HIAS Big invokes “The St. Louis.”

“We have memories of the St. Louis.”

Oh, yes you HIAS people do, Mark Hetfield. Yes you do.

The AP reports,

With the suspension of a U.S. refugee program and stepped-up security in the Gulf of Aden and along Mediterranean smuggling routes, more overseas migrants from Somalia are pursuing asylum through what one expert calls the “back door.”

“The U.S. has closed most of the doors for Somalis to come in through the refugee program so they’ve found alternative ways to get in,” said Mark Hetfield, senior vice president for policy and programs at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. “This is their new route.”

What does HIAS stand for? Apparently today, it stands for Hebrews for the Immigration of Anti-Semites.

The Somalians are arguably the most brutal civilization on earth. And this is whom HIAS is bringing to this country while pretending to be servicing Jews.

Gal Beckerman reports, in “HIAS Still Aids Immigrants, but Most Don’t Resemble Sergey Brin” that,

In a departure from its storied history, more than 80% of those assisted and resettled by the agency are now Darfuri and Somali refugees, Burundians and Burmese, persecuted minorities from Iran and a plethora of other nationalities.

How influential is HIAS? Very. They are a major player in the mass immigration lobby.

According to Greg Siskind, an immigration lawyer based in Memphis, Tenn., who has served on HIAS’s board and is heavily involved with the immigration policy debate, the agency’s role in Washington is significant and growing. “HIAS has an even more considerable impact than its size and budget and refugee resettlement population might indicate,” Siskind said.

There’s a great joke in a relatively weak Woody Allen movie, “Scoop,” where the protagonist quips,

“Even at the faintest hint of anti-semitism, the Jews start writing letters.”

It isn’t all that hard to find Jews to mobilize on an issue they agree with. They write letters, they send checks, they circulate op-eds. Even our enemies backhandedly compliment the Jewish community on its willingness and ability to react and, well, lobby.

Progress By Pesach, which secured the backing of major Jewish organizations, requested only that people sign their petition. 10,000 out of millions. What a joke for a program claiming to speak on behalf of American Jewry.

And still, the Jewish community refused to give it to them.

The Liberal Jewish masses (the mainline Orthodox never supported this initiative) ignored the Jewish communal leadership.

The JTA reports, in an almost Orwellian titled article, “Progress reported by ‘Progress by Pesach,” at the very bottom of the story that,

After the press conference, participants in the “Progress by Pesach” coalition — which includes 13 national and another dozen local groups — met with Tina Tchen, director of the public liaison office, to deliver petitions signed by more than 3,500 individuals.

But Progress By Pesach had set 10,000 as their goal. How hard should that have been? How hard was it to find 10,000 U.S. Jews to just e-sign something backed by the major Jewish organizations? PBP had “articles” of support written as press releases in the Jewish newspapers, appeals by this group and that one, communal appeals disguised as “panel discussions.”

There was so little official communal dissent. And still the Jewish masses refused to sign on.

Let this be clear. The Jewish community does not perceive amnesty and an end to raids as “progress” at all. They could not vote no, there was no such forum, so instead, the people voted with overwhelming silence, despite endless prodding and cheerleading for this foolish initiative. It is imperative that major Jewish communal organizations take note, and shift their policies in accordance to those their constituency approve of.

This was an important battle. HIAS held all the cards. They crafted their own test, they monitored its implementation, and they graded their own paper. And they still received a miserable 35%.

That’s an F.

HIAS’s Progress By Pesach was repudiated even by their own risible metric standards that they themselves set.