And, so does Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott who has (according to the AP) asked Harris/Biden for more refugees!
It is surprising isn’t it that Vermont, the homeland of Bernie Socialist Sanders really hasn’t ‘welcomed’ very many refugees compared even to other states of a similar size, but all of that might change starting in October.
What is happening in October?
The Harris/Biden team says they will increase refugee admissions for FY2022 which begins October first to 125,000. That would be the highest annual refugee cap in decades—more than Obama ever dreamed of! And, now the hunt is on for their new homes.
This article from the Associated Presswould have you believe small cities were never the lucky recipients of third world diversity, but that just isn’t so.
And, by the way, know also that the AP reporter has transposed the words in the name of the organization. It should be the Ethiopian Community Development Council known widely in the refugee industry as ECDC, a long time member of the big nine contractors*** that monopolize all resettlement and have done so for decades.
Targeted Brattleboro, VT, population 11,000
Readers may remember that an effort to make Rutland, Vermont, another small city in the white state, a home for impoverished refugees exploded into a huge controversy in 2016 that ultimately saw the pro-refugee mayor ousted.
Know that this hunt for fresh territory is going on everywhere (except maybe Wyoming, but folks there need to be on the look-out) as the contractors must submit their plans to the US State Department by late summer so they can be competitive with other refugee contractors and get their allotment of paying clients (aka refugees) starting October first.
Wausau, Wisconsin is also on the target list according to this report.
Refugee Resettlement Nonprofit Plans New Programs in Vermont
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — A refugee resettlement nonprofit has plans to start a new program in Vermont to relocate refugees in smaller, more rural communities across the United States.
The Ethiopian Development Community Council, a nonprofit agency that partners with the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S., wants to launch its program in Brattleboro because of the city’s support. The first families should arrive in the city before the end of the year if the program is approved by the federal government, Vermont Public Radio reported Monday.
The nonprofit has also chosen Wausau [Wisconsin–ed] to test out the program, pending federal approval.
The nonprofit is preparing for an influx of refugees since the Biden Administration has promised to increase the number of refugees allowed in the country and reopen the refugee resettlement program that the previous Trump Administration imposed restrictions on, the radio station reported.
Tsehaye Teferra
“If we want to create integration of refugees, having them only in big cities where they would be congregating among themselves, only, is not going to help long-term integration,” said Tsehaye Tefera, the founder of the Ethiopian Development Community Council.
That may sound like a nice sentiment but in reality refugees resettled in smaller cities generally migrate after a few months to larger cities because they want to live in enclaves with their own kind of people!
The most visible of the ethnic groups, partaking of what the industry calls secondary migration, are the Somalis loading up Minnesota.
Back to AP at US News….
Social and economic organizations in Windham County have been supportive, but efforts to resettle refugees in Vermont have been controversial in the past, Vermont Public Radio reported.
Elwell was formerly the manager in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Brattleboro town manager Peter Elwell said he knows there could be opposition to the resettlement program, but regardless, the plan is in line with the town’s priority to improve equity in one of the whitest states in the country.
Earlier this year, Gov. Phil Scott asked the State Department to increase the refugee cap in Vermont.
Scott called refugee resettlement “an integral part of our efforts to grow Vermont’s economy.”
However, see this report from FAIR which examined the ten smallest immigrant population states and determined that increasing the percentage of migrants going to the state would have an outsized negative impact on the economy and on the social fabric of the state.
You might be interested to know that ECDC is likely the smallest of the big nine resettlement contractors and generally over the years has kept a low political profile as others of the contractors, most notably HIAS, LIRS and Church World Service, were out making political noise and suing the Trump Administration.
However, much to my surprise Teferra took a public swipe at Trump here in July of 2020.
You will see in that post that the ‘non-profit’ organization is effectively a government agency as almost the entirety of its $13 million budget comes from you, the US taxpayers.
***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the nine contractors that have monopolized all refugee distribution in the US for decades.
They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris andlobby for open borders. As taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.
Two of the contractors, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are also paid to find locations for the Unaccompanied Alien Children.
At this very moment they are all out scouting for new, fresh territory in which to place their refugee clients. See Winchester, VA.
