tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9889010890486974552024-02-22T14:27:30.564-05:00Refugee Racket ExposedRefugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-40526230873465983402015-07-14T11:57:00.001-04:002015-07-14T11:57:27.939-04:00Anne Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch Explains the Refugee Racket and Syrian Refugee Push by the State Dept.The State Dept. is engaged in a big propaganda push to import 65,000 Syrian 'refugees' by the end of 2016! It's crazy, it's insane, but the push is on. The State Dept. has actually financed a propanganda division called "Welcoming America" to whitewash the refugee program and censor its critics.<br />
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Anne Corcoran at Refugee Resettlement Watch has an excellent 4 minute video explaining what the State Dept PRM wants to do, and why it is important that we stop them. Check it out!<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=6PzT8vEvYPg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=6PzT8vEvYPg</a><br />
<br />Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-78448137812217905132015-06-22T20:34:00.001-04:002015-06-22T20:34:42.833-04:00Want to ask the State Dept. PRM Bureau about the Refugee Racket?It's interesting that Anne Richard, UnderSecretary at the State Dept. doesn't want to talk about the dirty secrets of the Refugee Racket. Maybe you can have better luck.<br />
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Here's the email and phone # for Anne Richard's PR guy. Give him a caill or send an email and ask questions. After all, you pay for the refugee racket.<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Public Affairs Advisor Dan Langenkamp, State Department Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration, at langenkampdb@state.gov,
PRMpress@state.gov or (202) 453-9339.</span><br />
<br />Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-24900036729828072862015-01-10T21:55:00.001-05:002015-01-10T22:05:30.768-05:00Energized for 2015, Is the State Dept. PRM Ready?Establishing a 2015 plan to expose the refugee and asylum racket. I'm back after taking care of business. This year both the House and Senate Immigration Committees will be in 'conservative' hands. Soon I will have the list of members and their addresses and phone numbers published here. What's more my small group is optimistic to get inside scoops this year about what is going on inside the refugeeracket, a multibillion dollar enterprise. Cui buono? Who benefits? and who loses.<br />
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It has been three days since the jihad razzia against Charlie Hebdo. Do your part, learn the truth about Islam and help me save the Muslims from their chains.Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-67103138593112888772014-07-31T14:35:00.003-04:002014-11-16T15:36:35.600-05:00Something To Hit Clueless Republicans Over The Head With:We have stopped the Boehner immigration bill, at least for now. But readers need to know what we do want. In the future, I will summarize my objectives for changing the US immigration system. The number 1 action the US should take is stopping all muslim immigration now. Doesn't cost a dime and throws a major wrench in the islamization machine. In the meantime, I urge everyone to read Paul Nachman's<br />
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<a href="http://www.vdare.com/posts/something-to-hit-clueless-republicans-over-the-head-with-a-resource-for-vdare-com-readers">Something To Hit Clueless Republicans Over The Head With: A Resource For VDARE.Com Readers.</a></h1>
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Nachman gives a good overview of what we are up against as Obama and the Democrats plot to flood the country with third world invasions PAID FOR BY YOU. The corruption in Washington DC knows no limits. Now we must take a stand and stop the corruption and lies. </div>
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<a href="http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/vdare-writer-summarizes-important-message-for-republicans-from-over-looked-report/">Ann Corcoran at Refugee Resettlement Watch </a>has some additional insight on what we must do to end Pharoah Obama's immigrant invasion.</div>
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Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-24649770310591347372014-07-26T08:54:00.000-04:002014-07-26T08:56:28.617-04:00Visa for Sale - The EB-5 Investment Visa RacketBesides the multibillion dollar refugee racket financed by YOU, there are other immigration rackets you need to know about. The Visa investment racket has exploded since the 2008 financial meltdown. The EB-5 visa racket is now generating over 10,000+ investment visas annually, up from a few hundred ten years ago. The actual number may be as high as 50,000 including visas for the family of the applicant, but no one really knows. Like all the government's immigration rackets, it began with good intentions. Fortune has an excellent article about how the EB-5 racket has morphed into a booming business with intermediaries and agents skimming and scamming and the DHS seemingly lost in how to manage the program. No surprise there. If the government is going to be a whore and sell visas, why not cutout the middlemen, and sell the visas directly for $1 million paid directly to the US govt with no refund, nothing, and require the $1 million be used solely for paying down our deficit. Of course, even that simplified scheme would be distorted and abused. I think the government, if it wants to keep the visa for sale racket, should look at other countries' visa for sale schemes and assess what works best and change the program.<br />
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<a href="http://fortune.com/2014/07/24/immigration-eb-5-visa-for-sale/">The dark, disturbing world of the visa-for-sale program</a><br />
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Whether you’re a skilled technology worker or a poor laborer, it’s getting harder to become a U.S. citizen. But for those with $500,000 to buy their way in, it’s a different matter. That’s just the beginning of the problem.</div>
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On Nov. 15, 2012, about 100 people gathered in a parking lot near O’Hare Airport in Chicago for a ceremonial occasion: the demolition of a fleabag motel to make way for what was intended to be a world-changing construction project. Next door to a Hooters restaurant, just off the Kennedy Expressway, was to rise a commercial and environmental wonder—the “World’s First Zero Carbon Platinum LEED-certified and 100% Allergen Free convention center and hotel complex.” Lest anyone doubt its global eco-import, the project’s developer was branding it as a “Kyoto Protocol Centre.” At a projected cost of $913 million, it was to include three connected towers—14, 17, and 19 stories tall—containing five upscale hotels with 995 suites and rooms, four levels of convention space, a green roof with a spa and yoga studio, a miniature golf course, and a 1,720-car “automatic robotic” parking garage. All this would be financed with the help of a government immigration program known as EB-5, which allows wealthy foreigners to obtain U.S. citizenship by sinking $500,000 apiece into a venture that creates American jobs. Spellbound by the sales pitch—which included “guarantees” that the project would deliver visas and juicy returns—nearly 300 eager Chinese investors had anted up a total of $147 million.</div>
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Now construction was finally about to begin—or so Anshoo Sethi had told everyone. Sethi was the project’s mastermind, a slender, soft-spoken young man with a grandiose vision. Nattily dressed as usual, in a cream-colored suit with a lavender tie and pocket square, Sethi presided over the proceedings in a white tent festooned with balloons. There was champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and cupcakes. Superstitious, he had sought the insights of a “corporate astrologer,” who had instructed him to place a “money plant”—associated in Indian culture with prosperity and fortune—next to the podium.</div>
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The dozen speakers at the ceremony included two Chicago union bosses, who praised the development’s pledge to generate 8,495 jobs; Sethi’s real estate adviser, who gushed about the prospects for the complex’s name-brand hotels; a state senator; and Kevin Wright, a consultant who had helped Sethi raise all that Chinese cash.</div>
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Also speaking was Anshoo’s father, Ravinder, who had emigrated from India to the U.S. in 1977. The project’s offering memorandum, which listed Ravinder and Anshoo as the deal’s principals, described father and son as seasoned, respected veterans of real estate and hotel development.</div>
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The truth was rather different: Ravinder was a pharmacist and small-time businessman with a felony drug conviction in his past; more recently he’d been forced to sell his storefront pharmacy on Chicago’s South Side after inspectors had discovered more than 200 unlabeled bottles of pills on the premises.</div>
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In the offering memo, Anshoo was said to have “over 15 years of experience in real estate development and management, specifically in the lodging area.” In fact, his business experience mostly consisted of managing the family’s motel—the very structure they were preparing to demolish—to disastrous effect. If you believed the offering document, Anshoo would’ve had to enter the industry at age 14, because he was still only 29.</div>
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But no one at the festivities seems to have troubled with such details. After the speeches were over, everyone donned white hardhats to pose for photos with the ceremonial chrome shovels Anshoo had purchased for the occasion. He then climbed into the seat of a backhoe. With an operator directing him, Sethi tore a symbolic first chunk out of the old motel, starting to clear the site for the glorious new complex that was certain to rise soon.</div>
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<a href="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf11_9.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="EBF.08.11.14.EB5.02" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-752523" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf11_9.jpg?w=1024&h=680" height="680" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1024" /></a><span class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Bold', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7rem; margin: 0px 0px -0.6em; padding: 0px;">Demolition begins at the Sethis’ motel in late 2012.</span><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #828282; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Photo by Amy Boyle Photography</span></div>
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You may never have heard of EB-5, the program that delivered $147 million to Sethi’s convention-center dream. It is one of the least explored of the many dark corners in America’s deeply troubled immigration process.</div>
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Immigration dominates the news today, and it’s just the latest crucial issue locked in a bitter Washington stalemate. The consequences have been dire. Whether it’s tens of thousands of impoverished children detained by border officials and clogging government facilities, or scientists and engineers highly coveted by technology companies who aren’t permitted to remain here, the U.S. is preventing countless foreigners from staying in this country.</div>
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Increasingly, the skilled and the poor are out of luck. But the rich are another matter. The program (EB-5 is short-hand for the government’s fifth employment-based visa “preference”) allows well-heeled foreigners to leap to the front of the line by simply plunking down $500,000.</div>
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From the law’s inception in 1990, selling potential citizenship to the rich struck many as a corruption of American ideals. “Have we no self-respect as a nation?” asked Texas congressman John Bryant on the House floor that year. “Are we so broke we have to sell our birthright?”</div>
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But that powerful objection was overcome with an even more potent counterforce: The program would generate jobs where they’re needed most. Immigrants seeking EB-5 visas must invest their half-a-million dollars in a new business that creates 10 full-time U.S. jobs in a high-unemployment or rural district. (Technically, one can obtain an EB-5 visa for $1 million with no requirement that the jobs benefit a struggling area; in reality, few apply under that provision.)</div>
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Today EB-5 commands bipartisan support—and it’s booming. Believers tout the program as a “win-win-win” that helps immigrants and U.S. workers, and provides valuable investment in American communities. A trio of billionaires—Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Sheldon Adelson—recently endorsed the program in an op-ed column in the <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times.</span></div>
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But because the EB-5 industry is virtually unregulated, it has become a magnet for amateurs, pipe-dreamers, and charlatans, who see it as an easy way to score funding for ventures that banks would never touch. They’ve been encouraged and enabled by an array of dodgy middlemen, eager to cash in on the gold rush. Meanwhile, perhaps because wealthy foreigners are the main potential victims, U.S. authorities have seemed inattentive to abuses.</div>
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Certainly, there are thriving, completed successes (see<a href="http://fortune.com/2014/07/24/five-by-eb-5/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">“Five by EB-5”</a>). An industry-funded study, using models and assorted economic-impact multipliers, claims that spending “associated with” EB-5 investors in 2012 contributed $3.4 billion to the U.S. economy and “supported” 42,000 jobs.</div>
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Others who have examined the program view it very differently. They question whether it generates many jobs—especially in needy areas. A December 2013 study by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that the government “cannot demonstrate that the program is improving the U.S. economy and creating jobs for U.S. citizens.” A February 2014 paper by the Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation concluded that “knowledge of the program’s true economic impact is elusive at best.”</div>
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There are two reasons for that. First, the government is exceedingly generous in its employment tally. It gives EB-5 investors credit for all the jobs theoretically spawned by a project even when EB-5 money represents only a sliver of its financing. Second, for many mainstream ventures, EB-5 money isn’t really creating jobs—it’s merely saving developers money for projects that would be financed anyway. (Indeed, those big companies are actually “hijacking” money from worthy smaller investments in hard-hit areas, argues Michael Gibson, a financial adviser who vets EB-5 investments.)</div>
