Tag: Refugees

Biden Admin Spent $20 Billion for Refugee Resettlement in Just Two Years

Michigan Star Staff
Refugees

The Biden administration has poured billions of taxpayer dollars into the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) since October 2022, according to a new report from Open the Books.

The Biden administration spent $8.925 billion in fiscal year 2022 and $10.928 billion in fiscal year 2023 on the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at ORR to accommodate, transport, and provide migrants with various other services like medical care and loans, according to the report, which was released Tuesday. In recent months, HHS has faced scrutiny for ORR’s alleged mishandling of cases of unaccompanied migrant children, some of whom have been released to poorly vetted sponsors where they are used for child labor, according to The New York Times.

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Public Health Alerts Issued About Communicable Disease Spread Tied to Migrant Crisis

The Center Square
Entry Line

Federal, state and city health departments have issued public health alerts about increases of communicable diseases as illegal border crossers arrive in their communities.

Earlier this year, the New York City Health Commissioner instructed New York health-care providers to undergo several precautions and tests in light of “an alarming trend” of diseases spreading among illegal foreign nationals in New York City who arrived from the southern border. Dr. Ashwin Vasan expressed alarm about those arriving who hadn’t been vaccinated for polio or chickenpox and were coming from countries with high rates of infectious tuberculosis.

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Biden Admin Granted 34,000 Special Visas to Refugees After Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

Michigan Star Staff
Afghanistan Refugees

The State Department has granted tens of thousands of visas to Afghans who aided the U.S. government following the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, according to a Thursday report from the lead inspector general to the United States Congress.

The Biden administration withdrew all American forces from Afghanistan in 2021, leading to a widespread takeover of the region by the Taliban and the displacement of millions of Afghans, according to the Wilson Center. As part of the U.S. effort to bring in refugees escaping Afghanistan, the State Department has issued approximately 34,000 special immigrant visas (SIV) to Afghans and their immediate family members, according to the Inspector General report released Thursday. 

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: The Jumbled Mindset of American Antisemites

Michigan Star Staff

Peruse campus literature. Watch clips from university protests. Scan interviews with pro-Hamas protestors. Read the chalk propaganda sketched on campus sidewalks. Talk to raging students in the free speech area. And the one common denominator— besides their arrogance—is their abject ignorance.

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Nigel Farage on Episode 35 of ‘Tucker on X:’ America is ‘Not Immune’ to ‘Massive Problem’ that Comes with Accepting Anti-Western Refugees

Kaitlin Housler

In episode 35 of his newest production, “Tucker on X,” host Tucker Carlson interviewed the head of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, on the effects “anti-Western” refugees bring to Western countries amid the current conflict in the Middle East.

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Biden DOJ Sues SpaceX for Preferring American Citizens over Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Its Hiring Practices

Michigan Star Staff

On Thursday, the Biden Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against SpaceX, accusing the company of discrimination for preferring American citizens over asylum seekers and refugees in its hiring practices.

In its 13-page complaint, the Justice Dept. alleges that SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).”  The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division seeks to force SpaceX to give “fair compensation” to non-citizens that were not hired.

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Former Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton Team Up with American Express and ‘Welcome.US’ to Fly Migrants into the U.S.

Just the News

American Express Global Business Travel and Welcome.US have reportedly teamed up with former Presidents Obama, Clinton, and George W. Bush’s nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Miles4Migrants to fly migrants to communities across the U.S.

Welcome.US is an NGO that was initially launched to work with President Joe Biden’s administration to facilitate some of the 85,000 Afghans who came into the U.S. in 2021 and 2022 after the debacle created when the U.S. evacuated from Afghanistan, according to Breitbart.

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Commentary: As Refugees Flood into U.S., Chinese Christians Told to Wait

RealClearWire

On Christmas Eve, members of Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church, who fled China several years ago, had their celebrations abruptly cut short.

The congregation had initially sought refuge in South Korea, but was denied a haven there after three years of immigration court proceedings. The next port of call was Thailand, which they hoped would be a peaceful, if temporary, home before being granted sanctuary in the United States. But on December 24, the landlord for the apartments where the 64 church members – roughly half adults and half children – were staying suddenly informed them that Thai police had demanded copies of all their passports, IDs, and visas.

