Day: September 10, 2008

Update from Greeley: Talks broke down yesterday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 11th:  Over 100 workers fired!

Negotiations involving disgruntled Somali workers, the Union, and Swift & Co, about break times for Muslim workers during Ramadan, broke down yesterday in this latest news sent from Blulitespecial. 

When you go to the article at the Tribune, be sure to watch the film (could this sight be an “honor” to the citizens of Greeley as the paper’s editor said of the Somalis last spring).  Disgruntled workers or revolutionaries?  You decide.

Talks between JBS Swift & Co. officials and Muslim workers seeking prayer breaks during Ramadan broke down Tuesday afternoon and turned into calls of breach of contract.

The roughly 250 workers, who’ve been suspended since walking off the job Friday night, say they will not return to work and may take legal action. They also acknowledge they may face mass terminations.

A mid-afternoon meeting between the Muslim representatives and about 80 of the suspended workers grew heated in a downtown Greeley park when the representatives relayed information to the crowd.

When workers learned the company would not allow break times for prayer, many shouted and crowded around a gazebo from which the representatives spoke. Within 30 minutes, workers split into smaller groups and milled around the park.

[…..]

Upon hearing that news, a group of disgruntled Muslim workers clustered around Isse and said, “No prayer, no work.”

I felt a tiny bit of sympathy here for Swift because as you read this, you can tell a lawsuit is not far off, especially since CAIR must now be involved (note the last section of this article) and in light of the Minnesota decision announced just this morning here.   But, only a tiny bit of sympathy because they brought all this on themselves by not paying wages that would keep good and loyal American workers.   You just know they were rubbing their hands with glee when it dawned on them, however that came about, that these church volags and the US State Department were importing LEGAL foreign labor to their very doorstep.

And, now this is what they have to deal with, “racial tensions” between Africans and Hispanics:

Sam Wantings, a Nigerian who worked for Swift for four months earlier this year, said he saw frequent racial tensions between Latinos and African workers. He said Africans were regularly discriminated against by Latino supervisors.

Once again, the Tribune skates around what kind of violence occured last Friday night when police were called to the parking lot to supervise the Somalis leaving the plant.    Here is how the Tribune earlier fudged the point:

Tymkowych [police spokesman] said police, who responded to the release of workers Friday night, didn’t encounter any vandalism. “If it happened inside (the plant), they didn’t tell us about it,” he said.

The latest article says this of the violence:

… Management blocked restrooms and break areas and that started massive disturbances and conflicts at the plant.”

I hear CAIR swooping in like a big bird.

See our breakdown of how many Somalis have been resettled in the US in the last 25 years here.

How did we get so many Somali refugees—the numbers are telling

~ Ann Corcoran

Update October 23, 2016: 9,020 were admitted according to the Refugee Processing Center.

Update October 21, 2015: 8,858 were admitted in FY2015, here.

Update October 26, 2014:  The final tally for FY2014 is 9,000!

Update September 7, 2014:  Found it! FY2013 Somali admissions to the US–7,600!

Update August 29th, 2014:  Finally got around to updating the stats at least for FY 2011 and 2012 (see below).  Couldn’t find 2013 but will keep looking.  We are nearly doubling the numbers of Somalis admitted this fiscal year (2014).  As of July 31, we have admitted 7,326 Somalis to your towns and cities.

Update August 28th, 2014:  I need to update the recent years.  The numbers stayed low for a number of years because family reunification had been closed to Somalis for years due to the huge fraud uncovered by the State Department in 2008, but Somali resettlement to America is on the rise again.

Update November 13th, 2010:  This post continues to be one of the most visited posts at RRW.  I have just now updated the numbers for FY 2010 below which ended on September 30th.

I finally got around to something I’ve been promising to do for weeks (months!) and that is go over all the records of Somali resettlement numbers.

