Maryland’s
diminutive and unassuming private citizen, Ann Corcoran, has been writing about
refugee resettlement on her now-famous blog, Refugee
Resettlement Watch, since 2007. Without her work it is highly
doubtful we would know nearly as much about this dangerous and wildly
out-of-control program. To know her, listen to her, watch her on TV, she
reminds you of a kindly grandmother, (which she is), quietly but assertively
lecturing us to eat our porridge. You could never imagine the ire she has
aroused among the radical Left and their allies in the refugee resettlement
industry.
But
she has.
Southern Poverty Law Center have
branded her an Islamophobe
She
wrote a short book three years ago, Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America,
which is still in the top 30 in the immigration category at Amazon. A short video
produced to promote the book has been viewed over 2.9 million times.
Her blog has thousands of entries on everything from the refugee resettlement
budget and the despotic, arcane, and highly secretive process by which refugees
are resettled into this nation, to the horrific crimes and terrorism committed
by these nice refugees that we foolish deplorables are so worried about. Her
work inspired me to write my own short (and not nearly as popular) book, The Red-Green Axis, and the (not nearly as
popular) promotional video to go with it.
But
to listen to the Left, you would never know she is a kindly grandmother. Perish
the thought! The extreme left-wing smear merchants at the Southern Poverty Law Center have branded
her an Islamophobe. Her blog is even mentioned in a pamphlet published by the
private resettlement industry itself, titled Resettlement at Risk:
Meeting Emerging Challenges to Refugee Resettlement in Local Communities.
Yes folks, she is one of those “emerging challenges.”
She
even attended a meeting in Pennsylvania where representatives of the U.S. State
Department and HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement spoke of “pockets of
resistance” to refugee resettlement cropping up around the country. We know
that many of those “pockets” became motivated by following Ann’s blog. I
subsequently organized a group we jokingly called the “pockets of resistance”
to mock the industry. But they were no joke. One of those “pockets”
recently threw out a five-term mayor who ignored
public sentiment on refugees. Yes to all you refugee resettlement industry
“stakeholders,” we natives who pay for all of this crap are getting restless.
To
be clear here, refugees are resettled in the U.S. through a network of nine
primary and 320 affiliate private contractors paid by the head to resettle
refugees. In other words, the federal government incentivizes them to resettle
ever more refugees in an endless stream. Fraud in the refugee and asylum
programs is off the charts.
Red-Green
Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America
Language modification: Integration
instead of Assimilation
In Resettlement
at Risk, the refugee contractors’ answer to challenges like that posed by
Ann Corcoran and the “Pockets of Resistance” is to: “partner with… the Southern
Poverty Law Center to learn more about individuals and groups leading local
efforts to resist resettlement, to determine if they belong to organized
anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim organizations or networks.”
In
other words, using our tax dollars, they do what all leftists do when
confronted with an effective opponent. They waste no time vilifying and
smearing that person regardless — or perhaps because of — the factual
information the person brings to the table.
Foreign
Policy has now joined the fray. In response to the Trump
administration’s most recent travel ban proposal, FP author Lauren Wolfe writes:
Indeed, the language in the
directive is suspiciously similar to the language used online by white
supremacists and members of the alt-right, including Ann Corcoran, who in June
2013 lamented on her nationalist website, Refugee Resettlement Watch, that the
term “assimilation” is no longer a part of government lexicon and does not even
occur in dozens of recent reports and papers generated about refugee
resettlement. The operative term in vogue now is ‘integration’ with its
clear intent of maintenance of ethnic identity.” And it’s not just that
Trump’s determination echoes the language of racists and hate groups — such
groups seem to have played a direct role in this language modification.”
[emphasis mine]
Now,
you have to marvel at such cheek. The goal for immigrants has always
been to assimilate. They are required by longstanding law to learn English,
understand the Constitution and swear their allegiance to their newfound nation
to become citizens — as well they should!
