Update June 24th: Debbie Schlussel has some good comments on this story, here.
I told you the other day about the State Department memo where the State Department gives its blessing for more resettlement of Iraqis in the Detroit area. Here is an Associated Press story on the announcement.
DETROIT – The U.S. State Department has decided to relax a two-year-old policy that limited refugee resettlement to the Detroit area because of Michigan’s struggling economy.
An influx of Iraqi refugees have come to the area in recent years, many of whom were attracted to the Detroit area because of its large Middle Eastern population. But authorities said two years ago only those with close relatives could resettle there, in part out of fear that they would be unable to find work.
Now, the State Department says anyone with family and friends can come to the area, Lawrence Bartlett, the department’s deputy director of refugee admissions, told The Associated Press.
Why do they say they can lift the restriction—because they got more of your federal tax dollars to redistribute.
One big reason for the change was the State Department’s decision in January to double the payments to resettlement agencies on behalf of each refugee to $1,800. That money is designed* to help refugees with their expenses, such as food and housing, for up to 90 days.
With the increase, “we were able to take a new look at this restriction,” Bartlett said.
Meanwhile in the Detroit area, Christians are arrested attending an Arab festival.
By the way, those Iraqis flowing to Michigan are both Christians and Muslims. If they weren’t getting along in Iraq, why would we assume everything will be peachy in Detroit?
* “Designed” is the operative word here, readers should know that the agency gets to keep some of the money for its own overhead. The program was originally ‘designed’ as a public-private partnership. That means that the agency was supposed to raise money on its own to contribute, but over time most volags (the big federal contractors) and their subcontractors are largely funded by taxpayers’ dollars.