refugee Resettlement Program.
The purposes of the WF program are to:
- Increase refugee prospects for early employment and self-sufficiency
- Promote coordination among voluntary resettlement agencies and service providers
- Ensure that refugee assistance programs exist in every state where refugees are resettled
http://app.na.readspeaker.com/cgi-bin/rsent?customerid=7596&lang=en_us&readid=main&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acf.hhs.gov%2Fprograms%2Forr%2Fprograms%2Fwilson-fish
IV. PROGRAM SERVICES
A. Refugee Cash Assistance
B. Refugee Medical Assistance/Refugee Medical Screening
C. Intensive Case Management
D. Employment/Employability Services
E. English Language Training
F. Translation and Interpretation Services
G. Refugee Social Services – Key Requirements
V. PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION
A. Statewide Coordination
B. RCA/RMA Administration
VI. PROCEDURES AND DEFINITIONS
A. Procurement of Services
B. Sanctioning and Fair Hearing Process
C. Definition of Terms
D. Procedure for a WF Program to Revert to a State Administered RCA or PPP Model
VIII. Application
A. Substantial Involvement Under the Cooperative Agreement
B. Contents of the WF Application
These guidelines are provided to grantees under the Wilson/Fish (WF) alternative program to assist them in their delivery of services and assistance to eligible populations. The purpose of the WF program is to establish an alternative to the traditional state administered refugee assistance program through the provision of integrated assistance (cash and medical) and services (employment, case-management, English as a Second Language (ESL) and other social services) to refugees in order to increase early employment and self-sufficiency prospects. In addition, the WF program enables refugee assistance programs to exist in every State where refugees are resettled.
The statutory authority for the WF program was granted in October, 1984, when Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to provide authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement alternative projects for refugees. This provision, known as the Wilson/Fish Amendment, Pub.L. 98-473, 8 U.S.C. 1522(e)(7), provided:
“(7)(A) The Secretary shall develop and implement alternative projects for refugees who have been in the United States less than thirty-six months, under which refugees are provided interim support, medical services,1 support services, and case management, as needed, in a manner that encourages self-sufficiency, reduces welfare dependency, and fosters greater coordination among the resettlement agencies and service providers…
(B) Refugees covered under such alternative projects shall be precluded from receiving cash or medical assistance under any other paragraph of this subsection or under title XIX or part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act.
(C) “…”
(D) To the extent that the use of such funds is consistent with the purposes of such provisions, funds appropriated under section 414(a) of this Act, part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act, or Title XIX of such Act, may be used for the purpose of implementing and evaluating alternative projects under this paragraph.”
The WF Program is also referenced in the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) regulations under the heading Alternative RCA Programs at 45 C.F.R. § 400.69:
“A state that determines that a public/private RCA program or publicly-administered program modeled after its TANF program is not the best approach for the State, may choose instead to establish an alternative approach under the Wilson/Fish program, authorized by INA section 412(e)(7).”
The ORR regulations at 45 C.F.R. §400.301 also provide authority to the ORR Director to select a replacement to respond to the needs of the state’s refugee population if a state withdraws from the refugee program:”…when a State withdraws from all or part of the refugee program, the Director may authorize a replacement designee or designees to administer the provision of assistance and services, as appropriate, to refugees in that State” (see page 14 – “Statewide Coordination”).
Neither the statute nor regulations mandate a competitive review process for determining a WF grantee. However, the statute does require as follows:
No grant or contract may be awarded under this section unless an appropriate proposal and application (including a description of the agency’s ability to perform the services specified in the proposal) are submitted to, and approved by, the appropriate administering official. Grants and contracts under this section shall be made to those agencies which the appropriate administering official determines can best perform the services 8 U.S.C. § 1522(a)(4)(A).
ORR with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) concurrence has concluded a competitive review process is not cost effective, not in the best interest of the government, and not a practical fit for the WF program. ORR also, in accordance with the law cited above, will require that appropriate proposals and applications are submitted and that a determination is made that the grantees are the ones that can “best perform” the services. Therefore funding under this program is open only to those agencies that currently administer a WF program. The WF program has the regulatory authority as cited above to expand sites in the future as necessary if a state withdraws from the refugee program or if a state proposes to switch its current RCA model to the WF model.
