The U.S. Refugee Immigration Costs Back to 1997

Posted on August 24, 2015August 24, 2015 by Denise Simon

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES REFUGEE AND ENTRANT ASSISTANCE report is full of the budget numbers. You have no concept of what bad law and policy has cost the American taxpayers. Imagine these decades of dollars as well as grants, USAID, the Merida Initiative, State Department programs, military assistance and the Millennium Challenge dollars added in, we effectively own these countries.

Unaccompanied Alien Children: An Overview

Summary

In FY2014, the number of unaccompanied alien children (UAC, unaccompanied children) that were apprehended at the Southwest border while attempting to enter the United States without authorization increased sharply, straining the system put in place over the past decade to handle such cases. Prior to FY2014, UAC apprehensions were steadily increasing. For example, in FY2011, the Border Patrol apprehended 16,067 unaccompanied children at the Southwest border whereas in FY2014 more than 68,500 unaccompanied children were apprehended. In the first 8 months of FY2015, UAC apprehensions numbered 22,869, down 49% from the same period in FY2014.

UAC are defined in statute as children who lack lawful immigration status in the United States, who are under the age of 18, and who either are without a parent or legal guardian in the United States or without a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody. Two statutes and a legal settlement directly affect U.S. policy for the treatment and administrative processing of UAC: the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-457); the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296); and the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997.

Several agencies in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’s) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) share responsibility for the processing, treatment, and placement of UAC. DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehends and detains unaccompanied children arrested at the border while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) handles custody transfer and repatriation responsibilities. ICE also apprehends UAC in the interior of the country and represents the government in removal proceedings. HHS coordinates and implements the care and placement of unaccompanied children in appropriate custody.

Foreign nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico accounted for almost all UAC cases in recent years, especially in FY2014. In FY2009, when the number of UAC apprehended at the Southwest border was 19,688, foreign nationals from Mexico accounted for 82% of all UAC apprehensions at the Southwest border and the three Central American countries accounted for 17% of these apprehensions. In FY2014, the proportions had almost reversed, with Mexican UAC comprising only 23% of UAC apprehensions and unaccompanied children from the three Central American countries comprising 77%.

To address the crisis, the Administration developed a working group to coordinate the efforts of federal agencies involved. It also opened additional shelters and holding facilities to accommodate the large number of UAC apprehended at the border. In June 2014, the Administration announced plans to provide funding to the affected Central American countries for a variety of programs and security-related initiatives; and in July, the Administration requested $3.7 billion in supplemental appropriations for FY2014 to address the crisis. Congress debated the supplemental appropriations but did not pass such legislation.

For FY2015, Congress appropriated nearly $1.6 billion for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance Programs in ORR, the majority of which is directed toward the UAC program (P.L. 113-235). For DHS agencies, Congress appropriated $3.4 billion for detection, enforcement, and removal operations, including for the transport of unaccompanied children for CBP. The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, FY2015 (P.L. 114-4) also permits the Secretary of Homeland Security to reprogram funds within CBP and ICE and transfer such funds into the two agencies’ “Salaries and Expenses” accounts for the care and transportation of unaccompanied children. P.L. 114-4 also allows for several DHS grants awarded to states along the Southwest border to be used by recipients for costs or reimbursement of costs related to providing humanitarian relief to unaccompanied children.

Congressional activity on two pieces of legislation in the 114th Congress (H.R. 1153 and H.R. 1149) would make changes to current UAC policy, including amending the definition of UAC, altering current law on the treatment of unaccompanied children from contiguous countries, and amending several asylum provisions that would alter how unaccompanied children who assert an asylum claim are processed, among other things. Several other bills have been introduced without seeing legislative activity (H.R. 191/S. 129, H.R. 1700, H.R. 2491, and S. 44). The full report is here.

Iran is on a Peace Through Strength Mission

Posted on August 24, 2015August 24, 2015 by Denise Simon

Sheesh

When it comes to those in Congress supporting the White House Iran nuclear deal, those in favor have countless reasons to bow out and vote no.

The Iran deal facts are here.

Iran unveils new missile, says seeks peace through strength

Reuters: Iran on Saturday unveiled a new surface-to-surface missile it said could strike targets with pin-point accuracy within a range of 500 km (310 miles) and it said military might was a precondition for peace and effective diplomacy.