As the Chinese menace recedes, the invasion of Europe picks up its pace.
My invasion of Europe archiveneeds some attention and over the weekend Jihad Watchhad an informative piece about my favorite country after America—Hungary. (Poland comes in a close third!)
Hungary says border fence worked, urges EU to refocus on migration as illegal Muslim migration attempts triple
Hungary has seen a sharp rise in illegal Muslim migrants trying to enter the country over the last year — triple the number than in the previous year. The government now wants to see a refocus on controlling illegal Muslim migration into the EU, since all attention has been focused on COVID.
The influx of illegals has not stopped, and is now escalating even more as COVID recedes. Areas of the EU, especially the UK, Italy, Spain and Greece, have been easy-access target countries. Zoltan Kovacs, the Orban government’s long-serving Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations, stated:
By erecting a border fence along our borders with Serbia and Croatia – again, that’s not only our frontier, it’s an external border of Europe’s Schengen Area – Hungary showed the world in 2015 that it is possible to stop the influx of illegals on land. A few years later, under the leadership of former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Italy effectively put an end to migration at sea. Other member states, and most EU institutions, however, seem hell-bent on turning the other way and letting these immigrants in.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban once said:
We don’t see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders…For example, to arrive from Syria in Hungary, you have to cross four countries, all of which are not as rich as Germany, but stable. So they are not running for their lives there already.
The vast majority of Muslim migrants still entering the EU are economic migrants jumping the queue. Migrants have been steadily flowing into Italy, and 8,000 Moroccan migrants swarmed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in the space of three days (6,000 in one day alone).
Build more shelters! Sounds just like what Biden is doing.
Instead of supporting limits on mass migration, politicians from Angela Merkel’s party in Germany instead advised Spain and Italy to build more migrant centers.
Globalists continue to erode their countries’ democracies, neglect national security and demonstrate little regard for the rule of law as they continue to support open-door immigration.
Editor: I started this post yesterday, but couldn’t finish it as RRW went down for awhile making me very nervous. I don’t know what that was about, but it seems to be working fine today. Sure hope you didn’t experience any problems visiting.
I told you back in January that Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota had filed for bankruptcy after getting mired in some affordable housing scheme that is too complex to bother with here.
In the process they are losing their fancy and expensive building, a building I saw in my 2016 travels to the state.
So the assumption was that refugee flow into the state was going to be halted at least for awhile.
You might recall that North Dakota’s Republican governor did NOT support President Trump’s effort at reforming the Refugee Admissions Program by allowing local and state governments to have some say in the process of determining the target sites for resettlement.
That brings us to the latest breaking news as Fargo’s Valley News Live says that refugees are being placed in Fargo:
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn said Tuesday that he sat in on a phone call in which Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services stated that they had resettled approximately 25 refugees in Fargo-Moorhead. Deputy Mayor Piepkorn shared concern that he had not been made aware of the resettlement and he questioned whether the City of Fargo was notified prior to rehoming the refugees.
Too funny! NOT! The woman who ran LSSND as it was financially crashing is now working for the governor!
Questions have been raised as to how the action was coordinated. Prior to filing bankruptcy, Lutheran Social Services (LSS) was tasked with refugee resettlement in the state.
Former LSS Director, Jessica Thomasson, now works as the Executive Policy Director at ND Department of Human Services.
The country of origin of the refugees was not made known. In a recent interview with Chris Berg, Gov. Burgum stated that he was open to resettling refugees in the state but he was unaware of any plan to resettle undocumented immigrants from the southern border.
Be sure to watch Chris Berg’s interview with Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn where Piepkorn says he doubts anyone was notified and mentioned specifically the school system.
In response to Deputy Mayor Piepkorn….
President Trump’s failed reform initiative sought to give local governments an opportunity to review plans for resettlement in their jurisdictions with a yes or no sign-off, governors would also have to approve or disapprove the plan.
Shockingly, most Republican governors, including North Dakota’s Doug Burgum, did not back the President’s efforts to shore-up their Tenth Amendment states’ rights.
Here is one of many, many posts on the feckless Republican governors:
At present local governments are supposed to be consulted, but I will bet that the resettlement agency only talked to friendly “stakeholders” in the process of preparing an “abstract” that must be submitted to the US State Department in advance of placements in a given location.