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Anshoo Sethi’s legal troubles may not be over. Criminal investigators have been circling, a fact acknowledged last year in Sethi’s legal pleadings. He and his father, Ravinder, declined to be interviewed. (Anshoo’s lawyers at the Chicago offices of Perkins Coie would not comment on whether the criminal investigation continues. They did provide a statement; see “Sethi Weighs In.”)</div>
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But the saga of Sethi and his audacious convention center—dismissed by EB-5 advocates as an aberration—reveal the troubling underbelly of the program, a murky realm of dreams and promises where greed is given free rein. Even when operated within the letter of the law, EB-5 is riven with conflicts of interest and subject to the corrupting effects that occur when large sums of money are available with few restrictions. And in the real world it’s much worse.</div>
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<a href="https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="EBF" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-752575" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf.jpg?w=1024&h=507" height="507" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1024" /></a><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #828282; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Graphic Sources: the Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation; Office of Immigration Statistics, Department of Homeland Security</span></div>
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For the first 18 years of its existence, the EB-5 program was a dud. It fell dramatically short of projections that it would foster 40,000 jobs a year and never approached the program’s annual ceiling of 10,000 visas. In 2003 the government issued EB-5 visas to 65 immigrants.</div>
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Raising money through EB-5 was complicated, and plenty of traditional financing was available. For their part, immigrants found the program too dicey. In Canada’s competing offering, applicants simply lent money to the government and were guaranteed its return. But in the U.S. the $500,000 investment has to be “at risk.” Immigrants first apply for a provisional green card; then, to get their permanent visas, they have to submit evidence within two years that their money has provided 10 jobs. If the project fails to do that, immigrants and their families can be deported.</div>
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In 2008 the financial crisis hit, and everything changed. With banks refusing to lend, EB-5 took off—first because it offered the only capital, then because it was cheap capital. Today the program brings about $1.8 billion into the U.S. annually. The government is on pace to grant more EB-5 visas in 2014—closing in on 10,000—than it did in its first 17 years combined.</div>
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At the heart of the program is an unusual trade: Because the immigrants care far more about getting a green card than anything else (their families get visas too), they’re willing to accept a token financial return. In fact, when “administrative” fees of about $50,000 are added, they’re typically paying for the privilege of sinking $500,000 into a U.S. venture for five to seven years—with no guarantee that they’ll ever get it back. And in part because of distance and language barriers, the targets of EB-5 pitches seem ill-equipped (or disinclined) to assess the business risks.</div>
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Though the government issues the visas, private developers reap the benefits. After middlemen get their piece, the cost of EB-5 capital runs between 4% and 6% a year—less than half of what developers would typically have to pay for mezzanine debt or to equity investors. Raising $100 million through EB-5 can add $20 million to a project’s bottom line.</div>
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The growing demand for EB-5 financing is being met largely by new Chinese millionaires, eager for greater freedom and less pollution, or to send their kids to college in the U.S. More than 80% of the program’s applicants now come from China, making it the mother lode for EB-5 prospecting.</div>
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<a href="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf11_13-merged.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-752567" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf11_13-merged.jpg?w=1024&h=1040" height="1040" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1024" /></a><span class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Bold', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7rem; margin: 0px 0px -0.6em; padding: 0px;">Out with the old: Sethi, in cream-colored suit, top. at the 2012 ceremony that began the demolition of the family motel to make way for his planned convention center, which was displayed in a model. Champagne was served.</span><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #828282; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Photo by Amy Boyle Photography</span></div>
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That’s evident at Brian Su’s annual “Invest in America Summit,” held in March in Shanghai and one of the big events on the EB-5 conference calendar. This year’s edition drew more than 60 U.S. exhibitors seeking Chinese cash. A “platinum” sponsorship package at the conference went for $46,000.</div>
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Su, 48, defected to the U.S. from China in 1989. After two decades as a state bureaucrat in Springfield, Ill., he now makes a globetrotting living as guide and guru for new U.S. entrants to EB-5. Among his former clients: Anshoo Sethi.</div>
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According to Su’s website, his offerings include “Brian Su’s Inner Circle” (membership: $15,000 a year), providing exclusive entrée to “my powerful and extensive relationships throughout China and the U.S.” Su charges $10,000 for 30 days of private coaching on EB-5 fundraising. He regularly leads Americans on “trade missions” to China, where, for $11,000 a head plus travel expenses, he introduces them to key players in the sale of EB-5 investments. Developers and consultants who send Su business are heavily promoted on his closely followed industry blog and on VIP panels at his conferences.</div>
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The exhibit hall at Su’s 2014 conference in Shanghai showcased projects ranging from the prosaic (four new locations for the World of Beer restaurant chain) to the improbable (a billion-dollar cargo port off the coast of Louisiana).</div>
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But EB-5 is no longer a realm just for those who can’t find capital elsewhere. New York City’s biggest developers were at the conference too. Stephen Ross’s Related Cos., for example, is seeking $800 million in EB-5 funds to help bankroll Hudson Yards, a $20 billion project on the West Side of Manhattan.</div>
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<a href="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/z-ebf11_5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Related's booth at the Invest in America Summit EB-5trade fair in Shanghai, China. The portrait of Stephen Ross was originally commissioned for Fortune's story on their Hudson Yards project. " class="size-full wp-image-752571" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/z-ebf11_5.jpg?w=1000&h=750" height="750" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1000" /></a><span class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Bold', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7rem; margin: 0px 0px -0.6em; padding: 0px;">Related’s booth at the “Invest in America” trade fair in Shanghai. The portrait of Stephen Ross was originally commissioned for a Fortune article on the company’s Hudson Yards project.</span><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #828282; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Photo by Peter Elkind</span></div>
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EB-5 fundraising is a messy process, more like pitching vacation timeshares than any normal form of deal finance. Developers embark on road shows to big cities across China. With help from local “migration agents,” they use spam messages, slick websites, and telemarketing to round up potential investors for free dinner seminars featuring raffles for iPhones and lofty promises of a brighter future.</div>
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The potential payoff is big enough—the company estimates it will save about $200 million—that Related has stationed eight employees in China and showcased its project at the Shanghai convention. Related offered the best swag in the exhibition hall: Hudson Yards–branded luggage tags, cellphone chargers, stereoscope viewers with 3-D slides of the planned development, and toy New York yellow taxis with flashing headlights and honking horns. To draw foot traffic, Related deployed a pair of models, dressed in slinky, custom-made blue-satin <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">qipao</span> dresses with “Hudson Yards” on them.</div>
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Despite the arrival of institutions like Related, EB-5 remains a wild and woolly realm. For starters, few of the usual safeguards for multimillion-dollar financings exist. EB-5 investments are typically sold through unregistered securities offerings and rarely involve broker-dealers, so deal documents receive no SEC scrutiny and face little due diligence. Even the corporate attorneys who prepare offering documents rarely check their clients’ claims or backgrounds, according to EB-5 lawyers and experts. Many EB-5 attorneys represent both the project and the investors, a clear conflict, and take undisclosed fees from developers—up to $60,000 per immigrant—to steer clients to particular projects.</div>
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The EB-5 program isn’t overseen by a financial regulator but by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security. Accustomed to processing visas and conducting immigrant background checks, USCIS is ill-equipped to review business plans, job- creation studies, and securities offerings. The SEC retains the power to police fraud. What that means is the agency has no mechanism to sniff out a problem until it has exploded, at which point the agency can only clean up the mess.</div>
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After arriving in the U.S. from India, the Sethi family pursued its version of the American dream, building a modest—if troubled—business empire. Ravinder Sethi arrived in the U.S. from India in 1977; his wife, Ranjna, came later. Anshoo was born in Chicago in 1983.</div>
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The father, who had earned a pharmacy degree at Panjab University, went to work as a pharmacist in Chicago shortly after receiving his American license. But Ravinder’s career was marked by legal and regulatory problems. In May 1985 he was convicted of felony possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and placed on probation, after a sting operation targeting clinics selling narcotics to welfare recipients. In response, state regulators in 1986 suspended his pharmacist’s license for 30 months.</div>
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In 1987 a new entity incorporated by Sethi’s wife under her maiden name then bought and began operating East Calumet Health Services, a pharmacy and walk-in clinic on Chicago’s South Side, next door to a Lots for Le$$ used-appliance store. City building inspectors cited the business for infractions ranging from rotted subflooring and exposed sewage to basement rat droppings. In 2011, after a state inspection discovered lax oversight of controlled substances in the pharmacy, Ravinder signed a consent order that included a reprimand, a $10,000 fine, and his promise to sell the business.</div>
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In the 1990s the Sethi parents branched into day care, opening three Happy Days Child Development Centers, run by Ravinder’s wife. Their company today receives some $1 million annually in state child-care funds. By 2003 the family was successful enough to buy a stately four-bedroom brick home in Dearborn Park, Ill., for $1.4 million.</div>
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That year the Sethis went into the hotel business, buying a 122-room motel, originally built as a Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, out of foreclosure for $10 million. Renamed the Chicago O’Hare Garden Hotel, it sat on a 2.8-acre tract, four miles from the airport. Ravinder placed its operations in the hands of Anshoo, then a licensed pharmacy technician and college student, who turned 21 in October 2004.</div>
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Anshoo, who graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a degree in finance in 2006, seemed to have ambitions for the motel. He signed a franchise agreement to upgrade the place into a Wyndham Garden Hotel. But after less than a year Wyndham terminated the agreement, citing “financial and quality assurance defaults.” According to court documents in the resulting lawsuit, he failed to make promised improvements and didn’t pay his franchise fees. Wyndham demanded $292,000 in damages, and Sethi eventually settled.</div>
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In truth, Anshoo Sethi never displayed much interest—or skill—in running a hotel. A longtime employee says Sethi was rarely around, and he quickly began cutting back on staffing and pay. A U.S. Labor Department complaint, filed later on behalf of 17 hotel workers, alleged that he paid housekeepers less than minimum wage, giving them just $2 for each room they cleaned, and failed to pay overtime to employees. Anshoo eventually entered into a consent judgment, paying the full $42,000 the government said he owed, while not admitting the allegations.</div>
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Sethi found novel ways to cut corners. According to the former employee, Sethi had maids refill guests’ half-empty shampoo bottles with water to save money. In 2008 the hotel shut its restaurant and gave up its liquor license. Its swimming pool sat empty, filled with trash and weeds.</div>
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Vendors complained of unpaid bills. In February 2010 the motel bounced a $332 paycheck. After a last-minute transfer of $2,232 to pay its maids, Sethi warned the employee in an email: “That is it. There is no more money in the accts.” In 2011 city inspectors fined the Sethis $5,540 for 11 building violations, including missing smoke detectors, large cracks in the walls and ceilings, broken stairs, and failure to “keep premises clean, sanitary, and safe.”</div>
