Refugee Resettlement program

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s pick to serve as director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, once argued that America’s refusal to accept refugees in sufficient numbers posed a long-term threat to national security.

Linda Hartke is out as CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, three months after Breitbart News first reported on an internal investigation into claims of financial irregularities and harassment at the embattled non-profit under her leadership.

The number of active tuberculosis (TB) cases diagnosed in Minnesota increased 12 percent in 2016 to 168, up from 150 one year earlier, according to the Minnesota Department of Health’s (MDH) Tuberculosis Prevention and Control Program’s Quarterly Surveillance Report, October 1, 2016 – December 31, 2016.

The barbaric practise of female genital mutilation — a procedure made unlawful by the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 — has been thrust to the fore of public debate in the United States following the arrests of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala,

The blueprint for the Trump administration’s FY 2018 budget released on Thursday “allows for significant funding of humanitarian assistance, including food aid, disaster, and refugee program funding” in the State Department.

“People in government” headed up a “452-person nationwide ‘post-election national refugee advocacy’ conference call” on Friday, according to a report at MassLive.com.

The Riverside County, California director of Disease Control is not revealing the immigration status of the elementary school child diagnosed with leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, or the unknown person infected with the disease who had “prolonged contact” with the child.

Included in Obama’s proposal is a plan to bring in a “significantly higher” number of Syrian refugees in FY 2017 than the 11,503 who have arrived in FY 2016 as of Wednesday. The Obama administration set a goal of 10,000 this year, and has already exceeded that number with more than two weeks to go in this fiscal year.

Twenty-one refugees resettled in Nebraska were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) between 2011 and 2015, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services tells Breitbart News.

That same year, 2012, the percentage of active TB cases in Idaho that were foreign-born spiked to 80 percent, or 12 out of 15, up from 50 percent in 2011, or 6 out of 12. As Breitbart News reported previously, the percentage of active TB cases in the country that are foreign-born is 66 percent.

When Eritrean refugee Mulugeta Zemu Mana was recently arraigned in a courtroom in Twin Falls, Idaho, on charges of aggravated battery, he told the presiding judge, “The only guilt I have is the day I decided to come to this country.”

Boston talk radio king Howie Carr tells Breitbart News that Adnan Fazeli, the Iranian refugee who left the United States to fight and die for ISIS, proves that Donald Trump’s speech on Monday calling for “extreme vetting” of refugees before

Seven of the seventy-two sworn police officers currently employed by the Twin Falls police department are resettled refugees.

A refugee from Eritrea was arrested on felony aggravated battery charges in Twin Falls, Idaho on July 28.

Even though all refugees are encouraged to participate in an initial domestic medical screening that does include HIV testing within 90 days of entering the country, no one knows how many HIV positive refugees have arrived in the United States in the subsequent six and a half years, since participation in these screenings is voluntary and a significant percentage of refugees simply choose not to be screened.

As Breitbart News reported previously, twenty-one additional refugees in Wisconsin were diagnosed with active TB during the same time period, making the Badger State the refugee TB capital of the country, at least among the handful of states that have so far reported that data.

That brings the total of refugees the Vermont Department of Health now admits have been diagnosed with active TB between 2003 and June 30, 2016 to seventeen. Since only 6,300 refugees have arrived in Vermont over the past twenty-five years, these new statistics reveal a third-world level of active TB among the refugees currently residing in the Green Mountain State.

On Tuesday Tennessee Attorney General Herb Slatery gave the Tennessee General Assembly a green light to sue the federal government on Tenth Amendment grounds over its resettlement of refugees in the Volunteer State.

Neither the Vermont Department of Health nor the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants-Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, the local resettlement agency hired by the federal government, are admitting how much of the TB increase is from resettled refugees.

The percentage of North Carolina’s active TB cases that were foreign-born increased slightly from 44 percent in 2014 to 46 percent in 2015, still below the national rate of 66 percent of active TB cases in 2015 that were foreign-born.

Wisconsin may not be the actual TB leader, though. Only eight of the forty nine states that resettle refugees under the federal refugee resettlement program have responded to Breitbart News requests to provide this important public health data, which resettlement agencies are required by law to monitor and report in each state.

The introduction of MDR TB to the United States represents a serious public health threat, since its successful treatment is uncertain and very expensive. Active TB can usually be treated successfully in six to nine months at a cost of $17,000 per patient, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), but MDR TB treatment costs over $150,000 per patient and can take between 20 and 26 months.

This makes Idaho the seventh state to confirm to Breitbart News that recently arrived refugees have been diagnosed with active TB.

Dr. John Baird, Health Officer for the Fargo Cass Public Health Department in North Dakota, confirms to Breitbart News that the agency, which serves all of Cass County, has diagnosed and treated four refugees with active tuberculosis (TB) between 2012 and 2015.

Louisiana now has the dubious distinction as the state with the highest reported number of recently resettled refugees with active TB —at least among the five states that have confirmed to Breitbart that refugees resettled in their state have either arrived with active TB, or developed it within the first year of their arrival.

Politifact, the left-of-center mainstream media “fact-checker,” has some bad news for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Nine of the 842 refugees who arrived in Kentucky between 2013 and 2015 were diagnosed with active TB, according to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.

The recent increase in the number of active TB cases reported in the United States is driven by increases in the foreign born population with high rates of active and latent TB, as Breitbart News reported last week.

Eleven refugees with active tuberculosis (TB) were among more than 111,000 refugees who arrived in Florida during the three years between 2013 and 2015, according to a report the Florida Department of Health recently sent to Breitbart News.

The first reported case of a person with measles in the recent Memphis outbreak, which now numbers seven confirmed cases, was at a local mosque on April 15, according to the Shelby County Health Department.

North Dakota is one of fourteen states that have withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement program. In those states, the Obama administration has hired voluntary agencies [VOLAGs] to continue to resettle refugees under the questionable statutory authority of the Wilson-Fish alternative program.

Don Barnett, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, tells Breitbart News that the federal government’s operation of the refugee resettlement program in Tennessee costs the state more than $165 million each year.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s recent decision to withdraw the state of Kansas from the federal refugee resettlement program may be just the first step in a full-fledged battle with the Obama administration over state sovereignty issues.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he believes welcoming refugees is crucial to Dallas becoming a “global city” during a recent summit on the city’s economy, its workforce, and its future. The Democratic mayor made the statement after being asked about “hosting refugees” and “bringing people inside” as “one of the building blocks of a revitalized town.”

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Tennessee State Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (R-Collierville), sponsor of the resolution calling on Tennessee to sue the federal government over its operation of the refugee resettlement program in the state on Tenth Amendment grounds, issued a statement today calling the recent testimony by NATO commander General Philip Breedlove that “ISIS is spreading like a cancer” among refugees pouring into Europe “another wake-up call.”