Those money-grabbing refugees!

The following information is from the New American, dated Jan. 20. The “Big Nine” are private agencies that have benefited enormously from their privileged positions as the go-to placement partners for refugee resettlement. The nine resettlement mega-profiteers, which rake in millions for their placement “services,” are Church World Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Recuse Committee, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, United States Conferences of Catholic Bishops and World Relief Corporation.

According to the New York Times, Jenny Yang, vice president for advocacy at World Relief, is in charge of steering the effort to mobilize letters of consent from governors and local officials. Yang told the Times in early December that the push had resulted in 16 governors, including six Republicans, who had sent letters of consent to the State Department. She didn’t identify all of the 16 and the letters have not all been made public at the time of this writing. However, the Times article did report that “Gov. Doug Ducey, Republican of Arizona, agreed after receiving a letter supporting resettlement signed by 250 evangelical leaders.” That has been part of the trick — give the politicians cover by presenting the resettlement proposal as having broad-based support from evangelical Christians, Catholics and Jews.

Jess Valdez