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Under Anshoo’s management, rooms that rented for $109 a night in 2006 were going for as little as $37 by 2009. One patron was convicted of cocaine possession with intent to distribute after the drug was found in the safe in his room. Two suicides occurred in the hotel. Sethi tried to boost business with posts on a medical message board where he posed as a physician who had discovered “a great hotel” for “us doctors.” It didn’t work. Half the guest reviews on the TripAdvisor website rated the place “terrible.” Among the comments: “Disgusting!!!!” “hotel from hell,” and “Oh My God!”</div>
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Even as the hotel spiraled downward, Sethi began affecting the glitzy trappings and ambitions of a junior Donald Trump. Handsome, with deep-set dark eyes, he wore flashy designer suits and alligator shoes, carried a Louis Vuitton briefcase, and drove a white Mercedes. In 2007 he began talking about opening a second hotel on the O’Hare property. Then he began hatching plans to build three hotels, connected by an underground convention center. This was the germ of the idea that would lead him to EB-5.</div>
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Sethi began currying relationships with high-priced lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, some of whom would play key roles in his plan. He hired Michael Madigan, speaker of the Illinois assembly (a part-time position), who is also a lawyer in private practice. Madigan persuaded authorities to slash the tax bill of Sethi’s property by 50%. A different lawyer secured a needed zoning change. Sethi signed franchise agreements and paid fees to the Starwood and InterContinental chains, allowing him to build hotels for their brands. But getting someone to give him money to do that was more difficult.</div>
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Sethi was an enigma. He was timid and halting in public. But somehow he managed to play his youth and the sense that he was in over his head to his advantage as he flattered a series of powerful older advisers. Sethi displayed an unusual mix of bravado—and seat-of-the- pants desperation. In January 2009 he told the Chicago<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Real Estate Daily</span> that he was in final negotiations to finance the first phase of construction. A few days later he put a post on an Internet message board seeking a standby letter of credit “of only $15-20M” for “a very Large Hotel & convention center development.”</div>
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None of that, of course, came to fruition. How could it? Sethi was a 25-year-old whose only business experience was running his shabby motel badly. His project didn’t make sense: The Chicago hotel market was lousy, especially near O’Hare. But 6,000 miles away he’d find a pool of eager investors.</div>
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Anshoo Sethi was perfectly suited for the world of EB-5. He was willing to say exactly what Chinese investors wanted to hear, with seemingly little care as to whether it had any basis in fact. He was guided in this strange fundraising realm, beginning in early 2010, by a consultant named Kevin Wright. A former marketing executive for a company that sold art and celebrity memorabilia, Wright, 34, has become an EB-5 industry luminary. The website for his Palm Beach firm, Wright Johnson, describes him as an expert in “econometric analysis,” though he lacks a college degree (in any subject).</div>
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Wright’s firm enjoys a booming business in the creation of “regional centers.” They are one of the oddities of the EB-5 system. “Regional centers,” which are legally required and USCIS-certified, sound as if they are federal offices, but they’re not. They are typically private, profit-making operations that pool EB-5 money for development projects. Oh, and there’s one other quirk: These seemingly independent operations are often launched and operated by the very developers who are raising money, giving them an extra measure of control.</div>
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The regional centers that operate independently can be highly lucrative. Centers usually charge a developer about 2% annual interest for at least five years on whatever amount of immigrant capital they raise. A $60 million deal can thus generate $6 million or more in income. One major operator, the New York City Regional Center, expects its total income on just four large ventures to total $50,187,500, according to a worksheet prepared in a lawsuit between feuding business partners.</div>
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Like banks and Wall Street firms, regional centers sell securities and handle millions. Yet there are no rules on who can own or run a center, and no audit requirements. A regional center doesn’t have to report publicly on its performance, identify its principals, or disclose any financial, legal, or regulatory problems they have encountered.</div>
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Creation of a center requires the submission of economic studies and an array of other paperwork to USCIS. And that’s where Wright Johnson comes in. In a confidential 2012 marketing document obtained by <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fortune</span>, his firm touted its “total package solution for EB-5 application and marketing,” including lawyers, economists, and business-plan writers, offered for $95,000. “There is no other EB-5 consulting group that can claim even half of the success of WJ,” boasts the 26-page document.</div>
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Sethi signed on, and in October 2010, with the help of Wright’s team, applied to USCIS for formal designation of his very own regional center: the Intercontinental Regional Center Trust of Chicago. The U.S. government approved Anshoo as CEO; his father was the “principal shareholder.” The regional center’s only project? The Sethis’ hotel and convention center.</div>
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<a href="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hotel-3-up1.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="From HoJo to hobo? The Howard Johnson Motor Lodge near O’Hare Airport (top, in the 1960s) became the Sethis’ motel (center, after demolition began in late 2012). Bottom, renderings of the hotel/convention center planned for the site. Today the space is a weed-filled empty lot." class="size-full wp-image-753251" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hotel-3-up1.jpg?w=1024&h=2080" height="2080" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1024" /></a><span class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Bold', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7rem; margin: 0px 0px -0.6em; padding: 0px;">From HoJo to hobo? The Howard Johnson Motor Lodge near O’Hare Airport (top, in the 1960s) became the Sethis’ motel (center, after demolition began in late 2012). Bottom, renderings of the hotel/convention center planned for the site. Today the space is a weed-filled empty lot.</span><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #828282; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Photos, top: Courtesy of William Kaufman; Center: Nitram242—Flickr</span></div>
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One essential part of gaining USCIS approval was crafting an acceptable “targeted employment area,” or TEA. The EB-5 law requires investment in a district that is either rural or has a jobless rate that is 150% of the national average. But after years of industry pressure, it’s now USCIS policy to automatically accept any state designation of a TEA, even though states routinely approve gerrymandered districts that tack on distant high-unemployment tracts to allow EB-5 endeavors in wealthy areas.</div>
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Thus, a Marriott hotel in elegant Marina del Rey, Calif., sits within a TEA. (The <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Los Angeles Business Journal</span>noted that this was accomplished by attaching poor areas 15 miles away.) So does a $20 million addition to a W Hotel in Hollywood. And Silverstein Properties, another big New York developer, is seeking EB-5 funds to build a new luxury Four Seasons Hotel in Tribeca, which its promotional video describes as “New York’s most popular affluent residential neighborhood.”</div>
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Sethi’s planned development was located in a census tract with a jobless rate below the national average. To meet the requirement, Sethi and his consultants concocted a TEA connecting 21 tracts in the shape of a long C, hooking in poor neighborhoods eight miles away.</div>
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Sethi’s regional center application included claims that troubled at least one member of Wright’s consulting team. Suzanne Lazicki, who edited the business plan in August 2010, was taken aback by the comment that Sethi had “over 15 years of experience in real estate development and management.” Lazicki had met Sethi and been struck by his youth. At the time (though this wasn’t in the documents), Anshoo was 27. “I thought it was a typo,” Lazicki says. She says she raised the issue with Wright, who checked with Sethi. “They said no, they meant to put that in,” according to Lazicki. “His explanation was that [Anshoo] basically grew up in the business, because his family had been in the business.” The reference remained.</div>
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Lazicki says she also questioned some of Sethi’s “very aggressive” financial projections, and was told that they resulted from the complex’s unprecedented energy efficiency. Recalls Lazicki: “Kevin took the position that it wasn’t his job to tell Anshoo what he should do. It was his job to find out what Anshoo planned to do and put down that plan.”</div>
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Wright offered brief comments about Sethi in a phone interview. “All I can say,” he says, “is that it appears that he was a very fraudulent person. He tricked a lot of people, including me. He seemed like any other business-type person or developer, a very hard-working person.” (Wright declined further interviews, though he did deny knowledge of wrong-doing in an email that addressed a number of questions.)</div>
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By 2011, Sethi had reinvented his project into something far bigger, far more remarkable, and far more buzz-worthy. Instead of a convention center with three hotels, it would include five—with a breathtaking array of green features. Even the mundane operations of the complex would be bristling with innovation, such as “biometric self-service check-in.”</div>
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Despite its $913 million development cost—a staggering $917,088 per room, far more than the priciest luxury hotels—the sprawling center would prosper because of its “synergetic advantages,” according to a 77-page private-placement memorandum and business plan that he circulated to investors in late 2011. It would be a magnet for the “technologically savvy” and “environmentally conscious,” so energy-efficient that it would make a profit at 42% occupancy. (A finance scholar who later studied these claims would conclude that meeting Sethi’s revenue expectations would require 100% occupancy of all five hotels 365 days a year—at a rate of $289 a night.)</div>
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The investor memo went on at length about Anshoo’s “formidable proficiency in global finance,” stating that he had “executed several corporate acquisitions and divestitures” and grown his family’s business “exponentially.” The principals, according to the memo, had “built over 250+ hotel developments from coast to coast for prestigious clients in all hotel brands.”</div>
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As Sethi described it to EB-5 investors, all the pieces were in place to start construction in the summer of 2012 and open the first hotel tower in early 2014. Sethi reported that he had already obtained building permits and held “executed franchise agreements” for all five hotels: Element by Westin, Hotel Indigo, Staybridge Suites, Hyatt Place, and Hyatt Summerfield.</div>
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In truth, Sethi had no franchise agreements. Westin, Indigo, and Staybridge Suites had all terminated earlier agreements with Sethi by 2010, after he’d missed deadlines to start construction; Westin was demanding $1.2 million in damages. Hyatt had never signed any agreement and had ordered Sethi to stop using its name. Sethi also had no final construction plans, much less a design that might attain Platinum LEED status. nowhere in the documents did he list a project architect. He had obtained no building permits.</div>
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The documents offered a fantastical account of how Sethi would finance his $913 million opus. First, he pegged his own “direct investment”—the decaying hotel site—at $177.5 million, even though his family had bought the property seven years earlier for $10 million.</div>
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Next came government financing: $485,455,171. Sethi reported that his project had already “been qualified” for energy-efficiency green bonds issued by the Illinois Finance Authority; he was anticipating $339.8 million. He was also counting on $48.5 million in “loans generated from federal and state tax credits” and $97.1 million in unspecified government grants. None of this, in fact, was in place. The Illinois Finance Authority hadn’t approved anything.</div>
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Finally, of course, there was EB-5. Sethi was seeking $249.5 million from 499 investors, the maximum for an unregistered securities offering. And that’s where the massive scope of the convention center worked to Sethi’s benefit: It justified an economist’s projection that the complex would create a spectacular total of 8,495 jobs.</div>
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Having crafted his elaborate fantasy, Sethi proved a quick study in the game of selling an EB-5 project in China. He agreed to pay top rates to local agents to push his deal. Chinese investors rely heavily on the agents, according to experts in EB-5 fundraising, usually unaware that the agents are getting more than the modest fee—perhaps $5,000—paid by the investor. In truth, they now make as much as $100,000 per investor, with the rest coming from the developer.</div>
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Like their U.S. counterparts, Chinese agents typically conduct little due diligence, instead steering their clients to the project that pays them the most. In her dealings, says Anna Morzy, an EB-5 lawyer with the Fragomen firm in Chicago (who wasn’t involved in the Sethi case), “the agents didn’t ask any questions, other than ‘How much am I getting paid?’ ”</div>