The defense ministry’s unveiling of the solid-fuel missile, named Fateh 313, came little more than a month after Iran and world powers reached a deal that requires Tehran to abide by new limits on its nuclear program in return for Western governments easing economic sanctions.

According to that deal, any transfer to Iran of ballistic missile technology during the next eight years will be subject to the approval of the United Nations Security Council, and the United States has promised to veto any such requests. An arms embargo on conventional weapons also stays, preventing their import and export for five years.

But Iran has said it will not follow parts of the nuclear deal that restricts its military capabilities, a stance reaffirmed by President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday.

“We will buy, sell and develop any weapons we need and we will not ask for permission or abide by any resolution for that,” he said in a speech at the unveiling ceremony broadcast live on state television.

“We can negotiate with other countries only when we are powerful. If a country does not have power and independence, it cannot seek real peace,” he said.

The defense ministry said the Fateh 313, unveiled on Iran’s Defence Industry Day, had already been successfully tested and that mass production would start soon. More threat details here.

Then comes the other demands Iran is making now, a prisoner release.

Tehran official: Diplomats seek release of at least 19 Iranians held in U.S.

WaPo: A senior Iranian diplomat said the country is working through third-country channels to seek the release of at least 19 Iranians jailed in the United States, according to a report Friday, even as U.S. officials press Tehran to free Americans held in custody.

The comments by Hassan Qashqavi, a deputy foreign minister, did not identify the Iranians he claimed are being held in the United States, but he described them as “political prisoners,” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Last month, the head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy and national security committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, issued a letter urging Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to demand the release of “a considerable number” of Iranians he claimed had been “unfairly jailed” by U.S. authorities for alleged sanctions violations.

Deeper dive on doing business in Iran is noted here. Remember Barack Obama waived sanctions and you will be fascinated with some of these facts.

Despite Sanctions, a Constellation of Business Seen in Iran

Decades of increasing sanctions against Iran have taken a toll on the Iranian economy and kept most companies out. But a broad range of organizations, from medical companies such as GE Healthcare to aerospace firms such as Lufthansa Technik, as well as educational institutions such as Harvard University, have obtained permission to operate in the country, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of sanctions licenses issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury in the first three months of 2014.

Below are a selection of 296 licenses, either granted or amended, for organizations to conduct business with Iran, demonstrating a sweep of legal commercial and non-profit activities that continue despite sanctions. A must read to the end, click here.

US Patent Office, Fraudulent Employees Play Golf

Posted on August 24, 2015August 24, 2015 by Denise Simon

Is there any government agency that is without scandal? The fleecing of the taxpayer is without limits.

The 29 page investigation report is here.

Since we tend to forget, how about a reminder that Barack Obama said he would go through the budget line by line.

Well in 2011: GOP: Obama never scoured budget ‘line by line’

The Hill: House Republicans are arguing President Obama broke a promise to scour the federal budget “line by line” to look for savings.

Obama made the promise during the 2008 campaign, but House Energy and Commerce Investigations subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and committee Republicans insisted Wednesday there is no evidence that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conducted such an exhaustive review.

Stearns also said that the $17 billion in program savings Obama’s budget office found was half of that found in the Bush administration.

Republicans said that Obama’s review does not differ from the ordinary presidential budget process and that the president has exaggerated any savings found by including tax increases and savings from drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congressional Research Service expert Clinton Brass said he would be “surprised” if the president would be able to take the time to read his entire budget. He testified that the administration has produced a list of programs to be terminated or reduced, but that such a list was also produced in prior administrations.

Democrats at a Wednesday hearing said Obama was speaking figuratively when he said he would conduct a line by line review.

“If this is a ‘gotcha’ hearing on whether the administration has actually done a line-by-line review, I reject its premise,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said. “There is no question if it has examined the budget closely … I am afraid my colleagues have misunderstood a figure of speech.”

Republicans were irate that OMB would not send Budget Director Jack Lew to explain whether a line-by-line review was conducted. Committee ranking member Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) also said she regretted that OMB would not send anyone to testify.

Committee staff said that OMB told them Lew does not testify to subcommittees, and since there is no confirmed deputy director, there is no one available to testify.

