Ice-bashing group gets millions from feds
IF you were shocked by the images of the Mexican flag flying over an Aurora, Colorado, immigration detention center two weekends ago, you’ll be appalled at an even more disgusting spectacle.
One of the top promoters of the so-called Lights for Liberty nationwide protests by Trump-hating, Ice-bashing radicals was a nonprofit religious organization known as the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. As a designated “host,” LIRS played a key role in publicizing, organizing and participating in demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s deportation enforcement actions targeting some 2,000 illegal immigrants and their families who have ignored removal orders or skipped out on court hearings.
Brazen hatred of cops, Border Patrol and ICE agents were on full display at the open borders protests fronted by LIRS and other left-wing groups, including
Code Pink, CASA and CAIR. Marchers echoed the “Close the Concentration Camps” rhetoric of Congressional Brat Pack Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, D-N.Y.
They carried signs declaring “Ice=gestapo” and
“Free the People, Burn the Camps.”
It’s not just idle rhetoric. Antifa thug Willem Van Spronsen, armed with a rifle and incendiary devices, attempted to set a Tacoma, Washington ICE facility on fire two Saturdays ago before being shot dead. He has been hailed as a “hero” and a “martyr” by fellow “progressive” travelers, while sympathetic mainstream reporters and activists look the other way.
The president and CEO of LIRS, Krishanti Vignarajah, is a Sri Lankan refugee and former Michelle Obama policy director. She argues that Americans are obligated to open the floodgates at the southern border and vehemently opposes what she calls “militant border enforcement.” To these border-sabotaging radicals, any border enforcement is “militant.”
LIRS sounds like just the kind of extremist group you’d expect to be kept afloat by billionaire George Soros’ big bucks. But hold on to your wallets and your American flags, folks. In 2016, LIRS relied on $64.7 million in government subsidies from taxpayers — that’s you and me — to fund a whopping 96.2 percent of its budget.
LIRS is one of nine agencies that receives tens of millions of dollars to resettle refugees from around the world. The organization brags that it is “a vital arm of the United States refugee admissions program” that has worked with the State Department to import “over 500,000 refugees” to our country. One of LIRS’ most famous clients? Somalian-born Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has her own immigration, marriage and tax fraud problems. If only a fraction of LIRS clients share Omar’s contempt for our security and self-governance, you can see the trouble we’re in.
Disguised as compassion and Christian morality, LIRS’ activism is a profit-seeking machine. Open borders equals cash flow: more aliens, more grants, bigger paychecks.
Exit question: Will a single American elected official please stand up and challenge the continued public funding of this subversive religious racket bent on hoisting foreign flags and alien interests above our own?
Michelle Malkin’s email is writemalkin@gmail.com.