I do want to remind readers that these numbers are only for the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department.  We just had a commenter to another post suggesting that the numbers are much larger then the government statistics indicate for immigration to the US.  I don’t doubt that.  But, again, these are the numbers that the Office of Refugee Resettlement must present to Congress each year for that special category “refugees.”

Much to my surprise, the numbers (and patterns) for Somali refugees admitted to the US are even more shocking then I had originally guessed.

Also, in my last post, I quoted the reporter as saying that the Somalis began arriving in Minneapolis in the late 70’s.  Well, maybe there were a handful, but the largest numbers have arrived here AFTER 9/11!

The Refugee Act of 1980 presumably required the Office of Refugee Resettlement to begin reporting to Congress annually.  The first table I looked at lumped all numbers from 1983-1993.  In those 10 years, 4413 Somalis were admitted as refugees.

Then here we go:

1983-93:   4,413

1994:  3,508

1995:  2,524

1996:  6,440

1997:  4,948

1998:  2,952

1999:  4,321

2000:  6,002

2001:  4,940

2002:   242    (Guesses why this is so low?  9/11 freaked everyone out!)

2003:  1,708

O.K. so in 2003 we had admitted a total of 42,017 Somalis to the US.  In those 20 years each Somali family was having on average 6 children.

Continuing (are you sitting down?):

2004:  12,814

2005:  10,101

2006:  10,330

2007:  6,958

2008:  2,523

2009:  4,189  (on the rise again even though family reunification is suspended still!)

2010:  4,884

2011:  3,161

2012:  4,921

2013:  7,600

2014:  9,000

2015: 8,858

We have reported to you before that the number is so low (relatively low!) for 2008 because DNA testing in Africa showed that the refugee program was corrupt through and through and those thousands coming in as “family” were lying.

We have admitted 83,991 Somali Shariah-supporting immigrants to the US in 25 years [as of when I first wrote this post—ed]   More then half, 43,682, came since September 11th!

Who was responsible and why?   I don’t know.   I do know that African resettlement was not a priority until, according to a report by Heidi Boas which I mentioned here last year, the Congressional Black Caucus got involved:

Anyway, I am getting away from my story. According to Heidi Boas* in her lengthy 2007 paper entitled, “The New Face of America’s Refugees: African Refugee Resettlement to the United States:”

….several of the individuals interviewed for this paper identified the Congressional Black Caucus as one of the most influential groups advocating over the past decade for increased African refugee resettlement to the United States.

I also think that in addition to political reasons that the Black Caucus had for boosting minority voter numbers, that big businesses, like these meatpackers we have been talking about, have been working with friends in the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services as if those agencies were their employment services.

Do you ever wonder if the Congressional Black Caucus members know what they did to our own American blacks because these immigrants are pushing them out of jobs now?

I know who could answer all of our questions about how and why we took militant Muslims in such great numbers into the US:    Terry Rusch, Director of the Office of Admissions, US State Department could tell us, if she was willing. [Editors note, Rusch has since retired.]

If you would like to check numbers yourself, the best thing I can do is send you to this post as a starting place.   I got these numbers at so many different Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual reports to Congress that it is too cumbersome to put all those links in here.  However, you should be able to use the links I just mentioned and sort it out—you will also find it interesting to see from what countries we are admitting refugees and to what states they are going.

Muslims will win accommodation everywhere thanks to this precedent setting agreement announced today

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A federally mediated agreement in Minnesota, announced today on the eve of 9/11,  will change the workplace environment in favor of Muslim religious accommodation across this land.    Just in the last few days, the controversy  building between Somali workers, other workers and Swift Foods in Greeley, CO now has an assured outcome.  The Somalis (and CAIR) will win the argument—again!

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune today, thanks to one of our many watchful readers:

In a landmark settlement that could change the way Muslims are treated in the workplace, St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump Inc. has agreed to allow Somali workers short prayer breaks and the right to refuse handling pork at its poultry processing facilities.

