Factsheet: Ann Corcoran

IMPACT: Ann Corcoran is an anti-refugee activist, author, and blogger who advocates lowering refugee admissions and writes on the purported dangers of the United States Refugee Admissions Program. She is the founder of the blogs Refugee Resettlement Watch and Fraud, Crooks, and Criminals, which both amplify anti-refugee rhetoric. Corcoran has spread fears of the establishment of sharia law in the United States, claimed that the Islamic concept of Hijra (migration) is a form of jihad to take over the West, and warned that Muslim legal immigration is the greatest long-term threat to the United States. She has frequently collaborated with the Center for Security Policy, run  by anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney, and US Inc, run by anti-immigration activist John Tanton. 

Ann Corcoran is an anti-refugee activist, author, and blogger who issues regular commentary about the dangers posed by allowing refugees from Muslim countries into the United States. Corcoran has “a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Rutgers and a masters in environmental studies from Yale.” She has also worked for “five years, from 1975 to 1980, … as a lobbyist for the National Audubon Society.” She is the author of Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America. According to her bio, a “stir” in her rural county in western Maryland and subsequent discovery that “the Virginia Council of Churches, working for New York City-based Church World Service, had been quietly placing refugees in [her] county” sparked her initial interest in refugee resettlement. 

Refugee Resettlement Watch (RRW), a blog critical of refugee resettlement procedures, was founded by Corcoran in 2007. The tagline of the blog states, “They are changing America by changing the people.” In July 2019, the blog was removed from its previous server on WordPress for violating its terms of service. RRW features numerous blog posts critical of the refugee resettlement process and specific communities of refugees, most notably Somali, Syrian, and Rohingya refugees. Corcoran has also amplified many of VDare’s writings on RRW. VDare is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and “regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites.”  

Corcoran is also editor of the blog Fraud, Crooks, and Criminals, whose tagline is “Demonstrating daily that diversity is not strength!” The blog’s “About” page claims that: “During the next two years Americans will be bombarded by the media with news about the joys of diversity and the economic boom ‘New Americans’ are bringing to the US. However, it’s important that the voting public sees the full picture. Yes, there are deserving immigrants arriving in America, and then there are those who are frauds, crooks and criminals.” The blog features frequent posts on immigration fraud and immigrants and Muslims who have been accused of crimes.

Corcoran was a contributor to the summer 2012 issue of the Social Contract, a journal published by environmentalist, eugenicist, and anti-immigration activist John Tanton. In an article titled “Ten Reasons for a Moratorium on Refugee Admissions in 2013,” she laid out reasons why refugees should not be resettled in the United States. Among her reasons were a job shortage, failure to investigate and prevent fraudulent entry, failure to track diseases entering with refugee populations, and the need for a process for alerting communities of the impending arrival of refugees. Corcoran also suggested halting the resettlement of Muslim refugees: “Terrorist organizations (mostly Islamic) are using the program, which still clearly has many failings in the security screening system. Indeed, consideration should be given to halting the resettlement of Muslims altogether. Also, the UN should have no role in choosing refugees for the U.S.” 

Corcoran has also contributed to US Incorporated (US Inc), an educational foundation established in 1981 by Tanton. In July 2020, she wrote a blog post acknowledging the thirteenth anniversary of RRW. Most recently, she wrote a blog post critical of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). 

Corcoran has frequently collaborated with Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP), an organization considered to be an anti-Muslim hate group by the SPLC. Gaffney has labeled Corcoran “one of America’s foremost experts on the challenges posed to our security as well as the demographics and political makeup of our country by the phenomenon known as refugee resettlement.” 

In April 2015, CSP published Corcoran’s monograph Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America as part of its Civilization Jihad Reader Series. The seventy-eight-page book claims that the Islamic concept of Hijrah (migration) is being practiced as a form of jihad today to take over the West through immigration: “Hijra remains the model to this day for jihadists who seek to populate and dominate new lands. Their migrations are not for the purpose of assimilating peacefully in a new host nation, adopting as their own its traditions and legal systems. Rather, Mohammed’s followers, in keeping with the example established by their prophet, are driven first to colonize and then to transform non-Muslim target societies whether through violent means or via stealthy, pre-violent ones favored by the Muslim Brotherhood when it is not powerful enough to use violence decisively.” 