WF grantees which include States, voluntary resettlement agencies (local and national), and a private non-profit agency that oversees a local voluntary resettlement agency administer 12 state-wide WF programs in the following States: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont, plus one county-wide program in San Diego County, California. The WF programs in these locations are currently administered by the following agencies:
Alabama: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Alaska: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Colorado: Colorado Department of Human Services
Idaho: Janus Inc. (formerly Mountain States Group), Idaho Office for Refugees
Kentucky: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Louisville, Kentucky Office for Refugees
Louisiana: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana Office for Refugees
Massachusetts: Office for Refugees and Immigrants
Nevada: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada
North Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota
San Diego County, CA: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego
South Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota
Tennessee: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Tennessee Office for Refugees
Vermont: USCRI – Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program
ORR Eligible Client Population
To be eligible for WF funded programs and services, grantees must ensure refugees2 meet all requirements of 45 C.F.R. 400.43, “Requirements for documentation of refugee status”. Eligibility for refugee program services and assistance also includes: Asylees3, Cuban Haitian Entrants4; Certain Amerasians5 from Vietnam; Victims of Severe Forms of Trafficking6; Special Immigrant Visa Holders7.
All eligible individuals will be referred to as “refugees” or “clients” in these guidelines, unless the context indicates otherwise. For more details on documentary proof of the above statuses and all other ORR eligible populations, including statutory and regulatory authorities, visit the ORR website.
Under the WF program guidelines, the grantee will provide interim financial assistance, medical assistance (if applicable), employment services, case management and other social services to refugees in a manner that encourages self-sufficiency, and fosters greater coordination among voluntary agencies and other community-based service providers. An integrated system of assistance and services is an essential characteristic of a WF program. Services and assistance under this program are intended to help refugees attain self-sufficiency within the period of support defined by 45 CFR 400.211.8 This period is currently eight months from date of arrival in the U.S. (for refugees and SIVs); the date of adjustment of status if applying for Special Immigrant Status within the U.S (SIVs); the date of final grant of asylum (for asylees); the date a Cuban/Haitian becomes an entrant9; the date of certification or eligibility letter for Victims of Severe Forms of Trafficking.
WF programs provide assistance and services to refugees for the purpose of enhancing refugee self-sufficiency. Some examples include: (1) where assistance and services for refugees receiving RCA and those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) could be provided in a better coordinated, effective, and efficient manner; (2) where the payment rate for RCA and TANF is well below the ORR payment rates listed in the ORR regulations at 45 C.F.R. section 400.60; (3) where TANF-eligible refugees may not have access to timely, culturally and linguistically compatible services in the provision of employment and training programs; (4) where existing options for delivery of services and assistance to refugees do not present the most effective resettlement in that location, and where resettlement could be made more effective through the implementation of an alternative project; (5) where the continuity of services from the time of arrival until the attainment of self-sufficiency needs to be strengthened; or (6) where it is in the best interest of refugees to receive assistance and services outside the traditional TANF system.
WF programs have the flexibility to design programs tailored to the refugees’ needs, assets, and environment of the resettlement community.
There are seven main elements of WF programs that allow them to be distinguished from the traditional10 state -administered refugee resettlement programs:
a. They may serve TANF eligible clients in addition to RCA clients.
b. The provision of cash assistance, case management and employment services are integrated and administered generally under a single agency employing a “one stop shop “ model that is culturally and linguistically equipped to work with refugees.
c. The cash assistance element may be administered and/or delivered by the state or a private entity.
d. Monthly RCA payment levels may exceed state TANF payment levels (up to the PPP levels outlined under 45 C.F.R. §400.60).
e. WF programs utilize innovative strategies for the provision of cash assistance, through incentives, bonuses and income disregards which are tied directly to the achievement of employment goals outlined in the client self-sufficiency plan.
f. Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) may be administered by a private entity.
g. WF programs provide intensive case management to refugees who are determined to have special needs.
Funding for the WF program is made available under the Transitional Assistance and Medical Services (TAMS) and Social Services line items. Under TAMS, WF grantees receive WF-Cash and Medical Assistance (WF-CMA) discretionary funds which are awarded through cooperative agreements to cover RCA, RMA (if privately administered), intensive case management, statewide coordination and RCA/RMA administration costs. WF-CMA discretionary grants are awarded based on a budget of estimated costs for providing up to eight months of RCA and RMA (if applicable) to eligible refugees and up to one year of intensive case management, as well as for the identifiable and reasonable administrative costs associated with providing RCA and RMA and statewide coordination. WF-CMA is a cost reimbursement grant. Any unobligated balances will be used as an offset to the following year’s award for this grant.