The federally mediated agreement is among the first in the nation that requires employers to accommodate the Islamic prayer schedule and the belief, held by many strict Muslims, that the Qur’an prohibits the touching and eating of pork products.

And, note the EEOC (CAIR’s handmaiden) is behind this:

The agreement follows a year-long examination by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and a class-action lawsuit brought in October 2006 on behalf of nine Somali immigrants who worked at Gold’n Plump’s poultry processing plants in Cold Spring, Minn., and Arcadia, Wis.

An EEOC attorney said both sides have reached a settlement in principle.

The settlement will include an undisclosed sum of money for some employees; and some workers may receive new offers of employment at Gold’n Plump.

There are more than 25,000 who refuse to assimilate, thanks to the US State Department:

The settlement could have profound implications for the estimated 25,000 people of Somali descent in Minnesota, who began arriving in the Twin Cities in the late 1970s. Many have insisted on adhering to their traditional religious practices, such as praying five times a day or wearing headscarves, even when they conflict with workplace rules.

Update:   Whew!   Finally here are the numbers I’ve been promising for sometime.

Meatpacker charged with violation of child labor laws

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 11th:  More today on this story.   Feds setting an example?

This is an update about Agriprocessors the Iowa meatpacking plant we have been writing about, the same outfit that has flooded Postville with Somali workers.  (Hat tip:  Blulitespecial)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The owner and managers of the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging child labor law violations.

They’re accused of hiring minors and, in some cases, having children younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment such as circular saws, meat grinders and power shears.

The allegations are the first criminal charges against operators of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, where nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at the facility were arrested in May in one of the largest single-site immigration raids in U.S. history.

For more on the trauma to Postville, go here.

Iraqis going to Chattanooga, TN

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

To Chattanooga and dozens of cities across America….    There are so many articles in so many cities, that we won’t be able to tell you about them all.    This is the last month of FY 08 and the State Department is bringing them in by the planeload to attempt to reach their magic refugee goals for the year.  So, we will just mention those, like this one,  that have some interesting bit of information to share. 

As early as October, Chattanooga may be the new home to more than a dozen Iraqi refugees being resettled in the United States.

“We are looking forward to working with them,” said Marina Peshterianu, office coordinator for Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services in Chattanooga.

What attracted my attention here is the mention of Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services.    In the first month of writing this blog I wrote a post (Strange Bedfellows) about a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in 2003 to stop the FBI, under the Patriot Act, from interviewing Iraqi refugees that this volag had resettled.   

The most interesting aspect of the ACLU lawsuit is that it also included the following participants:

  In addition to Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, the groups participating in the lawsuit are Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, which operates a mosque and school in Ann Arbor, Michigan; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a national civil rights organization based in Washington D.C.; Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, a human services organization based in Dearborn, Michigan that operates a medical clinic as well as a center for refugees and torture victims; Council on American-Islamic Relations, a grassroots membership organization based in Washington D.C.; and The Islamic Center of Portland, Masjed As-Saber, which operates a mosque and school in Portland, Oregon.

Additionally, The Chattanooga Times Free Press story has an error I want to correct.  They say:

So far in fiscal year 2008, which ends on Sept. 30, the United States has admitted close to 2,000 Iraqis, giving priority to those affiliated with the U.S. government and religious minorities, the Department of Homeland Security Web site states. Earlier this year, the U.S. government established a goal of resettling 12,000 Iraqi refugees for fiscal year 2008.

It is close to 12,000, not 2000.    As of the end of August we brought 10,998 Iraqis to the US this fiscal year.  In August alone we brought 2183.   The way things are going this month the State Department will reach the 12,000 Iraqi refugee goal.   Also, Senators Kennedy and Biden were successful in attaching a bill that would allow another 5000 special visas for Iraqis to a funding measure that President Bush signed into law.  I don’t know how many of those special visas have been processed.

365 Iraqis with possible ties to terrorism have been rejected so far.  See earlier post here.

We have written 226 posts on Iraqi refugees.  See our special category here.