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Sethi employed another common technique, implying that a project has official government backing in the U.S. That is immensely alluring for Chinese investors, who are accustomed to a government that controls everything. To do that, Sethi snookered Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. Working through another well-connected lobbyist, Michael McClain, Sethi angled for some overseas face time with the governor during a planned trade mission to China in the fall of 2011. (McClain declined to comment.) The hook, Sethi wrote in an email forwarded to the governor’s staff, was an opportunity to speak about “why the state of Illinois is great for investment.” This, Sethi wrote, could provide “a Kodak opportunity with the governor.” With help from Quinn’s commerce secretary—who taped a video endorsing the convention project—Sethi did even better.</div>
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<a href="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf11_5merged.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-752574" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ebf11_5merged.jpg?w=1024&h=375" height="375" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1024" /></a><span class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Bold', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7rem; margin: 0px 0px -0.6em; padding: 0px;">Seal of Approval: A Chinese marketing presentation featured government insignias, right, and a photo of Sethi with (from left) his lieutenant David Wang, Illinois Gov. Quinn, and Sethi’s father, Ravinder.</span></div>
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On Sept. 18 the governor and his delegation, which included business executives and state senators, returned from their tour of the Great Wall to attend a dinner Sethi hosted at the Westin Chaoyang Hotel in Beijing. The event produced a multitude of “Kodak moments,” including footage of the governor strolling down a red carpet with a beaming Sethi and images of the two toasting each other.</div>
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All this became priceless propaganda, which was soon plastered across Chinese marketing websites. Belatedly recognizing they’d been bamboozled (“They know how to use us,” complained one aide in an email), Quinn’s staffers demanded he cease using the governor’s image and the Illinois state seal. Sethi ignored them.</div>
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In sales meetings with prospective investors in China, Sethi was even more brazen. A 41-minute video of one such session, held at the Beijing Sofitel on Oct. 29, 2011, shows him responding to several translated questions, including: Can you guarantee investors a green card?</div>
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Without question, Sethi said. He made brash, sometimes outlandish, promises. He claimed a high occupancy rate and huge profit stream were givens and that the development would pay no taxes. “Our company has designed this project,” Sethi declared, “in partnership with the government—the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago.” The deal, he added later, was “guaranteed by the government.” And: “The investor is fully protected of their entire investment.”</div>
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By the fall of 2012, Sethi was under growing pressure. He had failed to procure any non-EB-5 financing. The promised summer start date for construction had come and gone. Chinese money was pouring in—$147 million in little more than a year—but he couldn’t tap it. Like many EB-5 developers, he had agreed to keep their $500,000 principal in escrow until the investors’ provisional green cards were approved. But the USCIS wouldn’t approve the visas until Sethi provided documentation of some of his arrangements.</div>
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Asked about his franchising deals, Sethi submitted years-old letters from three hotels confirming agreements that had long since been terminated and offered up a doctored Hyatt form letter as “proof ” of the two others. (A Hyatt executive later described this as “a forgery.”)</div>
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USCIS asked for evidence of Sethi’s non-EB-5 funding. David Derrico, a lawyer representing Sethi, wrote back that the project still expected $340 million in bond money from the Illinois Finance Authority. But if that didn’t materialize, he explained, Sethi had already obtained all the backup financing he needed—from Qatar. Derrico submitted a one-page letter from the Qatar Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, pledging $340 million. “Our lending group is prepared to move forward with the funding of the above referenced transaction,” read the message, signed by “Scott H. Brett, Head—Corporate Banking (north America).”</div>
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Asked about this later by the SEC, a lawyer for the Qatar fund reported that the letter was “not authentic.” The fund had never employed a Scott H. Brett.</div>
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Derrico says the Qatar letter arrived from Sethi at the last minute and “out of the blue,” and that he had no reason to question it. “We don’t independently go out and verify…all the documents,” says Derrico. “It would be economically impossible. No client would pay for it.”</div>
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<a href="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/z-ebf11_41.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="EBF.08.11.14.EB5.07" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-753249" src="http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/z-ebf11_41.jpg?w=1024&h=1331" height="1331" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: auto; margin: 35px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 496.53125px;" width="1024" /></a><span class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #828282; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed', helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">bryanp</span></div>
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By this time, Sethi had come under the sway of yet another adviser: Hirav Shah, a self-styled “corporate astrologer” who employed “astrology-numerology-<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">vaastu</span>-graphology science” to solve strategic business problems. (Minimum charge, according to his website: $7,000.) Sethi let Shah—who also offered guidance to celebrities, politicians, and owners of gas stations—live in his hotel rent-free for nearly a year. He embraced Shah’s counsel. This included posting one-inch mirror squares on all the doors of the O’Hare Garden Hotel and dictating that EB-5 team members wear clothing in certain colors on particular days.</div>
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While $147 million invested in the convention center remained in a Virginia bank beyond the Sethis’ reach, another $10,726,466 in administrative fees, from EB-5 investors (at $41,500 apiece), flowed into their hands—and quickly out. Some of it went toward expenses that had nothing to do with the project and weren’t permitted under the offering documents. For example, according to the SEC, in February 2012, Ravinder Sethi withdrew $35,000 to fund a cashier’s check made out to Wyndham as partial settlement of the lawsuit for the Sethis’ violation of their franchise agreement.</div>
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Anshoo sent more than $2.5 million to an account in his own name in Hong Kong. And on his travels to China, Sethi spent money on massages and gifts of lingerie. By year-end, less than $1 million would remain, even though the offering’s subscription agreement required the Sethis to refund the fees in full if the investors didn’t get their green cards (which the USCIS still hadn’t cleared).</div>
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By November 2012, investors were getting antsy. Sethi knew he had to demonstrate progress. He announced plans to demolish the O’Hare Garden Hotel and break ground for the new complex. Actual construction was impossible as he still didn’t have building permits, franchise agreements, or construction plans.</div>
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He began tapping even more connections to get cash for the project. Sethi retained Michael Axelrod, son of David Axelrod, President Obama’s former strategist, and a consultant specializing in Latin American business, to raise EB-5 funding in Mexico. Axelrod also called contacts at USCIS, prodding them to approve the visas, which would release the escrowed Chinese funds. They told him the visas remained “in review.” A second lobbyist enlisted calls from Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin’s staff. Sethi arranged another meeting with the Illinois Finance Authority for mid-February, where he hoped to make progress on winning the state financing he’d promised his investors. He also persuaded an official of the Clinton Foundation to make a high-level inquiry on his behalf.</div>
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For a failed motel owner, Sethi had deployed a truly impressive cast of power brokers. Still, they couldn’t break the logjam. And they could do nothing for him when, seemingly out of nowhere, the feds jumped in and brought the entire project to a halt.</div>
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On Feb. 6, 2013, SEC lawyers raced into federal court in Chicago and, in a secret hearing, persuaded a judge to place an emergency freeze on all assets under the control of Anshoo Sethi. An SEC lawsuit accusing Anshoo of fraud was made public two days later. No action was taken against his father.</div>
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Anshoo Sethi’s dreams had been dashed by a tipster who contacted the SEC around the time of his Chicago groundbreaking ceremony, triggering a rapid-fire investigation. The ensuing civil action led to more than a year of court proceedings, which ended with a settlement in March 2014.</div>
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The deal, which did not require Sethi to admit wrongdoing, returns the frozen $147 million to his Chinese investors, fines Sethi and his businesses $3.9 million, and requires they repay $11.5 million in administrative fees. He is barred from any association with the sale of securities for 20 years.</div>
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Now 30, Sethi remains in legal peril. The vacant convention center site, now up for sale, is the subject of a foreclosure suit.</div>
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In October 2013 the tipster in Sethi’s case received a record $14.7 million whistleblower award from the SEC—about 10% of the recovered funds—paid out under the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation. At his request he remained anonymous, until his identity was revealed in a lawsuit filed in late June by his business partner, seeking a share of the reward (see that story <a href="http://fortune.com/2014/07/23/whistleblower-unmasked/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ec412e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a>).</div>
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The recipient is 62-year-old Michael Sears, a principal in a small real estate financing firm called Global Capital Markets Advisor, which owns an EB-5 regional center of its own. Although the exact events that produced the lucrative award are in dispute, what’s clear—and striking—is that Sears’s suspicions about the project didn’t stem from any inside information or personal contact with Sethi or his enterprise. Indeed, it resulted from far less information than possessed by dozens of people who did business with Sethi.</div>
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Sears never even met Sethi. Instead, while Sears was traveling in China to promote his own firm’s EB-5 deal, he came to a simple realization—from industry rumbling an a look at the project’s aggressive online marketing—that the Chicago convention center didn’t smell right. Sears says this prompted him to spend 30 minutes filling out a whistleblower form on the SEC’s website. He later explained his suspicions to agency investigators. It was an easy way to make $14.7 million.</div>
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In the aftermath of the scandal—merely the biggest to afflict the EB-5 program—the SEC has brought a second fraud case; issued a formal “investor alert”; and opened a broader inquiry into the business, reportedly issuing subpoenas to more than a dozen regional centers. USCIS says it has beefed up its oversight, hiring a team of experts to more closely scrutinize business proposals. Still, the government hasn’t tightened the rules governing the visa program.</div>
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Industry practitioners such as consultant Wright seem to like EB-5 just as it is. As he put it in an email, the Sethi case “is an example of how the U.S. system works to protect investors. The SEC, FBI and [USCIS] stepped in to investigate this situation, and investors were able to recover their funds.”</div>
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For its part, the industry trade organization, the Association to Invest in the USA, has launched a new “legislative action center” to “empower EB-5 stakeholders to tell their stories of capital formation and resulting job creation to federal decision-makers in Congress.” Their goal is to lift the cap on visas and dramatically expand the program. Their slogan: “EB-5 is working.”</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: red; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sethi Weighs In</span></h1>
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Anshoo Sethi’s lawyers provided the following statement:</h2>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">As the court records in the SEC’s action made clear, the investors’ entire $147 million of principal was preserved at all times in escrow, and was returned in full to the investors. Mr. Sethi himself was a vocal proponent of returning the escrowed funds directly to the investors, once the project had been halted by the SEC. In reaching a consent agreement with the SEC, Mr. Sethi neither admitted nor denied the allegations raised against him.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The investors’ administrative fees are the only funds remaining to be returned in order to make the investors whole, and over half of those fees were advanced as commissions to the investors’ brokers in China, with the understanding that the brokers would return or credit those fees if the investor’s visa application was denied. Mr. Sethi is currently taking aggressive legal action in China in order to recover those fees for any investors who have not been placed into new projects by those brokers.</span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Miller Display Italic', georgia, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mr. Sethi invested years of both financial and sweat equity in the hotel and convention center project. In doing so, he retained dozens of recognized professionals and agents to advise him and consult on the project, including lawyers and others who trumpeted themselves as Eb-5 industry experts.</span></div>