Any elected official should be able to request permission to attend a stakeholder meeting and be permitted to see a recent R & P Abstract prepared by a local resettlement contractor.
Of course, in the case of ND (with no agency operating at the moment), one would most likely go to the state’s Department of Human Services for the most recent Abstract and a schedule of stakeholder meetings.
LOL! that would be the agency now headed by former LSS CEO Thomasson.
One final note: For years we were able to see which refugees went to which towns and cities on an almost daily basis and all the way back to 2002. That database is no longer available. It was shuttered during Trump’s tenure. The feds claimed the website is being overhauled.
Except for the most recent arrivals in the present fiscal year, we are left completely in the dark about the numbers, nationalities and resettlement locations of thousands and thousands of refugee arrivals.
“It is absolutely unacceptable if the Biden Administration is facilitating a mass migration without any input or oversight from Tennesseans and the affected communities.”
(Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn)
***Update***Governor Lee comments and incredibly a media outlet reminds its audience that Lee had welcomed more refugees when President Trump was trying to get immigration under control a couple of years ago. Is it any wonder that the Biden gang figured Tennessee was a soft target?
For years, readers would contact me to say that planes with “refugees” or migrants of some sort were being flown into small airports in small cities and rural areas. I would tell them to go film the arrivals because I couldn’t just post something without proof.
Well, finally some citizens are being proactive and doing just that.
The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (in Health and Human Services) is reportedly behind such flights arriving after dark in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
You may recall that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee was one of twenty governors who earlier this month wrote to Biden to say: NOT in my state!
But, shamefully, he was one of many Republican governors who did not support President Trump when Trump attempted to give governors a greater say in whether their states would receive refugees the federal government had chosen for the state.
FIRST ON 3: Late-night flights carrying migrant children arrive in Chattanooga
Chattanooga’s Wilson Air Center is receiving planes carrying migrant children who are being bused to multiple southeastern cities during overnight hours.
Channel 3 obtained video of one of those planes arriving Friday, May 14 shortly before 1:30 a.m.
A second video, shared with Channel 3, shows more children arriving late Saturday night. According to the source who provided the video, a third plane carrying children arrived Friday afternoon. Flight records confirm that a fourth plane arrived early Wednesday morning, May 19.
[….]
A source with direct knowledge of the operation asked to remain anonymous but tells Channel 3 that approximately 30 to 50 minors are transported at a time, some to reunite with family members and others to go to group homes. He says the operation started in Dallas, Texas, but moved to small airports recently to avoid attention.
In April, HHS confirmed a group of unaccompanied minors is being housed at a former Tennessee Temple dormitory in Highland Park. It is not clear how many of the children who have arrived in Chattanooga in recent days have been transported to that facility, but multiple sources say at least ten boys from the group were taken to the facility.
Quotes from US Senators, but what does Governor Lee say?
U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty said he was not aware of the flights into Chattanooga, but said, “It is time for President Biden to be transparent with Tennesseans and the American people regarding where the hundreds of thousands of migrants being resettled in the United States are being sent because they deserve to know.”
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn shared a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying she was unaware of the operation in Tennessee.
“Our office has received no information from the Biden Administration informing us of a mass transportation of migrants to Tennessee,” said Blackburn. “It is absolutely unacceptable if the Biden Administration is facilitating a mass migration without any input or oversight from Tennesseans and the affected communities.”
By the way, for all of you contemplating a move to Tennessee because you might be thinking you can escape to a conservative nirvana, check it out carefully in advance. They have a lot of problems with refugees there as especially Nashville is a longtime target resettlement site.
Note that I have an entire category titled Nashville which includes over 100 posts on refugees there and in Tennessee generally.
Of course Church World Service will give them rosy responses to their request for more information, but at least they can make a more informed decision before changing Winchester forever.
As I said at the time, this is likely happening in many locations around America as the nine federal refugee contractors*** scour the country for new fresh territory in which to place the tidal wave of 125,000 refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East that Biden says he is welcoming in Fiscal Year 2022 which begins on October first.
Winchester City Council wants more info before voting on refugees
WINCHESTER — City officials say they need more information before deciding whether to welcome international refugees to Winchester.