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Over 2 Million Refugees Have Fled from Ukraine amid Invasion, United Nations Says

Michigan Star Staff

More than two million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency released Monday.

The agency said as many as four million people might leave Ukraine as a result of the crisis, with more than one million fleeing in the first week of the attack.

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Donated Frequent Flyer Miles Provide 40,000 Flights for Afghan Refugees

Michigan Star Staff

Frequent flyer miles donated over a two-month period will provide around 40,000 flights for Afghan refugees, the Associated Press reported.

The Biden administration is considering doubling the number of miles available to refugees, and around 3,200 flights already covered by the donated miles have allowed Afghan refugees to resettle in communities around the U.S. from temporary housing at military bases, according to the AP. Miles4Migrants organized the donations, and the group has provided aid to refugees using donated airline miles and credit card points since 2016.

“Government resources are limited, and we knew that the American people wanted to support Afghans who were arriving and help them find safe homes,” Miles4Migrants Co-Founder Andy Freedman said, the AP reported. “That’s when we turned to the airlines.”

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State Department Partners with Refugee Coalition Groups Supporting Organizations with Alleged Terror Ties

Michigan Star Staff
Stephen Heintz and George Soros

The U.S. State Department joined an initiative to welcome Afghan refugees into the country that is sponsored by organizations supporting groups with possible ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.

Welcome.US is part of the Office of American Possibilities initiative, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, according to its website. The initiative’s main co-chairs include former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The initiative also formed a coalition composed of nonprofit leaders and organizations, former government officials, corporate leaders and public figures. Businesses, including Starbucks, Uber, Facebook, Microsoft, Walmart and Airbnb, also support the effort.

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Commentary: The Farce of American Despotism

Michigan Star Staff

Reflecting on Joe Biden’s disastrous “town hall” with Anderson Cooper on Thursday, The Spectator’s Dominic Green asks a question that has to weigh heavily on the mind of every American adult: “Is it more worrisome that Joe Biden might not be in charge, or that he actually is in charge?” I have long argued that allowing Biden to appear in public is a form of elder abuse, and I have speculated that he really is not in control of his actions but is manipulated, puppet-like, by a shadowy cadre of unnamed string-pullers I have called “The Committee.”

I do not have any proof that such is the case. I infer the existence and machinations of The Committee from Biden’s ostentatious incompetence and apparent senility. Has any president in the history of the Republic overseen such a destructive litany of failures so early in his tenure? Observers around the world caught their breath in August as our botched exit from Afghanistan went from appalling to something much worse and more deadly. What will be its defining image? The desperate Afghans clinging to and then falling from the landing gear of a transport plane as it took off from the Kabul airport? Or will it be the images of the slaughter perpetrated by a suicide (that is, a homicide) bomber outside the airport, an incident that killed some 170 people include more than a dozen U.S. military personnel?

Or maybe it will be the image of the drone strike launched in retaliation for that slaughter, a strike that was supposed to have targeted an ISIS-K operative but in fact killed zero terrorists and instead blew to bits 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. The United States initially said they had obliterated an ISIS-K operative along with the collateral damage, but eventually they had to admit that, nope, they got no bad guys, just 10 innocent Afghans. 

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State Dept. Won’t ‘Provide an Approval’ for Private Evacuation Flights from Afghanistan

Admin

The U.S. State Department will not give official approval to any private evacuation flight from Afghanistan seeking to land in third countries, leaked emails obtained by Fox News show.

“No independent charters are allowed to land at [Al Udeid Air Base], the military airbase you mentioned in your communication with Samantha Power,” a State Department official said in a Sept. 1 email to Eric Montalvo, who organized a number of charter flights out of Afghanistan, Fox News reported.

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Afghan Refugees Undergo ‘Biometric and Biographic Vetting’ Before Coming to America

Michigan Star Staff
Joe Biden

Afghan refugees are subject to security and health screening performed by Department of Homeland Security officials before they’re evacuated to the U.S. or a third country for additional processing, a Biden administration senior official said.