At the hearing, Waxman said Congress should look in the mirror at its own budget failings. He pointed out that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised to do away with omnibus spending bills and is now contemplating one. He also said Congress has delegated important responsibilities to the deficit supercommittee.

*** None of these things are working out well at all, certainly since 2011. So how about that Patent Office?

Government Employee Paid to Golf, Play Pool

Half of worker’s hours at the U.S. Patent Office were fraudulent

FreeBeacon:

Taxpayers paid a government worker at the U.S. Patent Office to play golf and pool, according to an investigation by the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) that found nearly half of the employee’s billed hours were fraudulent.

The employee, who worked as a patent examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), earned over $70,000 a year despite “egregious time and attendance abuse,” which was not checked by managers at the office. The employee, referred to in the report as “Examiner A,” resigned after learning of the OIG’s investigation.

“According to the evidence, Examiner A received payment for over 18 full weeks of work, in aggregate, that he did not actually work,” the audit said. “Ultimately, USPTO management’s system of internal controls did not detect Examiner A’s time and attendance abuse; to the contrary, these issues did not come to light until a whistleblower submitted anonymous notes to the examiner’s supervisor and another manager.”

The anonymous letter in August 2014 that sparked the investigation said the employee “never shows up to work,” “seems to get away with anything,” and that he would only come into the office at the end of every quarter to submit “garbage” work.

“The note questioned how the supervisors could ‘allow this type of behavior’ to occur and why Examiner A had not ‘been fired by now for performance,’” the OIG said.

In all, the employee “committed at least 730 hours of time and attendance abuse, resulting in the payment of approximately $25,500 for hours not worked in FY 2014 alone.” The majority of the hours he did not enter the office building, or use his government-issued laptop.

The abused hours accounted for 43 percent of the employee’s total hours for the year. The hours amounted to 91 eight-hour workdays, or roughly 3 months. The OIG recorded 58 full workdays where there was no evidence that he entered the building.

However, the OIG said the employee likely got away with being paid for more hours he was not working because the employee was “given the benefit of the doubt.”

The employee was paid for full days of work, even though he often left to “hit golf balls at Golf Bar, play pool, or socialize at restaurants.”

The OIG examined instant messages between the employee and his coworkers about hitting the driving range.

One message occurred just before 1 p.m., after the employee spent less than 3 hours at the USPTO office.

“Ok, did u wanna [hit golf balls at Golf Bar] today at all?” he said. His coworker replied, “actually yeah, let’s just go there now?”

“I’ll walk over lemme just hit the restroom,” the employee said.

The other employee also said he was probably leaving soon anyway, saying, “godda go watch walking dead, etc.”

On another occasion the employee tried to convince a colleague to leave to play pool because he was “bored,” but they declined because they were “writing up a case.”

“Call me later if you wanna chill,” he said.

The USPTO did not review the employee’s time and attendance records despite “numerous red flags” the OIG said. The employee also was not fired despite receiving an “unacceptable” performance rating in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and “numerous complaints” about his work.

The employee’s supervisor said he “never suspected” that he was violating work policies, and cited that numerous employees at the USPTO have flexible work schedules that allow telecommuting.

The OIG has found attendance abuse in the agency before. Paralegals working for the agency were “paid to do nothing,” passing their time watching Netflix, doing laundry, and shopping online, costing taxpayers at least $5 million.

The audit warned that telework abuse could be widespread, given that nearly 10,000 patent office employees work from home at least once a week, and 5,000 work from home full time, or four to five days each week.

“While this report presents a case study of only one individual’s time and attendance abuse at USPTO, it illustrates the difficulties in preventing and detecting such activity in USPTO’s geographically dispersed workforce,” the OIG said.

“Although the USPTO has touted the benefits of its telework program, such as a reduction in rent, increases in employee satisfaction and retention, and a workforce much less affected by severe weather and traffic, this and other OIG efforts show that these programs also carry risks for abuse,” they said.

The OIG said the agency should try to recover the $25,500 in fraudulent pay through the legal system.

Can the UK or the Foreign Minister be Anymore Stupid?