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<br />Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-52284157291440088302014-07-20T14:11:00.002-04:002014-07-22T14:26:18.312-04:00How do former empires get colonized by their own colonies? Europe's Refugee Racket<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif; line-height: 34px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Refugee Racket NGO is in agreement with growing demand for banning Muslim immigration to Europe and all non-Muslim countries, or as the muslims put it, 'dar al harb' [land of war (against kafirs)]. Such a statement seems politically incorrect in a world of ignorant and naive politicians and peddlers of political correct nonsense. But not really. All sovereign nations control who they let in and can set any criteria they want. Canada, Australia and NZ have clear technical skills and value criteria. Holland is implementing strict 'criteria' that reduces the chance for uneducated or intolerant attitudes getting in. Holland is severely restricting their refugee and asylum intake. Geert Wilder's Freedom party is pushing for a moratorium on Muslim immigration and other parties are not so opposed. The same proposals are being heard in Denmark and Switzerland. Clearly some parties in Europe are pushing the immigrant 'criteria' envelope into so called 'forbidden territory,' at least to the PC police, that is. </b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Gotham Narrow SSm, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 34px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif; line-height: 34px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqsD5B3CuNy3i143VAc2gW6XVrnlTLBtRRO1R_E3EcTWsSuofBybhFv_ypmBFCLQLkk4CL8YAZ02j4BfeMnOpBu5IFNJ2OHfoKfyWG98MLDNMpIECju8xsXSpLcsPJSltwV1d_fWgofB-/s1600/Eurabia+Chirson+article.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqsD5B3CuNy3i143VAc2gW6XVrnlTLBtRRO1R_E3EcTWsSuofBybhFv_ypmBFCLQLkk4CL8YAZ02j4BfeMnOpBu5IFNJ2OHfoKfyWG98MLDNMpIECju8xsXSpLcsPJSltwV1d_fWgofB-/s1600/Eurabia+Chirson+article.png" height="236" width="320" /></a></b></div>
<b> Europe has a rapidly growing problem with Muslim nogo zones, also known as 'sharia ghettos.' In these sharia ghettos, police fear to tread. The Muslims don't believe in secular law, they get their rules from Allah. So, how do former empires get colonized by their own colonies?<a href="http://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/07/18/muslim-immigrants-suicidal-prey/"> Chirson explains.</a></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Gotham Narrow SSm', sans-serif; line-height: 34px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/07/18/muslim-immigrants-suicidal-prey/"><span style="color: black; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Muslim Immigrants and Their Suicidal Prey</span></a></h1>
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It is jolting to read but truth is like that. Meanwhile, the PRM (Population, Refugees and Migration) Bureau of the State Dept. (budget $1.5Billion) has targets to import more than 50,000 Muslims as refugees this coming fiscal year. That is part of their 150,000 quota this year (includes Cubans, Haitans, special cases, etc.), all with the full benefits welcoming package. </div>
<span style="font-size: 0px; line-height: 0px;">It</span>Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-62716664707758085972014-07-19T03:05:00.000-04:002014-07-19T03:05:39.510-04:00Get the Facts at Refugee Resettlement WatchThe site <a href="http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/">Refugee Resettlement Watch</a> inspired me to create RefugeeRacket.com. Anne Corcoran has worked tirelessly for years establishing a database of statistics, facts and articles about the refugee industry. Anyone who wants to understand how the refugee racket works should visit her site.<br />
<br />
Her most important page is the <a href="http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/refugee-resettlement-fact-sheets/">Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheet</a>. Visit it and have your eyes opened.Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-58831314626773677742014-07-19T02:46:00.001-04:002014-07-19T02:46:25.310-04:00Haynes, Wyoming Candidate for Governor Gets the Refugee Racket<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most politicians are clueless about the refugee racket. DC politicians who pass budgets for the State Dept ($1.5B refugee line items) and the HHS ($1.5B refugee/family line items) and other costs 'hidden' in other huge budget items (welfare, tanf, snap, wic, sec8, medicaid, public school resources, etc.) estimated over $40B annually - they don't have a clue how it works. They are just line items in much bigger budgets. The State Dept. pushes refugees and asylum quotas exceeding 150,000 every year, and the HHS pushes minor illegal aliens and family reunification for another 100,000 'refugees.' Every year. And all of them get all the welfare benefits of full citizenship and more, including special grants and cash payments. Including long term support after the first year, our govt. spends over $100 Billion annually for welfare and direct support for 'refugees.' It is a HUGE racket and our politicians haven't a clue. Most think the 'churches' represented by the Big 9 NGOs:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<ul style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.churchworldservice.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Church World Service (CWS)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.ecdcinternational.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/emm/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.hias.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.theirc.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">International Rescue Committee (IRC)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.refugees.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.lirs.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.usccb.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)</a></li>
<li style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.wr.org/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">World Relief Corporation (WR)</a></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">get their funding from private sources to resettle refugees and unaccompanied minors. False. Other big players like the Baptists Children and Family Services (BCFS) are in big on the unaccompanied minor racket funded by the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).<u> On average, based on most recent filings, 92% of these NGOs' revenue is government grants from the State Dept and HHS!</u> Most no longer even bother trying to raise private charity funding. Why bother! The government is a money gusher for these groups, the grants come like clockwork every year. And salaries at these NGOs are amazing. CEOs earning a half million or more a year. Executive salaries and benefits exceeding 30% to 50% of their 'granted' revenue. And no one in our government cares. No oversight as long as they make their refugee resettlement quotas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But there is one candidate for governor that has done his homework and does get it.<b> </b> <b><a href="http://www.haynesforgovernor.com/">Taylor H. Haynes M.D. is running for Governor in Wyoming</a>. </b> Wyoming is the ONLY state that does not have a refugee racket resettlement system in place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Lutheran refugee service (LIRS) is pushing hard to establish this new dumping ground for the refugees they get paid per head to resettle. The current governor Matt Mead is all for it. Why? Haynes gets it and has written the following paper explaining this folly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><u>Somali Folly: “The
Rest of the Story”<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><u>Why the Governor’s
Plan for Refugee Settlement Camps in Wyoming Must Be Stopped</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">July 8,
2014</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Our
United States has immigration laws. People from around the world have </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">prepared
themselves to come to the United States by learning the language and developing
marketable skills. They learn our history, our constitution, and swear allegiance
to our country and our way of life. They want not only to immigrate, they want
to assimilate. They patiently wait their chance at the American dream.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Gathering
up large numbers of people who are refugees from war torn countries, who
haven’t prepared themselves to come here, and who largely shun our culture is a
travesty as it undermines our system of immigration. The refugee green card protocol
is being used to legally undermine our workforce, and through the influx of
alien values, it undermines our Judeo-Christian culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Refugees
can also potentially compromise our national security. The US</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Citizenship
and Immigration Services implemented several policies authorized by Homeland
Security that exempted over 400 refugees from terrorism-related inadmissibility
grounds in 2013. [1] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Who
then gains from this blatantly unethical practice? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For
one, it is a lucrative business for refugee resettlement agencies which receive
a per capita grant of $1,875 per person. Additionally, the Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR), a division of Health and Human Services, has over 200 grants available. In 2014, Congress allocated $1.489 billion
to ORR, which equates to around $24,800 per refugee per year. [2] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1
“Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2014 Report to the Congress,”
Submitted on Behalf of the </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">President
of the United States to the Committees on the Judiciary United States Senate
and United States House of Representatives, United States Department of State,
United States Department of Homeland Security, United States</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Department of Health and Human Services.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2
Kim, Iris, “Congress allocates more funding to Office of Refugee Resettlement,”
The Chronicle, January 23, 2014 </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
meatpacking industry, for another, is in it “whole hog” (pun intended). </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">According to Jessica Schaid of the New Mexico
State University, meat packing plants benefit from turnover in several ways:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> 1)
keeping aggregated labor costs low;
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> 2)
preventing many workers from becoming eligible for health benefits; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> 3)
allowing the plant to use job training funds to supplement the wages
of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">new hires;</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> 4)
And depending on unstable workers who are less likely to become union activists. [3]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This
is a government sponsored, job killing, cheap labor scheme where high turnover
rates create a host of social welfare issues.
For example, despite the claims of fair wages, refugees who are employed
in the meatpacking plant in Greely Colorado are now coming to Cheyenne to seek
social services. [4] <b>Nearly 60% of adult refugees are on government medical assistance, 70%
are receiving food stamps, 32% are in public housing, and 38% are getting cash
assistance through TANF or SSI. <span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It
is my opinion and intent that “public assistance” must be limited to
United States citizens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Somalia, Congo and other war torn countries have no formal governments such as we are
accustomed to. We are living in an ever-increasing police state where too much
information is gathered on U.S. citizens and there is essentially no real information
on the new labor they are importing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">These
refugees, and the hordes of people flooding the southern border, are a ‘soft
invasion’ which left unchecked will cause us to become like other countries in
the world that are mostly dependent on
the government. Our government is in turn in bed with multinational
corporations only interested in the cheapest labor they can get. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3
Mark A. Grey, “Immigrants, Migration and Worker Turnover at the Hog Pride Pork
Packing Plant,” Human Organization 85, no.1 (1999): 17<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">4
Murray, Sara, “On the Killing Floor, Clues to the Impact Of Immigration on
Jobs,” Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2013
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
risk of imported diseases is quite real. The Association of State and
Territorial Health Officials 2013 report noted that 60% of new tuberculosis
(TB) cases, including 85% of multi-drug resistant (MDR) cases in the United
States, occur in foreign born patients. This report also recounted that the
SARS epidemic of 2003 and the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 was facilitated by people
coming into the U.S.from foreign countries. [5]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The
report went further to point out that Refugees who are resettled in virtually every
state are the most vulnerable at-risk population entering the United States. This is due to the limited access to food,
vaccination, and health services prior to coming to the United States. Many
suffer from mental health problems often associated with traumatic experiences
like war prior to their displacement. Crowding
and poor sanitation in refugee camps contribute to outbreaks of polio, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">measles,
and cholera. There is no screening for diseases like HIV with long incubation
periods.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sexual
assault, rape, trafficking, polygamy, domestic violence and child marriage have
all been reported in refugee camps, according to the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Around
45% of refugees resettled in one large resettlement state in 2009 to 2011 tested
positive for hepatitis A antibodies. [6] Thus the influx of large numbers of people
in this situation poses a threat to public health and the above noted risk to our labor
force and indeed our way of life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This
must be stopped at Wyoming’s border! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Taylor
H. Haynes M.D. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-46232064341870794922014-07-16T00:31:00.000-04:002014-07-16T00:31:14.097-04:00Picket Signs for National Invasion Protest WeekendThere will be several protest sites around my city. I'll be there with my protest signs I worked on last night and today I approved my proofs from Fastsigns (thanks Katie). Picking them up Thursday. I urge everyone to let the Pharoah and his sycophants know we aren't going to take it.<br />