Afghans must clear biometric and biographic vetting including iris scans, palm and voice prints and photographs before they’re evacuated from the country, CNN reported. The refugees are also tested for COVID-19 and offered vaccinations before they’re released, the senior official said in a background press call on Aug. 24.

“That [security screening] process involves biometric and biographic security screenings conducted by our intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals who are working quite literally around the clock to vet all of these Afghans before they’re allowed into the United States,” the Biden administration senior official said on the call.

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Whitmer: ‘Duty and Honor’ to Welcome Afghan Refugees

Peter D'Abrosca
Hashoo Foundation (HF) is implementing a project for the Afghan Refugees residing in I-12 Islamabad who were deprived from the basic needs of life. Hashoo Foundation with the support of United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and Gesellshaft Technische Zusamenarbeit (GTZ) has been able to establish two basic health units for males and females, initiate primary education system for the children and equip young people with some marketable skills such as tailoring, embroidery, motor winding and electrician.

Amid the Biden Administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan which led to a swift takeover by the Taliban, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says it is Michigan’s “duty and honor” to welcome Afghan refugees with open arms. 

In a lengthy statement, Whitmer announced that the state will be resettling refugees in the near future. 

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Fort Bliss in Texas Becomes Ground Zero for Resettling Afghan Refugees During Chaotic Exit

Michigan Star Staff

Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, is best known as home to the Army’s tank division, the revered Old Ironsides military insignia and the country’s largest military-controlled airspace. But the Biden administration’s botched exit from Afghanistan is turning the vast installation into ground zero for the evacuation of Afghans who spent two decades helping the United States fight the war against terror.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn says the fort is preparing to receive 10,000 Afghan refugees, and military officials have hinted that number could reach much higher.

It’s the second major wave of civilian guests to be hosted at the fort, which began this spring helping the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services Departments to house thousands of unaccompanied minor children who were brought across the border.

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Petition Urges North Dakota County to Ban Sanctuary Cities, Illegal Immigrants, and Refugees

Michigan Star Staff

A petition urging officials in a North Dakota county to ban sanctuary cities, illegal immigrants, and refugees gained around 5,000 signatures as of Tuesday, the Minot Daily News reported.

The Ward County Commission said they would uphold laws prohibiting illegal immigration and those supporting Second Amendment rights, though they asked petitioners to provide more specific language to be considered, according to the Minot Daily News. The petition asked the commission to ban illegal immigration and refugees from the county and to establish the region as a “gun sanctuary.”

Residents in Ward County started the petition “to ban sanctuary cities, illegal immigrants, aliens, refugees in Ward County, North Dakota, and add Ward County, North Dakota, as a Second Amendment gun sanctuary county,” the Minot Daily News reported.

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Under Pressure from Activists, Biden Admin Agrees to Bring in Thousands of Refugees a Month

Michigan Star Staff

The Biden administration will admit more than 7,000 migrant refugees into the U.S. monthly as part of negotiations in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union over a Trump-era rule prohibiting migrants from obtaining asylum during the pandemic, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump implemented public health order Title 42 which allowed border officials to rapidly expel migrants from the U.S. and prevented them from applying for asylum due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AP reported. The Biden administration’s concessions would change how border officials rely on Title 42 and potentially allow more migrants to seek asylum in the U.S.

The Biden administration and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) agreed to “a streamlined process for assessing and addressing exemption requests brought by particular vulnerable families and other individuals,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said, according to the AP.

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Biden Expected to Increase Amount of Refugees Admitted into U.S.

Michigan Star Staff

The Biden administration plans to announce on Thursday that it will increase the cap on the number of refugees to more than eight times the level at which the Trump administration left it.

President Joe Biden is expected to announce the move during a visit to the State Department. The Trump administration had drastically reduced the refugee admissions cap to only 15,000 for this fiscal year, the lowest since 1980, CNN reports. 

