Month: November 2007

Europe is in deep trouble, will America follow or stand alone?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t think anyone who has followed recent events in Europe regarding the expansion of Islam would disagree that Europe has a likely tragedy of historic proportions on its horizon.  The crux of the coming nightmare is that for decades European nations have fallen for that old saw that importing cheap labor will save them and their floundering social welfare system.    Predictions are that a combination of rapid and unchecked Muslim immigration and the high birthrates encouraged by adherents of the fundamentalist strain of Islam will be responsible for death-by-demographics for most ethnic Europeans.  The numbers indicate this will be accomplished by mid-century.

What put me in such a pessimistic mood is this lengthy post at Gates of Vienna blog from earlier this week.  It’s an imaginary outline of a civil war in Denmark in the year 2013.   It’s long, but I encourage you all to take the time over this weekend to read and think about it.   You might also run out and get Mark Steyn’s scary (but written with humor, if that is possible), America Alone.

So on that cheerful note, I ask our readers to contemplate the wisdom of our US State Department and their helpers in the volags (non-profit groups) importing large numbers of Somali Muslims, Bosnian/Albanian Muslims, Iranian and Syrian Muslims, Russian Muslims and now Iraqi Muslims.

And, I am going to keep harping on this (I might even put it in every post!), the influential Imam of Georgetown University told a Saudi audience this past summer that he predicts America will have 30 Muslim mayors by 2015.    See our top 10 Countries Hit Parade of Muslim refugees entering the US between 1988 and 2003 here.   (E-mail me for this document, address at right of this page.)

Read our other posts on Europe here, here,  here, and here.

Emporia, KS lets off steam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reports range from 200-400 people crowded into a meeting room in Emporia, KS to hear officials explain to the the public how Emporia was to become (maybe?) a resettlement site for Somali refugees apparently being enticed to this heartland city by employment at Tyson’s Food.   Read today’s lengthy account of the meeting in the Emporia Gazette.   It looks like things have changed and Emporia may not become a Somali “camp” afterall. (That terminology can be found on the free-for-all forum at the Gazette).

The possibility of Emporia’s becoming a direct resettlement site was a primary concern of numerous individuals, who questioned whether the city could support the services required.

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Weitkamp [refugee director at Catholic Charities] denied that he had made the statement, which was published in a Nov. 3 report of an Emporia Refugee Resettlement Alliance meeting the previous day.

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At issue was the following excerpt from the Nov. 3 meeting:

“‘I expect that there will be direct resettlement here,’ he (Weitkamp) said. ‘If resettlement starts here, that will expand our role. … I also see at some point the office here could possibly become cut loose from us and become an office on its own, applying for funding.’

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“‘If the numbers of refugees increases, it is possible the local office would apply to Washington to become a suboffice.’”

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Weitkamp assured the crowd Wednesday evening that Emporia definitely would not become a resettlement site.

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“We are not encouraging refugees to move here and we are not expecting to make Emporia a large resettlement site,” he said.

However there were no assurances made about how many family members the present refugees would be bringing to Emporia at a later date. 

He [Weitkamp] and Kimsey [coordinator for refugees services in Kansas] said that family members of refugees here may be reunited in Emporia, but information is not yet available to estimate the number of people who might come.

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“So far as fixing a hard number, it really is impossible to do that right now,” Kimsey said. “The 500 that are here today are not the same 500 that were here in May of this year or December of last year. This culture by its historic reality are nomadic. … They’re not used to settling in one place forever.”

So, let me get this straight.  The long-time citizens of Emporia are expected to embrace the Somali community whose members are always on the move and apparently have no plans to put down roots anyway.  Kimsey inadvertantly demonstrates the assimilation problem.  If Somalis are to live in America they must begin to assimililate to American ways and one of the first things they can learn is that we are not nomads.  This is where this multicultural ‘clap trap’ has gotten us—we tip-toe around this important issue, presumably fearing the scarlet “R” word will be emblazoned on our chests.

The report refreshingly free of spin, by Gazette reporter Bobbi Mylnar,  seems to be a straightforward account of the meeting (right down to the sanitary napkin problems).

Sources for State information on Refugee programs

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to the sleuthing of citizens of Emporia, KS,  we are learning more things we didn’t know that should help others of you trying to understand this complicated Federal program called Refugee Resettlement.   We have maintained all along that this program is becoming increasingly contentious because local citizens are not fully briefed about the Federal plans that will change the character of their cities and towns.  Citizens then become justifiably angry because they are not given the facts and have to dig for them themselves.

This information was made available to citizens of Emporia in the last couple of days, we should have seen it sooner.   The Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement, has a division called the Division of Refugee Assistance (DRA) whose mission is described below:  

The Division of Refugee Assistance (DRA) was created to oversee and provide guidance to State-administered programs that provide assistance and services to refugees, asylees, certain Amerasian immigrants, Cuban and Haitian Entrants, and Victims of Human Trafficking (henceforth referred to collectively as “refugees”). DRA monitors program planning, provision of services, and provides technical assistance to ensure compliance with federal regulations governing the delivery of refugee assistance and services, including cash and medical assistance.