Posted on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

Philip Hammond ‏@PHammondMP 7h7 hours ago

Leading #UK business delegation with @damian57 to discuss future opportunities in #Iran for British business. pic.twitter.com/Gsqbvq6b0M

Courtesy of the Telegraph.

The graffiti above a portrait of the Queen provided a scrawled reminder of just how venomous Anglo-Iranian relations once were.

”Death to England” read the message in orange marker pen, daubed inside the elegant ambassador’s residence of the British embassy in Tehran. The motif was still visible on Sunday when Philip Hammond officially reopened the mission, four years after a mob vandalised its spacious premises.

On November 29 2011, this building along with every other in the embassy’s five-acre compound was ransacked by about 200 people, including members of the regime’s Basij militia.

The Foreign Secretary says Iran and Britain will not always agree but there should be no limit to what the countries can achieve together ….. He said WHAT?

Iran’s ayatollahs will never be friends of the UK

We are heading for disaster if we abandon our historic Middle East allies in favour of friendship with Tehran

In part from the Guardian: Here we go again: another British foreign secretary in Iran with the hopeful expectation of forging closer ties with the ayatollahs. Ever since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, the holy grail of British foreign policy has been to reach out to the moderates in Tehran, thereby isolating the hardliners.

Back in the Eighties when, thanks to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British hostages such as Terry Waite and John McCarthy spent five or so years chained to radiators in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Sir Geoffrey Howe, our then foreign secretary, frequently told me that the hostage crisis could be resolved if only we could establish a working relationship with the moderates in Tehran. But for all our entreaties, the hardliners won the day, and the hostages were eventually released when the ayatollahs deemed them to be surplus to their agenda.

More recently, in 2003, New Labour’s Jack Straw believed he had identified a similar moderate tendency in Iran’s political establishment, during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami. This, of course, was in the aftermath of the Iraq War, when the ayatollahs feared – not unduly – that they might be next on President George W Bush’s hit list.

Lord Lamont, the former Tory Chancellor, is one of the more vocal members among an influential group of establishment figures in London who advocate embracing the ayatollahs, a view that is also being enthusiastically taken up by those in the business community who hope to benefit from the estimated £100 billion Iran will soon receive when its overseas assets are released.

But in this unseemly scramble, the Government now appears content to turn a blind eye to some of Iran’s more egregious activities. For example, after an Iranian mob stormed and then trashed the embassy compound in 2011, the Government insisted there would be no restoration of relations until the Iranians paid full compensation for the damage caused. But as this newspaper reports today, Britain has paid the full cost of the repairs.

Similarly, Whitehall would like to draw a discreet veil over similarly vexing issues, such as whether the Home Office will be able to act against Iranian nationals who overstay their welcome in the UK. Without the proper safeguards, we could end up with Hizbollah and Revolutionary Guard terrorists setting up operations in the UK, just like al-Qaeda and Isil have sought to do.

The Rest of the Story of the Train Attack Foiled by Americans

Posted on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

When will Europe get serious? It is not for lack of attacks, evidence, intelligence or testimony. The leadership in Europe is just plain stupid and that is not only dangerous, but bloody and deadly.

It is in Belgium but for sure all over Europe.

Unarmed, 3 Americans stopped what could have been a very deadly train ride.

Their interview is here.
To see the real video of the attack:

The gunman is 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayob El Khazzani, boarded the Amsterdam-Paris express in Brussels on Friday with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Luger automatic pistol, nine cartridge clips and a box-cutter, investigators say. Spanish police actually alerted the French intelligence wing and French police in March of 2014 and al Khazzani was in the French database. Truth be told, this jihadi was in at least 26 European databases and with good reason. He and his family lived in Spain and he was arrested several times for drug trafficking and still had outstanding warrants.

In 2014, he moved from Spain to France and traveled to Syria and Belgium intelligence services upgraded the information in their own database. France has at least 5000 jihad inspired and or trained names in their database but it is unknown what Belgium has. However, none of this should come to any surprise in Europe and there is a reason for that, so read on.

‘Sharia4Belgium’ Leader and Dozens of Other Militants Are Sentenced to Jail Time

ViceNews: A Belgian court ruled on Wednesday that Sharia4Belgium, an Islamist group accused of running a jihadist recruitment cell in the country, was “a terrorist organization” and found 45 members guilty of terror charges.