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The refugee racket is huge, and the unaccompanied alien children is about 25% of the 50 billion dollar racket. NGOs make a lot of money in the refugee racket with many of their CEOs making a $400,000 plus salary. More on that in a post soon.<br />
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It's all taxpayer money and you don't even know about it, and the government has practically no oversight of these NGOs.<br />
<br />Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-68784411729066023442014-06-21T00:08:00.000-04:002014-06-26T21:33:24.926-04:00State PRM Annual Meeting - Observations 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Refugee Racket industry is huge, but the center, the money gusher is the State Dept's Population, Refugees and Migration (StatePRM or PRM) division managed by Asst. Secretary Anne Richard. Each year in May the PRM has a public meeting for comments regarding the PRM's refugee quotas for the next year. in my earlier posts, I described how in 2013 the State Dept. refused cell phone cameras or any other recording equipment at the open hearing. There were plenty of critics at that meeting and Secretary Richards was pissed. So in 2014, the PRM announced that there would be NO public meeting in May 2014. When I asked for the public comments sent in via email or fax (the only methods left after the public hearing was axed), the PRM decided that those public comments were private and could not be shared with the public! I've been studying the Refugee Racket for almost two years. In 2012, the following observation of the 2012 meeting was posted at View From the Right (Lawrence Auster) and intriqued me. Funny how so little has changed except now that the critics are coming out of the woodwork, PRM is determined to shut us up. We'll see about that. i'll come back to Lawrence Auster and his innovative <a href="http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011473.html">plan of separation</a> to deal with the Moslem threat at a later date.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="title" style="color: #003366; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/019349.html">THE REFUGEE RACKET </a> (Observations of 2012 PRM Public hearing)</span><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><strong style="color: #222222; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Ed H. </strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">writes:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The annual State Department Refugee Admissions Quota meeting was held on May 12, in Arlington. It was comprised of 40 NGOs each trying to encourage the U.S. government to expand the definition of “refugee” and bring in as many refugees as possible. As it stands for 2012, 62,000 will be admitted, including many thousands of Muslims. This meeting is ground zero for the demographic destruction of America. I was the only conservative in the room, and just about the only man.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more" style="color: #999966; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"></a></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Any use of logic or facts is ignored. More people should know about this meeting and attend. A few intelligent protesters could really help stop this assault on American demographics. We requested a video tape be made, but our request was ignored.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Obama loves this program. It is a real weapon against the white middle class. Last year 85,000 refugees were approved. The American public has no say in this. It is a closed circle between the UN and Obama with a cursory review by Congress. The refugee racket is unbelievably corrupt and destructive and it is completely under the thumb of the leftist multiculturalists.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some highlights from the speakers at the meeting:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. America should admit many more Muslim refugees … because we disturbed their peaceful existence by the Iraq War.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. America should extend the definition of “refugees” to mean Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. America should extend the definition of refugee to mean victims of violence against women, including 500 million Chinese women suffering from China’s One Child policy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">4. Diversity and the vibrancy it brings are never to be questioned.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is apparently no bit of unhappiness in this fallen world for which the U.S. taxpayer shouldn’t be made responsible, and which America’s cultural identity shouldn’t be rearranged to accommodate.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But here’s a silver lining. I get the feeling that even the State Department has grown sick of these people and is looking for some way to shut them down.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well I have to disagree on that last statement. Under Anne Richard, the PRM has been put into hyperdrive. She is a revolving door leftist, and came to PRM from IRC (International Rescue Committee) the world's largest refugee racket player on the NGO (non govt organization) side.</span><br />
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<br />Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-38770466922178931892014-06-17T20:01:00.000-04:002014-06-29T14:42:40.729-04:00ISIL (Iraq and Levant Caliphate) is Pure islamThis blog is about the refugee racket and Islam plays a big role in that racket. ISIS/ISIL is in the news everywhere, and they (the newscasters and the expert guests) all tell you that ISIL deviates from Islam. False. ISIL is pure Islam. <br />
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By that I mean it is true to the teachings of Islam verbatim without any constraints contrived by civilized men, i.e., the kafirs, the unbelievers. Anyone who has studied the Koran and Islam's 1400 years of conquest by sword, deceit and stealth knows this. That is why any of these academic scholars and professors, the experts on Islam on the telly, are Moslem or dhimmi sycophants. You know they are a phoney by their statements if you know Islam. Same is true for these Christian and Jewish clergy who join in these interfaith 'cherish what we agree on' cheerleader sessions. Look, if they haven't figured out Islam by now, you have to ask why? Dumb, conspiratorial? That is why Moslem immigration, whether as legal immigrants, special visas (Iraqis, Afghanis, etc.), refugees or asylum seekers (the E ticket immigraton path), or illegal visa overstayers, or border trespass, it is a problem, and Refugee Racket will expose this as we expose the fraud and corruption in the multibillion dollar Refugee Racket financed by you.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH9OTkM-80GNFKFnoPLcC7yH5pNs-whlaHIm1mrGIXF1Bwas_Un-vwF1RVixIfQOsMOCJJSIT8YM3hFVwl-FbTOLCW95B0HCfBfAMJYZtnBd6QDRH-DFZpXtecQ9Ixs-bh5ALRoYEIVyaQ/s1600/The+ISIL+Caliphate+Crucifies+8+Takfir+Apostates+6+28+14.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH9OTkM-80GNFKFnoPLcC7yH5pNs-whlaHIm1mrGIXF1Bwas_Un-vwF1RVixIfQOsMOCJJSIT8YM3hFVwl-FbTOLCW95B0HCfBfAMJYZtnBd6QDRH-DFZpXtecQ9Ixs-bh5ALRoYEIVyaQ/s1600/The+ISIL+Caliphate+Crucifies+8+Takfir+Apostates+6+28+14.png" height="205" width="320" /></a>UPDATE 6 28 14 - Need more proof that ISIL practices Islam by the book? <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/06/isil-crucifies-eight-of-their-foes">See this article about ISIL crucifying apostates. </a><br />
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Here is a photo of this crucifixion with the koranic verse 5:33 commanding it from the believers!<br />
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Denial is our worst problem and will assure our destruction.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09352856002595390646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-86166037018223512882014-06-16T04:30:00.001-04:002014-06-16T05:09:03.878-04:00Call for Congressional Hearings About State Dept. PRM and HHS ORRAfter a year of studying the Refugee Racket, this website has become the primary vehicle to expose the fraud, corruption and leftist agenda of the major players in the Refugee Racket. Every year, the State Dept PRM Division under Asst. Secretary Anne Richards requests public comments regarding the upcoming year's budget and refugee intake quotas. In 2013, I asked the State Dept. PRM if I could videotape or photograph the public hearing portion after submitting comments. No, you cannot! But why not? I couldn't get an answer. The public hearing in 2013 was dominated by critics of the refugee industray, and the State Dept. PRM was not happy about that!<br />
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This past May, the 2014 public comments period came around and the State Dept. PRM announced there would be no public hearing. In addition the State Dept. PRM announced that there would be no available record of any comments submitted!<br />
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What does all this tell you? It tells me that the State Dept. PRM is corrupt and run by evil people who don't want the public to know what they are doing. I submitted comments to the State Dept. PRM and I cross-copied those comments via fax to every member of the Senata and House Immigration Committees. I called for an investigation and congressional hearings and outlined in detail the corruption and fraud within the State Dept. PRM. I cross-copied many Senators and Reps. with the same information asking that they press their immigration committee to investigate. I will post if there is any followup with me from any Senator, Rep., Committee or congressional aide.<br />
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The following is the full text of the call for investigation and the comments I sent to the State Dept. PRM. It is long explaining in detail what is <b>really</b> going on. It's all true and shows the sorry and corrupt state the refugee racket industry has become:<br />
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SUBJECT: CALL FOR COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION IN TO THE REFUGEE AND ASYLUM PROGRAMS AT THE STATE DEPT.<br />
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Dear Senators/Representatives on Senate and House Committees on Immigration:<br />
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You serve on the immigration committee in the Senate or House. Your job is to make sure the refugee resettlement program does not create a burden on the taxpayer or impact the local communities where refugees are placed. That is your job on this committee. I am writing to you with a copy of my comments to the State Dept Bureau of Population, Refugees, Migration (PRM)’s annual public comments provided 5/29/14. I need your assistance. I have spent the past year investigating the federal refugee and asylum system. Sadly what I have discovered is alarming, and I urge you to investigate what is going on in the Refugee and Asylum programs currently being administered by the State Dept with HHS.<br />
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When refugee and asylum financing was centralized under federal control in 1980, the budget was less than 100 million. Today the PRM budget for 2015 is 1.2 billion. If you add in other government services used by refugees and asylum seekers, the annual budget exceeds $20 billion. That is a 20,000% increase in expenditures for refugee and asylum services after 30 years. Like so many government programs, good intentions have evolved into a bureaucratic monster with many players with the State Dept. holding the golden purse, and granting money to a wide array of Non-Govt. Organizations (NGOs). The Refugee Racket is now in full swing. Like the VA scandals that are only now being discovered, the Refugee Racket is riddled with corruption, fraud and conflicts of interest that harm the taxpayers and negatively impact communities far and wide.<br />
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Annual reports are due to you from the PRM detailing the US intake and the performance of refugees to assure they are not a burden on the US taxpayer. In fact they are over two years past due. These reports are never commented on, reviewed as far as I know by anyone on immigration committees, and never discussed in the media. These reports have become outright frauds, signed off by the highest officials in the US State Dept and the Dept of HHS.<br />
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The State Dept has asked for public comments as part of their annual review. Attached following my letter are my comments to Ms. Anne Richards at the State Dept. PRM. This program is simply out of control, with big business NGOs such as IRC, LIRS and the Catholic Refugee NGOs dumping enormous numbers of inassimilable refugees in our small towns devastating these communities. Once their initial NGO payments end, the NGOs move them onto the dole. Did you know that over 60% of refugees are still on the dole after 5 years?! But the State Dept. will tell you very different numbers. How do they get away with it? Simple, the definition of ‘economic independence’ or ‘self sufficiency’ has been dumbed down over the years. Today, ‘economic independence’ does not mean economic independence or non use of govt. welfare. What does it mean today? Economic independence at the State Dept. means the refugee has a job or had a job in the last six months, and dependency on govt. programs are not considered as dependency.<br />
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Refugee dependency is nothing new; it’s been a problem since 1980 when refugee admissions became government financed; only now it is just really huge and debilitating for local communities. Wilson-Fish is one program established to resolve the ‘dependency’ problem. The Wilson-Fish alternative (so named for its Congressional sponsors) was added in 1984 as an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act. The amendment authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement alternative projects for refugees:<br />
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“[t]he 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, 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.”<br />
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The Wilson-Fish amendment was initially introduced as part of the FY1985 Continuing Resolution on Appropriations. On October 2, 1984 when Senator Wilson introduced Amendment No. 6965, he stated very clearly that:<br />
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“The specific intention of this amendment is to encourage refugee self-support and employment in California, a State which consistently receives at least 22 percent of all incoming refugees. A disproportionate number of refugees end up on welfare rolls. The language in this amendment will allow alternative approaches to this <b>welfare dependency cycle</b>.”<br />