Left has been trying for years to
undermine the “assimilation” principle. Championing the slogan “diversity
is our strength,”
But Foreign
Policy apparently knows better! “Assimilation” is suddenly the code
for racists and Islamophobes. What’s more, FP even cites the
SPLC for its proof!
The
Left has been trying for years to undermine the “assimilation” principle.
Championing the slogan “diversity is our strength,” leftists and their allies
in the open borders movement advocate “integration” not assimilation.
Why?
Because their true goal is anarchy. They strive to turn America into an
“ungovernable” Tower of Babel. And they will of course be supported at the
polls in their efforts by “New Americans” who can come to the U.S., be set up
with welfare benefits, special grants and employment preferences unavailable to
Americans, without even having to learn English!
Islamic
leaders have explicitly stated that their goal is to avoid assimilation. Every
Muslim’s favorite “Muslim progressive” (if that is not a contradiction in terms
I don’t know what is) Linda Sarsour, says, “Our number one and top
priority is to protect and defend our community. It is not to assimilate and to
please any other people in authority…”
This
view has been echoed by other Muslim leaders. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has
offered similar counsel to American Muslims:
We need rules,
institutions, and support to enable people to integrate into cohesive
communities and for the avoidance of doubt, I don’t mean assimilation, I mean
integration, and there’s a difference…People shouldn’t have to drop their
cultures and traditions when they arrive in our cities and countries.
Europe: Mostly Muslim immigrant
communities have walled themselves off and refuse to assimilate
But
that defines the problem in Europe, where mostly Muslim immigrant communities
have walled themselves off and refuse to assimilate, creating their own
separate legal system and “no go zones,” where police dare not tread and
terrorists plot with impunity.
Now
listen to how FP’s Wolfe cleverly twists the argument to make Trump’s demand
for “assimilation” appear unreasonable:
According to both
international and U.S. refugee law, people like my great-grandfather have for
decades been candidates for refugee resettlement based solely on their
well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries. Their ability to
‘assimilate’ — learn English and embrace the customs of the United States — had
no bearing on their asylum applications.
The
Left excels at lying. If you can’t make the argument with the facts, change the
facts. The statement above is true. It is also irrelevant. Asylum applications
don’t include a requirement to “assimilate,” but the hoped-for citizenship that
comes with it requires assimilation as it does with all people who
apply for citizenship. It is also something all immigrants like her
great-grandfather strove for immediately because it was the ticket to success
in their newly-adopted nation, as it would be in any nation.
I
suspect Wolfe’s great-grandfather would be on Trump’s side in this issue and be
appalled at his descendant’s misuse of words.
But it gets worse
But
it gets worse. Wolfe quotes the Migration Policy Institute, an open-borders
advocacy group that poses as a think tank:
“Assimilation is kind of
the erasure of cultural markers,” according to Kathleen Newland, a senior
fellow at the Washington-based Migration
Policy Institute. “It’s important to make a distinction,” because,
she said, the word “has that connotation of erasure of one thing and absorption
into the mainstream culture.”
Once
again, the Left stands reality on its head. The refugee resettlement program,
asylum, the unaccompanied alien children program, the diversity visa and others
seek to import foreign nationals from hundreds of other nations for the
specific purpose of erasing America’s national character. The job
of refugees is to assimilate. No one demands that they abandon their culture.
But they must assimilate to become Americans.
To
the Left, “diversity is our strength” precisely because it weakens and dilutes
American culture, its constitutional underpinnings, the rule of law and
everything about Western society they despise, i.e. the part
that makes us exceptional. Antifa, the Revolutionary Communist
Party, and the other street thugs now making daily showings in the news, are
simply the ugly front of this burgeoning movement. If they can’t win at the
ballot box — and they are losing everywhere as Americans come to realize what
they are about — they will try to win by replacing the voters and ultimately
replacing our entire society.
God
bless Ann Corcoran for what she has done and continues to do — for no compensation
and to no fanfare — just as you would expect your loving grandmother to do for
you. Foreign Policy has now jumped into the fake news realm
with both feet.