The correctional tribunal in the port city of Antwerp sentenced Fouad Belkacem, the group’s 32-year-old leader who goes by the alias “Abu Imran,” to 12 years in prison. The other 44 members on trial were sentenced to between three and 15 years in jail, with some of the sentences being suspended.

This is the biggest-ever trial of its kind in Belgium. Only seven defendants were present in court, with the remainder believed to be either dead or still fighting in Syria. The photograph above shows Michael ‘Younes’ Delefortrie outside the main entrance of the courthouse.

Sharia4Belgium — a group once credited with being a major source of Belgian jihadists to Syria — disbanded in 2012 when Belkacem was arrested and sentenced to two years for inciting hatred and violence towards non-Muslims. But, according to the court, the organization continued to operate as a recruitment cell into 2013.

Belkacem, who has been described by public prosecutor Ann Fransen as “the group’s undisputed ringleader,” is no stranger to the courts and he has been arrested several times in the past for theft.

“Belkacem is responsible for the radicalization of young men to prepare them for Salafist combat, which has at its core no place for democratic values,” Judge Luc Potargent said on Wednesday.

The trial took place amid a wider debate on escalating radicalization in Europe. It opened in September 2014, four months after a French national with links to militant groups opened fire in the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. Wednesday’s verdict also comes in the wake of the Paris terror attacks that left 17 dead in early January.

There have been several high-profile police raids against suspected jihadist networks since then, including a shootout in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers, when counter-terrorist units reportedly foiled a jihadist plot to stage a major terror attack.

It has been estimated that 450 Belgian nationals could be fighting in Iraq or Syria. On those figures, Belgium has one of Europe’s highest per capita ratio of jihadists fighters overseas.

“Sharia4Belgium recruited young men for armed combat and organized their departure for Syria,” the judge at the correctional tribunal said.

According to reports, Sharia4Belgium was responsible for 10 percent of these departures. Romain Caillet, a researcher and specialist in Islamic movements based in Beirut, told VICE News that most of the group’s recruits are believed to be fighting alongside the al Nusra Front — al Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

Sharia4Belgium was a Salafist group that followed in the footsteps of Islam4UK, a UK-based organization formed in 2008 by radical preachers Omar Bakri and Anjem Choudary. Offshoots of the group were subsequently opened in Holland, Denmark, and even in the US. The Belgian version surfaced around the 2010 parliamentary elections and established itself in the northern city of Antwerp.

Belgian sociologist and religions expert Felice Dassetto told VICE News that the group was born of a shared vision with its UK counterpart: “Sharia4Belgium is a classic radical movement which promotes a pro-sharia ideology. According to the movement, a true Muslim must display the religion in the public space, [it is] a political vision of religion.”

As its name implies, the group’s ambition was to impose sharia law throughout Belgium. In the past, the group has declared Belgian elections illegal and threatened to destroy the Atomium tourist attraction in Brussels. The group also criticized France’s full-veil ban, saying it would support any woman who chose to wear a full-body veil in public.

In June 2011, a few months after protesters in Paris staged a demonstration against the French ban on face covering, VICE interviewed Belkacem. At the time, he described himself as “a spokesman” for both Sharia4Belgium and Sharia4Holland. “We’re tired of people constantly attacking our Ummah,” he said, referring to the worldwide Islamic community. “It’s not fair. No one is listening to us.”

At the time, Belkacem denied being at the head of a terror cell. “We want to fulfill Allah’s wish — that’s our mission,” he explained. “The true religion must dominate the world. Of course, I mean Islam. We want out message to be clear. Islam does not compromise. We don’t beat about the bush. We openly affirm the supremacy of Islam in the world.”

“We don’t believe in the separation of church and State. Look at what this democracy has brought us: nothing but economic crisis. Our country has had no government in a year. How can we still be boasting the values of democracy?”

There are several theories about why Belgium produces so many militants. For Montasser AlDe’emeh, a researcher who has been studying the Belgian jihadist movement, tensions between the Flemish and the Walloon communities in the country and the ensuing lack of national unity are a factor of radicalization.

“We live in a divided country,” AlDe’emeh told Germany’s Der Spiegel. “The obvious structure of an Islamic theocracy seems more and more alluring.”