Wall Street Journal investigates immigrant jobs conflict in Shelbyville, TN

Entitled, ‘Job Fight: Immigrants vs. Locals’ reporter Miriam Jordan filed a lengthy and thorough story this morning about the little town of Shelbyville, TN and the on-going turmoil there involving refugee and immigrant labor competing with local residents for scarce jobs.

Read the whole WSJ piece here.

By the way, we have been following the immigrant problems in Shelbyville for at least a year and a half, and recently wrote this post about refugees being bused there for jobs.  However, it was a shock to learn that refugees are applying for jobs in Shelbyville from as far away as Boise, ID.

If you want federal grants it helps to inflate the numbers

Your tax dollars:

That’s the message I took away from this article in the Columbus Dispatch yesterday.  Apparently there is much back and forth debate in Ohio about how many Somalis actually reside there. 

Past estimates of Franklin County’s Somali population have ranged from 30,000 to 80,000. But a new report says that it’s more like 15,000.

An accurate number helps government agencies funnel funds for social services — English classes, jobs programs, etc. — to specific groups.

“Is it possible we have a grant proposal that says 40,000 Somalis? Yes,” said Angie Plummer, executive director of Community Refugee and Immigration Services.

But she said that grant proposals must include the specific number of people an agency expects to serve with the funds. That means while a grant proposal might refer to a population estimate, it will ask for funds to serve a specific number.

No one could say how much money has flowed in to help Somalis based on population estimates.

It’s a very interesting article, please read it all. 

Then here is a line from near the end:

Communities stand to gain money [taxpayer money!] and power by overestimating numbers, she ( Barbara Ronningen, with the Minnesota State Demographic Center) said.

Community Immigration and Refugee Services is a subcontractor of one of the Top Ten federal contractors, Church World Service.

‘Lynch mob’ runs refugees out of small Swedish town

Ah, that “welcoming” multicultural utopia we call Sweden where refugees flock by the tens of thousands for Sweden’s vaunted cradle to grave welfare system seems to be cracking a bit.   Hey State of Maine, you may have a “cadillac” welfare sytem but Sweden’s got a Rolls-Royce.

This morning there is news that in the little town of Vannas a ‘lynch mob’ gathered recently and succeeded in scaring a number of refugees out of town.

Nearly half of the predominantly Iraqi-refugees residing in Vännäs in northern Sweden have decided to permanently move out of the area after being terrorized by what police called “a lynch mob” in early May.

“I thought that Vännäs was the perfect place for us. And there are many, many friendly people here. But we still don’t dare to stay; I’m seriously concerned about my children’s safety,” said father of five Ismail Ramadan to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

Ramadan’s family and several others have decided to abandon plans of starting a life in the small community outside of Umeå less than two weeks after a group of 30 to 50 young people assembled outside the apartment building in which the refugees lived and began shouting threats and throwing stones.

The May 9th incident resulted in several broken windows and many frightened refugees.

The local refugee coordinator took action.

The weekend of harassment prompted municipality refugee coordinator Ingrid Lindroth to evacuate the refugees to safety.

The police said the incident was not that serious.   Read the whole story, but apparently it stemmed from an incident where a refugee boy was accused of assaulting a local girl.  We told you recently about the high rate of sexual assault cases Sweden was experiencing here.

But the move was criticized by police, who characterized the decision to evacuate around 40 refugees as “significantly more drastic” than necessary, adding that it complicated the police’s investigation into the incident.

Other townspeople and the local politicians begged the refugees to come back.

Muslims and Leftists riot in Greece (again!)

Update May 25th:  Jihad Watch has a good update with lots of comments today.

Check out the full story at the excellent blog, Islam in Action, but here is the gist of it:

ATHENS: Muslim immigrants clashed again with Greek police on Friday during a second day of protests in Athens over charges that officers tore up a Koran during an identity check of immigrants.

Nearly 1,000 Muslims rallied in the city’s central Omonia square in a demonstration organised by leftist, immigrant and anti-racism groups.

Several men in their 20s and 30s from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria and Somalia marched to parliament and the interior minister shouting “Allah! Allah!” and slogans in Arabic.

The Greek capital’s main streets were closed amid a heavy police presence.

Start here to read our previous posts on Muslim illegal immigration to Greece and what it is doing to the country.

Look to Europe with its Muslim immigrant problems and say after me:  we won’t let it happen here, we won’t let it happen here, we won’t let it happen here!

Why Maine, we are broke!

In a letter to the editor today at the Kennebec Journal, reader Larry Davis tells the governor to take a meat ax to the budget and asks some questions, No.1 interests us:

The budget deficit has grown from $340 million to $580 million and is expected to grow to $800 million.

It is time, dear governor, to get out the old meat ax; no, not the small one, but the extra large, double-bladed one you can hardly pick up. That’s right, heft it on your shoulder and ask yourself:

1. Why does Catholic Charities of Maine bring in wave after wave of refugees to one of the poorest states in the nation, and put them on our Golden Cadillac of a welfare system?

Mr. Davis, it’s because you do have a Golden Cadillac of a welfare system.   That’s why the Somalis went to Lewiston (see one of our many posts on Lewiston here), and the Sudanese to Portland (very latest on Portland refugees here, just two days ago).  We recently learned the Iraqis are on the way too.

From our post on unhappy Iraqis in Georgia:   

Refugees in Georgia are not immediately eligible for subsidized public housing, prompting some to migrate to states such as Maine where such housing is available. 

See more about Iraqis going to Maine here

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  You can’t stop secondary migrants (refugees resettled elsewhere who hear about “welcoming” Maine), but you can say no to the Refugee Resettlement program—the state of Wyoming did.

As a matter of fact, maybe it’s time for states to look into whether it’s even Constitutional for the federal government (through a government contractor which is what Catholic Charities is) to place immigrants in your states.  Or, at the very least start demanding of the federal government that this unfunded mandate be funded.