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MISSION

DRA provides direction to States to ensure that refugees are provided assistance and services through State-administered programs that enable them to become employed and economically self-sufficient as soon as possible after their arrival in the United States.

You can read a summary of social service programs and grants programs for refugees here.

Go here for recent state grant figures, number of cases managed and to find your state’s Refugee office. Our previous post on this database is here.

Will answers be forthcoming in Emporia, KS tomorrow?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update November 29th:  As soon as we get the paper from Emporia we will let you know details of the standing room only meeting last night. 

The citizens of Emporia, Kansas have been asking questions for weeks and hope that tomorrow evening’s meeting and a Thursday meeting with their Congressman will bring some much-needed answers as to why their small city might become a Somali immigrant magnet.   Today’s Emporia Gazette editorial says,

A few people, admittedly, are upset because the refugees are black and because they are Muslims. There is nothing that can be done to make those people happy. The Somalis will stay black and they will stay Muslim. It is who they are.

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More people are uncomfortable because it seems to them that the Somalis are not making enough of an effort to assimilate into the community. Those folks might find some comfort in a better understanding of the assimilation process. Except in rare cases, assimilation is a process that takes at least a generation. The first generation always has its hands full trying to feed and clothe its families and make some sense out of the strange new culture that surrounds it. It is the children, not the adults, who eventually assimilate.

This last is wishful thinking.  Sure some of the next generation will go on to bigger things and we hope they do, but I think one need only look at Paris burning tonight to see the folly in this thinking.  Those African  Muslim youths rampaging at this moment are the children of  immigrants France brought in for the cheap labor.  They are the next generation!  Isn’t this kind of a crap shoot, what makes us think that this would never happen in America?

But what bothers Emporians most is what seems to be a complete lack of any effort by local, state or federal government or by Tyson Fresh Meats to prepare the community to receive the refugees. When the Somalis arrived, there were no organized support services prepared to receive them and no one with a clear idea of what would be required of the community.

This is the same old story we are hearing everywhere.  I hope the citizens of Emporia get the answers they need in the next couple of days, but I won’t hold my breath.   My prediction is that the government/business/non-profit groups will talk peoples’ ears off and the questions will go largely unanswered.   Please read about the Delphi Technique here so that you will be better prepared for this meeting,  actually it might even give you a chuckle as you watch the strategy unfold before your eyes.

Kind of ironic that this should appear in the Israel News today:  “Judge Sentences Somali Immigrant in US Shopping Mall terror plot.”

For a complete list of all the stories in the Emporia Gazette on this issue go here.

To get an understanding of what the folks of Emporia are saying, go to this unique feature at the Gazette, a public forum exclusively for this topic here.  Kudos to the Gazette for giving citizens an opportunity to speak!

Atlas Shrugs wrote about the Somali refugee issue here today.

Also, we have a new category entitled “Emporia, KS controversy” so that readers can more readily find all of our coverage of this important case.  

Hot off the presses from Emporia, KS

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know we haven’t renamed RRW the Emporia Refugee Watch (yet!), but there is so much interesting news being made there we can’t stay away.   Here is the latest from the Emporia Gazette today.  

Since this article is chock full of information, I’m going to focus on a couple of points we need to make over and over again, especially because we have hundreds of new readers every day.   This is what caught my eye in the piece today (the discussion is about direct resettlements from  foreign countries vs. secondary migrations within the US of previously resettled refugees):

Direct resettlements typically occur in metropolitan areas that can absorb diverse populations, she said, citing St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit as examples.

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“That’s why places like Emporia would never be considered,” Lewis said.

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Lewis said that Catholic Charities receives no payment for helping refugees resettle.

Ms. Lewis is the director of Catholic Charities in Kansas City and I am sure she is not misspeaking on purpose. As a matter of fact,  in my reading lately (piles on the floor and over my desk), I learned that many of the agencies both government and non-profit, international and within the US have no idea what some of the others are doing and it is causing internal concern and strife.

On Ms. Lewis first two points, we reported to you just a few days ago that in fact we are resettling refugees in medium and small cities throughout the US.  See our post on the Brookings Institution report.   I wouldn’t call Hagerstown, MD, Cayce, SC, or Erie, PA “large metropolitan areas.” 

Then on her last point that they receive no payments for resettling refugees.   Her organization is a subcontractor of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops which according to this information compiled by Gringomalo’s blog (see also our post on his research) received 89% of its funding ($39 million) from the federal government in 2005.  And, according to its own annual report Catholic Charities of Kansas City received 46% of its annual budget in 2006 from government grants.    Is none of this money used for refugees in any way?

We have had an “Open Invitation” page on the top bar of RRW from the beginning on which we ask for corrections from anyone in the refugee industry for anything we post.  We never get any corrections, thus we can only assume  that our facts and figures are accurate.