Commenting on the book, Gaffney stated: “Ann Corcoran’s report is required reading for anyone worried about the threat to America from the global jihad movement.  She has provided shocking details of how a stealth effort by jihadists to advance their stated goal of ‘destroying Western civilization from within’ is being abetted by the U.S. government.” 

Hijra, which translates to migration, commonly refers to the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina), to escape persecution and find a safe haven for his community. The event also signifies the start of the Islamic calendar. 

Corcoran’s claims that “refugees are being brought to U.S. cities using taxpayer money in a secretive manner without the say of residents” and that “refugees immediately enroll in welfare and other social services” once here were fact checked in April 2015 by the St. Cloud Times and staff of the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota. According to the fact checkers, refugees “work cooperatively with local resettlement staff and their families [there] to secure housing, find jobs, [and] enroll in school” and receive a one-time federal grant of $1,125 upon arrival which pays for initial expenses such as housing. Furthermore, “While refugees can apply for public benefits … many find work in manufacturing or other industries quickly, which makes them ineligible for assistance.” 

In May 2015, Corcoran spoke at a conference organized by CSP called The Iowa National Security Action Summit. The conference was also attended by other anti-Muslim politicians including Ben Carson, Rep. Steve King, Bobby Jindal, Senator Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump. In her opening remarks, Corcoran claimed “the greatest long term threat to our wonderful nation … is the tidal wave of legal Muslim migrants reaching our shores.” 

Corcoran also criticized Europe’s refugee policy in the 2015 remarks: “We only need to look to Europe to see what’s ahead for us. Mostly muslim migrants are flooding across the Mediterranean as one Muslim country after another is toppled by Islamic supremacists. There appears to be little desire or will on the part of European leaders to do what must be done as Australia has done and that is to turn back the boats before they even leave the African coasts.” She further warned, “I maintain we’re only a couple of decades at most behind Europe. It doesn’t take a majority Muslim population to begin to make demands for sharia compliance.” 

In May 2015, Corcoran told Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson that “resettlement efforts are merely attempts to create Democratic voters out of Muslim refugees who are using migration as ‘a form of jihad.’”

In September 2017, Corcoran made statements critical of Rohingya refugees in WorldNetDaily (WND). According to the Daily Beast, WND is “best known for promoting birther conspiracy theories.” Corcoran questioned why the US should accept Rohingya refugees: “Should we be surprised that the Buddhists want Burma to be a Buddhist country? Just like Japan wants to remain Japanese, Hungary wants their country to be for Hungarians and Poland for the Poles … Personally I don’t have a big problem with that. It doesn’t mean anyone who is not a Pole is going to be kept out of Poland, but they aren’t going to invite troublemakers, welcome them into their country, to come in and pro-create. They want to retain their ethnic and cultural identity.” She further argued: “I am perfectly happy with anyone who shares our same holidays, learns our language, they grew up watching American TV shows, listening to our music, but that’s not the same as groups of people who want to force us to live like them and ultimately take over politically.”

In June 2017, Corcoran participated in an interview with Sandy Rios’s American Family Association, where she stated that she “always tells conservative women that they had ‘better have babies’ in order to prevent Muslims from constituting enough of the population to be able to ‘shove Sharia law down our throats.’” Corocoran was previously interviewed by Rios in September 2015, during which she warned “against accepting Muslim refugees from Syria, whom she claimed want to move to America in order to establish a ‘caliphate.’”

In November 2019, Corcoran participated in a Social Contract Press panel discussion titled “Big Tech Censorship.” During the panel, spoke about the platform’s suspension of her blog Refugee Resettlement Watch for violating WordPress terms of service and stated it was a “great honor” to be listed among the SPLC’s fifteen anti-Muslim extremists in the US. 

In November 2020, Corcoran attended the Million Maga March, a march intended to support President Trump and “protest the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.” The name of the event was a play on the Million Man March, an October 1995 march of primarily African American men to promote unity, spiritual renewal, and personal responsibility. In a blog post about the demonstration, Corcoran wrote: “I have searched through dozens of media accounts and photos but none, including mine, could do justice to the number of America Firsters! who came to Washington, throwing caution to the wind when it came to the Chinese virus, and clearly having decided that being there was more important than possibly dying.” 

Updated February 4, 2021