Councilor Bell
Councilor Richard Bell, chairman of City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, told the full council on Tuesday night the proposal to allow refugees to live in Winchester needs more vetting at the committee level before a final vote is taken.
“We have requested that it be placed on a future Planning and Economic Development Committee agenda for a more in-depth presentation by the organization and for further consideration,” Bell told the nine-member council.
The organization Bell referred to is Church World Service (CWS), a global nonprofit that hopes to open an office in Winchester to serve people who have been forced from their homelands due to political, social or religious persecution.
Susannah Lepley, Virginia’s director of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement for CWS, told the Planning and Economic Development Committee at its meeting on April 29 the bulk of the refugees, at least initially, would come from Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
They will be invited to settle in the United States by the U.S. State Department after proving they have a credible fear of persecution, or have already been persecuted, because of their heritage, social status or religious beliefs.
CWS, Lepley said, would find housing in Winchester for the refugees, help them learn English and pursue U.S. citizenship, assist them with applying for public assistance until they find employment, enroll their children in school and so on.
The committee recommended council approve the request, even though member Kim Herbstritt said at the time that Winchester has a severe shortage of affordable housing so it may be difficult to find homes for the 100 or so refugees per year that want to resettle within city limits.
Bell did not say when Lepley would be invited to make a second presentation to the committee, which is next scheduled to meet on May 19. An agenda for that session has not yet been published.
What to ask…..
When, and if, Church World Service’s Lepley is invited back, it is vitally important that concerned members of the public, not just those in the city, but county residents as well, be present to hear what she has to say.
First, we must assume, that since the city government is even contemplating saying yes, that Winchester doesn’t have any homeless or needy Americans to care for and that the city is flush with funds for educating children who don’t speak English, has ample affordable housing, is prepared to deal with health issues and is in need of low-skilled workers.
Questions I would ask in no particular order are these:
How long does Church World Service take care of the newcomers they place in the city or county (yes, they can spread refugees out for a hundred miles of Winchester once the office is established)?
Since CWS supports an open southern border, will CWS also facilitate any movement of illegal aliens/unaccompanied children into the area?
Are the refugees screened in advance for diseases such as TB, HIV, and Covid-19? Who will pay for medical needs and for how long?
Does CWS have employers lined up?
Who pays for additional ESL teachers going forward?
What religions will be represented in the group of refugees? And, what other nationalities might be added later?
Who pays for translators when the refugees have a problem with the legal system or educational system? Or, if they have a medical issue? Local taxpayers?
In what neighborhoods will the refugees be placed? If Winchester has a minority neighborhood already, care must be taken not to place third worlders into those established areas especially African American neighborhoods. Cultural conflicts have been known to occur. Back in 2008 there was just such a rough period in Roanoke.
If, for instance, Winchester welcomes a hundred this year and another hundred the next year and finds it is straining local resources or causing tensions, can Winchester shut down the flow?
There are probably plenty more, but a beautiful day outside beckons….
One last thing!
R & P Abstracts
The Winchester council, in advance of another meeting with Lepley, must ask if an R & P Abstract has already been prepared for the city by CWS.
These documents, prepared at the level of your local resettlement contractor with the help and guidance of one of the major nine federal contractors, are the blueprints for what is being planned for your town for the upcoming fiscal year.
The R & P Abstracts must be submitted to the US State Department in Washington in advance of placing refugees in any target location.
***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the nine contractors that have monopolized all refugee distribution in the US for decades.
They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris andlobby for open borders. As taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.
Two of the contractors, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are also paid to find locations for the Unaccompanied Alien Children.
It is surprising isn’t it that Vermont, the homeland of Bernie Socialist Sanders really hasn’t ‘welcomed’ very many refugees compared even to other states of a similar size, but all of that might change starting in October.
One final note: For years we were able to see which refugees went to which towns and cities on an almost daily basis and all the way back to 2002. That database is no longer available. It was shuttered during Trump’s tenure. The feds claimed the website is being overhauled.
When, and if, Church World Service’s Lepley is invited back, it is vitally important that concerned members of the public, not just those in the city, but county residents as well, be present to hear what she has to say.