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In contrast to the “specific intent” of the Wilson-Fish amendment, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement has unilaterally and without legislative authorization, used the Wilson-Fish alternative to continue resettling refugees in states where the State has decided to discontinue participating in this non-mandatory federal program.<br />
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For example, the 1995 notice of available funding for Wilson-Fish projects states that “This announcement [for funding Wilson-Fish projects] also provides for an alternative project to be a vehicle to continue resettlement programs in States where the State government chooses not to administer RCA/RMA or equivalent programs.”<br />
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The U.S Office of Refugee Resettlement website states that “the purposes of the Wilson-Fish program are to:<br />
~Increase refugee prospects for early employment and self-sufficiency<br />
~Promote coordination among voluntary resettlement agencies and service providers<br />
~Ensure that refugee assistance programs exist in every state where refugees are resettled”<br />
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The last “purpose” added by the federal agency, is not supported by either the language or intent of the Wilson-Fish statutory language. Wilson-Fish is being used illegally by the State Dept. PRM to deny the State’s rights to control who gets resettled, and who must financially support the refugees. Does the federal government have the constitutional authority to pass off a federal program to a non-profit group which effectively eliminates, or nearly eliminates, any state control of how state tax dollars are spent?<br />
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I urge you to establish an investigation and seek outside council, outside the refugee and asylum industry, to establish what is going on:<br />
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Is the State Dept. PRM acting illegally? Are the annual reports to Congress fraudulent? Is there fraud in the entire refugee intake and disbursement industry? How bad is it? Is screening effective or a joke? How bad is the refugee and asylum fraud? Is 80,000 refugees (120,000 including others) too high? All go on welfare and most stay on welfare for a decade or more, most for life. Is the State Dept. PRM engaged In a cover-up of the problems in communities swamped by refugee settlement, and the conflict and resentment pressures that did not exist before?<br />
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What ethnic groups are unable to assimilate and hold productive employment and not be a tax burden at 1 year, 5 years and 10 years? How does this impact the small communities that suddenly have 50, 100, 200 third world refugees to care for and integrate? Refugees with communicable diseases, physical and mental disabilities are a tremendous burden but much of the cost is hidden outside the State Dept expenses, i.e., Medicaid, Medicare, SSSI, SSDI, Section 8, state welfare programs, etc. Those outside costs must be identified and published. It is fraud to do otherwise.<br />
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Refugee and asylum criminals are an enormous expense.<br />
The Tsarnaevs, brought to us by the State Dept.’s asylum program, will cost the US $100 million including court costs. How involved are refugees in Medicaid, Medicare, SSDI, and food stamp fraud? The numbers will shock you. The overwhelming number of terrorist attacks are committed by Muslims. Muslims do not assimilate. Let me give you an example. In Minnesota, the groups with the highest poverty rate (and use the most welfare) are Somalis (63%), the Minneapolis average is 12%. Almost all of these Somalis are refugees or their family members the State Dept. PRM allowed them to bring to America ignoring their inability to financially support them. Yet the State Dept Annual Report promotes great results for achieving economic independence for refugees. Muslims believe they should be able to implement Sharia law. But Sharia law discriminates against non-Muslims. These reasons alone should tell you that we should reduce Muslim immigration. We should reduce all refugee immigration. Instead we should focus on ‘compatible cultural zones’ (CCZs) for resettlement. Muslims are resettled in Muslim countries so they can be happy with an Islamic law based lifestyle. Syrian Muslims should be resettled in rich Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, etc<br />
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The United States welcomes over half of all refugees resettled in the world, more than all other resettlement countries combined. Australia and Canada welcomed over 40% but are now reducing their intake. Europe is bursting from illegal immigration and refugee and asylum demands and major restrictions are being put in place. Rich Islamic countries take almost none. The US State Dept. has imported more than 3 million refugees over the past 30 years. Yet there has been no large scale retrospective analysis or statistical sampling of these refugees to verify they have been successful at assimilating to America and are not dependent on government welfare as promised by the 1980 refugee act. The State Dept. PRM has admitted more than 12,000 refugees with terrorist activity exemptions (TRIG)! Does anyone follow up that these ‘refugees’ are being productive and achieving financial independence? I assure you the annual report by the State Dept. PRM is a fraud. There is no audit ever!<br />
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There are many questions about how refugees are recruited and screened. For example, the State Dept. PRM maintains refugee recruitment centers in Africa and Asia. What is shocking is that the PRM maintains a dedicated refugee recruitment center in Austria! What in the world is the State Dept. PRM doing recruiting refugees (through an NGO under contract) in Austria? Shouldn’t Austria be doing resettlement in their own country of asylum seekers? We should end all family reunification for refugees. The African/Middle East refugee and asylum programs are plagued by fraud and corruption. Four countries of origin (Somalia, DRC, Eritrea, and Sudan) currently account for the vast majority of U.S. admissions from the region, and these refugees have proven unable to assimilate and become financially independent, but instead become permanent dependents on the US government. Addressing the issue of Compatible Culture Zones (CCZs), why are the rich Arab countries NOT taking any permanent refugees? They are rich but they insist we have to take them all, but they are all culturally compatible (i.e., Muslim) to the refugees. Are you being played as a ‘useful idiot’ by these Arab countries?<br />
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Loan fraud and nonpayment is epidemic.<br />
The State Dept. pays for flying refugees to the US from the NGO processing centers around the world. The cost of this flight is a ‘loan’ to the refugee. The State Dept. does not report the recovery rate for these ‘loans’ because the overwhelming majority DO NOT PAY THE LOAN BACK! It’s a joke on the American taxpayers, and the State Dept. PRM is laughing all the way to their budget review meeting.<br />
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I urge you to begin an investigation of the State Dept, its PRM organization and the NGOs who lobby and promote refugees to feed their refugee dumping system. This year the State Dept. PRM is asking for a substantial increase in their budget. Are we not broke? Why do these asylum immigrants get immediate eligibility for all welfare programs and why is it indefinite? The State Dept. PRM does provide some funding for the first eight months. The NGOs spend those months shuttling around the new refugees signing them up for all the welfare programs, or queuing them for when they become eligible after the eight months has expired. The refugee program was supposed to not leave refugees as a burden on the taxpayers and states nor have a negative impact on these communities where they are dumped. But that is exactly what is happening. And why is our government financing these NGOs, many of them get as much as 97% of their ‘revenues’ from the government through State Department grants. And is it not ILLEGAL for a NGO to use government funds they solicit for refugee settlement to be used for lobbying and propaganda? Isn’t this starting to smell? The IRC, for example, is HUGE, and has just hired a new CEO Milliban for $430,000 – that is more than President Obama makes! These NGOs don’t give a crap about the poor citizens in America which must deal with these inassimilable refugees. They are just in it for the money; they and the UN aggressively push refugees in the US who will always be a burden on our government welfare system. Local communities’ concerns are ignored or covered up by the NGOs and the State Dept. PRM. The State Dept. PRM has even started a propaganda arm “Welcoming America” to outshout the dissenters and bully those who criticize the refugee program. Truly, our small local communities have become looked down upon as hicks and bigots and we have no rights to refuse this dumping.<br />
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You are familiar with the revolving door in Washington. Look into the revolving doors at the State Dept. PRM and the NGOs who depend heavily on PRM largesse to run their rackets. Secretary Richards herself is part of this revolving door ‘all in the family’ system. Before working for the State Dept., who doles out the money, she worked for an NGO lobbying the State Dept. PRM for money. Doesn’t this smell to you? It does to me. And that is only one example.<br />
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Who watches over the NGOs? NGOs operating in the refugee industry receive over $1 billion annually from the US Govt. to recruit and resettle over 100,000 refugee and asylum candidates every year. Does the federal govt. have board oversight and reporting mechanisms within these NGOs? No they do not. NGOs on average get 80% or more of their funding from the US Govt. This is up from less than 10% twenty years ago. Has it become a racket, and the NGOs need more and more refugees for ‘product’ to sell the US govt? Has an incestuous relationship evolved between the State Dept and the NGOs? Look at all the officers at the State Dept. Many are from the refugee industry. Are they biased, are they concerned more about expanding the refugee industry than the taxpayer’s dollar? All NGOs have a propaganda and lobbying arm. They lobby Congress for more money per head, and more heads. That is how they grow their business. Think about it. Our government is giving tax dollars to an NGO that uses those tax dollars to produce biased propaganda and lobby Congressmen to expand endlessly the refugee intake!<br />
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There is so much more. Big business conflicts’, shocking food stamp and Medicaid fraud, the list is long. These are hard questions and the truth must be found out.<br />
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I urge you to call for an investigation and listen to concerned citizens. Call those officers in the State Dept. and the NGOs to task for their deceptions and fraud. We must seriously curb all refugee and asylum settlement and undertake a full investigation of the fraud, costs and corruption that has become the refugee business and the malevolent organizations that we are financing, much to the detriment of our treasury and our communities. The Refugee and Asylum Racket is BIG BUSINESS and lucrative, just ask the Tsarnaevs!<br />
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After reading my comments to the State Dept. PRM’s public comment period, I would like someone from the Committee’s staff to reply to me regarding the answers to the many issues I have brought to your attention. This staff person can assure me that my letters were read and that research regarding my claims are now underway.<br />
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[Personal contact info and address removed]<br />
THE BEST RESOURCE FOR UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON IN THE PRM IS -
REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT WATCH run by Anne Corcoran. She has done the hard work for you!<br />
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P.S. I would also like to know why the State Dept. this year terminated the public hearing portion of their annual review. Last year, the State Dept. banned any camera or recording devices at their one day public comment hearing? Isn’t that my tax money that is paying for that meeting? What are they afraid of that they refuse to allow recording at the public hearings, and now refuse to have public hearings at all? This is important to me that you tell me why the State Dept. did this. I just received an email Weds. June 4th from the State Dept. PRM stating they are refusing to release any of the public comment records received including my own! What are they hiding?<br />
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The following pages are my public comments to the
Annual State Dept. Request for Public Comments for 2015 Refugee Quotas and Budget<br />
(next page please)<br />
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Dear Ms. Spruell, (State Dept PRM)<br />
COMMENTS TO STATE FOR MAY 29th 2014
SENT BY EMAIL (spruellda@state.gov) and FAX (202) 453-9393)<br />
ATTN: Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration
Ms. Anne Richards
US State Department<br />
Washington, DC. 20520<br />
May 29th, 2014<br />
<br />
Re: Federal Register Public Notice 19958-29 (2014 – 8113) Comment Request<br />
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Dear Ms Richard:
I am writing to submit written comments on the President’s FY 2015 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and the State Dept’s proposed budget for refugee resettlement for 2015. I also strongly protest that the State Dept. unilaterally chose to cancel any public hearings for May 2014. Last year you refused to allow video recording of the hearings. This year, you have unilaterally decided that no public hearings will be done. What happened to government transparency? Who pays your salary, the taxpayers or the refugees?<br />
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I request that I be provided a complete copy of all testimony and comments, preferably electronic or at a State Dept. website that you have established.<br />
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The refugee and asylum resettlement programs are corrupt, controlled by insiders with conflict of interests and plagued with fraud and incompetence in admissions and reports to Congress. The State Dept. and its NGOs actively engage in dumping third world refugees across the country. After their initial support period (usually 8 months) ends, these inassimilable refugees become burden$ to the state, and in many cases, become lifetime consumers of federal, state and local welfare benefits.<br />
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In this document I outline some of the problems within the refugee and asylum program and call for Congress to investigate and take immediate action to radically reform the refugee program.<br />