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27,000 Children Stranded in Refugee Camps ‘at Risk of Radicalization’ by ISIS, UN Official Says

Michigan Star Staff

Around 27,000 children, many with parents who are affiliated with ISIS, remain in a refugee camp in northeastern Syria, the United Nations counterterrorism chief said, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

The thousands of children “remain stranded, abandoned to their fate” where they are exposed to ISIS and are “at risk of radicalization within the camp,” said Vladimir Voronkov, the undersecretary general for counter terrorism at the U.N., during an informal meeting on Friday, the AP reported. He added that there are children from 60 countries at the camps who need to be repatriated.

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Trump to Slash Refugee Admissions to Record Low

Michigan Star Staff

The Trump administration said on Wednesday it intends to further slash the number of refugees the U.S accepts to resettle from 18,000 to 15,000 in the 2021 fiscal year, setting another record low in the history of the modern refugee program, ABC News reports.

The notice was sent to Congress late Wednesday, just 34 minutes before a statutory deadline to do so. The state department said the proposal reflected the Trump administration’s prioritizing of the “safety and well-being of Americans, especially in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Commentary: New Report Finds ‘War on Terror’ has Forced 37 Million People to Flee Their Homes

Michigan Star Staff

When President George W. Bush launched the “War on Terror” in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, few could have predicted the campaign would entail US involvement in combat in 24 countries over the next two decades. But it did, and the resulting conflicts have come at enormous costs we are only now beginning to fully realize.

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Biden’s Plan to Increase Refugees Will ‘Overwhelm’ Cities, Trump Says

Michigan Star Staff

President Donald Trump criticized presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s plans to allow 125,000 refugees admittance to the U.S. on an annual basis during a speech in Minnesota on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

“He [Biden] would overwhelm Minnesota with refugees, from terror hotspots, depleting public services, burdening schools, and straining city budgets,” Trump said during a speech on a tarmac in Minnesota, the AP reported.

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Report: Taxpayers Billed up to $133,000 per Refugee Resettled in U.S.

Michigan Star Staff
Tennessee Star

Breitbart reports, “American taxpayers are billed up to $133,000 per refugee resettled in the United States over the course of a lifetime, a new study reveals.”

In a recent report on the costs to U.S. citizens for its welcoming immigration and refugee policies, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that each refugee resettled in the U.S. especially those in the United States illegally, and use social welfare programs cost American taxpayers anywhere on average between $60,000 and $133,000 over the course of a lifetime.

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FACT CHECK: Ohio GOP Chairwoman Timken Spreads Falsehoods on Refugees in Letter to Party Members

Jason M. Reynolds

  Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken wrote an error-riddled apologetics letter sent by email on Thursday to party members defending Gov. Mike DeWine’s refugee resettlement policy. It is highly unusual for the chairman of a state’s Republican Party to defend the politically unpopular decision of the state’s governor. In…

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The Battleground State Report: Leahy Describes Two Factors Influencing the Rise of Grassroots Conservative Populism in the USA

JCarr

During the show, Leahy went into detail about the two factors that are directly influencing the rise of a conservative populism movement. He noted that recent threats to second amendment rights in Virginia and the refugee resettlement issue in Tennessee are fueling the anti-big government push back.

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Hometowns of 2020 Democrat Candidates Have Resettled Only 0.22 Percent of All Refugees

Admin

According to a new study, the hometowns of the four leading candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020 have collectively taken in less than half-a-percent of all refugees resettled over the last decade, as Breitbart reports.

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Ohio Refugee Resettlement Up 22 Percent Under Gov. Mike DeWine, Including Hundreds From Countries With ‘High Burdens’ of TB

Jason M. Reynolds

Refugee resettlement in Ohio is up 22 percent under Gov. Mike DeWine, including hundreds from countries with “high burdens” of tuberculosis.

DeWine is one of more than 30 governors who have agreed to accept more refugees under a plan put forth by President Donald Trump in which a governor has to opt in for resettlement, the Associated Press reported.

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FLASHBACK: Mark Dayton Tells Minnesotans to ‘Find Another State’ If They Aren’t Happy

Anthony Gockowski

  Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, once told a crowd of frustrated residents to “find another state” if they weren’t happy with Minnesota. The comments were made during an October 2015 forum in St. Cloud hosted by the local chapter of the NAACP. Dayton was responding to concerns…

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