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When the refugee and asylum programs were formalized as a government financed arm of the State Department in 1980, many promises were made to the American people. Refugees were not to negatively impact the communities they were dropped upon and the refugees were not to be a long term burden on the taxpayers. Both of these promises have been broken and the State Dept. has actively engaged in fraud and deception in their annual reports to Congress regarding refugee ‘economic independence.’ The State Dept. engages in reporting fraud to the US Congress and actively propagandize (along with the NGOs) using taxpayer money to suppress dissent, and cover up the fraud and negative impact of refugee resettlement.<br />
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A few of the problems the State Dept. PRM actively engages in:<br />
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Introduction of Third World diseases to America.<br />
The State Dept PRM actively suppresses data regarding the introduction of diseases and the chronic and expensive medical needs of refugees. No one at PRM is reporting the admission rates for refugees with specific diseases such as scabies, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis B, hepatitis C, gonorrhea, syphilis, measles and rubella, malaria and Chagas disease. No one at PRM is researching the medical costs borne by taxpayers for treating diseased, and physically and mentally ill refugees. No one knows! It’s off the books and lost in the Medicare and Medicaid ‘miscellaneous’ budget. It is deception and fraud for the PRM not to estimate these indirect costs in their annual reports to Congress. PRM’s intentional omission of these costs is malevolent.<br />
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Inadequate screening of Muslims with jihad/sharia beliefs<br />
Remember the Tsarnaevs? You brought them here as ‘asylum seekers.’ Then they started traveling back and forth to Dagestan (their home country they were supposedly ‘fleeing persecution.’) Your NGOs set them up on welfare and that is where they stayed for ten years. Meanwhile, the wife engaged in grand theft, and the sons conspired to commit jihad against US citizens. The State Dept. PRM is an accessory to murder. The Tsarnaevs committed murder at the Boston marathon, and the State Dept. PRM brought it to us, did not follow up on their fraud, and supported the family reunification for these fraudsters as they brought their sons to America despite having no financial resources (other than our generous welfare) to support them. The Boston marathon attacks were committed by jihadis allowed into the US as part of family reunification. What is more disconcerting is how their parents were able to easily attain asylum. Just like that. They were here on tourist visas and through the father’s sister, were able to get asylum status. Who checked on these people? Why do asylum seekers get unlimited welfare access? Forever? They did not pay a dime into the system and milked it for all it’s worth. If their homeland was so terrible, why did they go back on ‘tourist’ visits and now live there permanently apparently. The mother was a shoplifter and skipped back to southern Russia to avoid trial for a $1600 theft (shoplifting) at Lord and Taylor’s. Are they still on welfare? Are we depositing welfare payments in their bank accounts in Russia? America is a sucker and the State Dept. is the biggest sucker of all. What about the hundreds of thousands of Somalis that the State Dept. has imported? Is the State Dept. even aware of the criminal behavior Somalis are notorious for in Minneapolis? Entire communities have been destroyed. They don’t call areas of Minneapolis ‘Little Somalia’ for nothing. There is truly a perverse agenda at the State Dept. as they bring in more and more inassimilable groups and dump them in American communities. And who pays for this folly? We do, the struggling taxpayers. Do you plan to do the same thing for Syrian ‘refugees?’<br />
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Somalia fraud in refugee and family reunification is well documented, yet the State Dept. PRM plans to bring more than 6,000 more to add to the more than 200,000 Somalis that have been imported over the past 10 years. In 2008, the State Department was shocked to discover that the family reunification program was so riddled with fraud that tens of thousands of Africans, mostly Somalis, got into the US by lying! The program was closed for years, but is now up and running again! None of those fraudulent refugees were prosecuted. The State Dept. left them alone to live off the US welfare state and become citizens! It was just too much trouble and would make the State Dept. look incompetent to track them down.<br />
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Why are we importing more Somalis anyway? Somalia has a functioning government now. A recent report from MN Compass show that 67% of Somalis in Minnesota ( the main resettlement target for Somalis) are welfare dependent! Over 80% of female Muslim refugees do NOT work and have multiple children at enormous expense to Medicaid, CHIP and other welfare programs. Yet the State Depts annual report to Congress says that refugees have successfully assimilated and do not use government welfare above US averages. Someone is lying, and sadly it is the State Dept PRM.<br />
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State Depts. PRM plan to import 15,000 CAR/Congolese refugees should be canceled.<br />
It is time to stop all importation of refugees from central Africa. These ethnic groups have extreme difficulties adjusting to America. They have great difficulty in learning and the overwhelming majority will remain wards of the state (i.e., permanent welfare dependency). Instead, we should establish Compatible Culture Zones (CCZs) within adjacent countries and provide in-place assistance only. Why do rich Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar refuse to take any Muslim refugees and insist we take them?<br />
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Demand an end to the revolving door between the State Dept PRM and the NGOs, NGO lobbying using taxpayer money, NGO dumping of refugees in communities with inadequate support, Call to reform and increase NGO oversight (excessive salaries, conflict of interest)<br />
As you are aware, the NGOs have become almost entirely dependent on govt. funding. The refugee program has become the Refugee Racket industry. Annually, the State Dept PRM hands out over one billion dollars to these NGOs, yet has no control over these NGOs’ boards, and salaries. Why do some of these NGOs CEOs make over $500,000 annually, yet receive over 90% of their ‘revenue’ from the US government? It all looks corrupt and plagued with nepotism.<br />
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Another disturbing aspect is the revolving door between NGOs and the State Dept PRM. Anne Richards, the Asst. Secretary, is a former executive with an NGO (IRC, one of the largest NGOs almost entirely dependent on PRM funding.) The conflict of interests is obvious. NGOs get paid per head for each refugee they resettle, and their intent is to push through as many refugees they can. The State Dept. PRM supposed goal is to make sure refugees are NOT a burden on the American taxpayer and do not negatively impact the communities where they are resettled. Where does Anne Richards stand on this? Is this why the annual reports to Congress are misleading regarding the ‘economic independence’ of settled refugees? NGOs must not be allowed to lobby and propagandize to promote more refugee importations on the taxpayer’s dime. It is contemptible. For example, the Lutheran LIRS NGO is budgeting millions to lobby Congress and a review of their annual reports show that 97% of their budget comes from the State Dept PRM! What is going on here? I, as a taxpayer, must pay for the dependent refugees. I pay for the NGO, and its highly paid executives, to bring these ‘refugees’ to the US. After eight months, the NGO drops them, the money has run out from the State Dept. PRM and they move on to the next refugee recruits. Then the NGO uses some of this taxpayer money to lobby for MORE refugees and attack their critics! It is absurd.<br />
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Who audits these NGOs like the IRC, Catholic, Hebrew, and so many others? There are 9 major NGOs spending over one billion dollars on the taxpayer’s behalf every year, this government funding averages over 80% of their budgets! We OWN these industries but have no oversight over their boards! And that is only part of the overall cost for the government’s annual refugee and asylum quota, now exceeding 100,000 per year. There must be accountability. Is anyone looking at the long term ramifications of allowing these NGOs to have free reign to import thousands of inassimilable groups and dump them in our towns? Why do officers of these NGOs make more than the President? David Milliband was just hired as CEO of one group (International Rescue Committee) with a $430,000 salary! Over half of their funding is paid by US taxpayers, others are over 90%! Does anyone care about the citizens who have to deal with these NGOs and the inassimilable people they dump into our communities?<br />
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Demand State Rights to Refuse Refugees, State Rights to Control NGOs, State Rights to Immediately End Refugee Settlement<br />
If a state agrees to resettle refugees it should be done through a state office COMPLETELY ACCOUNTABLE TO ELECTED OFFICIALS AND TAXPAYERS.<br />
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Demand Deportation and Stripping of Citizenship of Refugees Who Commit Welfare Fraud<br />
As I have studied the US refugee program over the past year, it is shocking the amount of welfare fraud committed by refugees. Any searches at Refugee Resettlement Watch will produce numerous articles from around the country exposing MILLIIONS in food stamp and Medicaid fraud by refugees imported by the State Dept PRM. Does the PRM monitor refugees for criminal fraud? Why are these criminal refugees’ immigration rights not being revoked and deported? Apparently after the PRM has dumped them in the states, it is no longer their problem. It’s the taxpayer’s problem!<br />
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State Dept PRM is subservient to the Corrupt UN and UNHCR<br />
I oppose the PRM being subservient to the UN and the corrupt UNHCR. This organization is controlled by America haters and Muslims, and they are constantly pushing the US to take some of the worst ‘refugees’ into the US and place them on our welfare and disrupt communities throughout the country.<br />
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We borrow BILLIONS so that we can import the world’s poor and drain the US Treasury by putting them on welfare forever.<br />
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The State Dept. PRM has requested a substantial increase in their budget for 2015. No financial crisis here! For a nation that is broke, why are we financing the importation of huge numbers of inassimilable and dependent people into America? Why do we allow family chain immigration for the initially approved refugee with no concern for the welfare impact of importing more low education inassimilable refugee relatives? It is the destruction of American communities by stealth by the State Dept PRM. While I want to end the refugee and asylum programs due to their corruption and negative effects on communities, that request will be denied by those in power at the State Dept. PRM. Therefore, I demand that a full scale audit and Congressional hearings regarding PRM corruption, conflicts of interest, the performance of refugees and asylum seekers and the NGOs placing them in the US be completed in 2014 before any further immigration is allowed. There are so many questions that demand answers. What percentage of entrants continues to use welfare after 1 year, 2 years, 5 years? Can we ban Muslim immigration due to the inherent hatred and preaching of violence toward nonbelievers demanded by Islam and its teachings? If no outright end can be considered, I urge that the government dramatically reduce refugee and asylum entries to less than 3,000 per year total including family resettlement (if family resettlement is not banned outright ).<br />
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The refugee program, like all government programs, started out small with a tightly targeted purpose and benevolent intentions. Now it is a monster devouring billions of dollars and destroying our communities. Indeed, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.<br />
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The State Department should declare a one year moratorium on settlement and take a critical look at how this program has been corrupted and how adversely it is affecting American communities.<br />
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To fully understand the corruption and incompetence in America’s refugee and asylum program, I recommend you study at length the rich and insightful Refugee Resettlement Watch website.<br />
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[Personal contact information removed]<br />
<br />
Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
Additional CCs to Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Lindsay Graham Senator John McCain, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Cantor, House Speaker Boehner, etc.<br />
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Web Resources – refugee resettlement watch, muslim statistics (http://muslimstatistics.wordpress.com/ Excellent source of muslim statistics and related news stories about muslim demographics in the West.) MN CompassRefugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-988901089048697455.post-54131685395180827102014-06-15T22:42:00.003-04:002014-06-16T10:36:55.382-04:00The Purpose of the Website RefugeeRacket.comThe purpose of Refugee Racket Exposed (RefugeeRacket.com) is simple - Expose the refugee and asylum system that has developed in the US and make Congress investigate the fraud and corruption and the negative impact the refugee racket industry has on America and Americans.<br />
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The Refugee Racket system is a multibillion dollar racket and controls the importation and/or settlement of over 150,000 refugees and asylum seekers into the US at taxpayer's expense. I intend to expose the players who game and corrupt the system and to educate Congress about this abused program. Congress needs to dramatically scale back and reform the refugee and asylum industry. Taxpayers are on the hook for the refugees and asylum seekers resettlement in more ways than you can imagine. You pay for all of it. The Refugee Racket is the perfect example of the adage 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' In America today, it is dangerous to rock the boat. You will be attacked, and in some cases, physically harmed by those within the refugee racket. For this reason, I post under the pseudonym Jan Sobieski to protect myself and my family from harm. <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Jan%20Sobieski">If you don't know who Jan Sobieski is, google it.</a>Refugee Racket Webteamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15367560614164920706noreply@blogger.com0