Month: November 2012

Creating global citizens! Minneapolis Public Schools to teach Somali language and culture

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But can they speak English???

It’s too late.  We are lost!

From Insight News:

Minneapolis Public Schools may very well be the first school district in the nation to offer Somali language classes to high school students. At South High School, where MPS’ Somali classes are offered, nearly 60 students are registered in two class periods, one that focuses on Somali language and another on culture. “Somali language is an important element of one’s identity,” said Dahir Hassan, Somali language and heritage teacher at South. “If you don’t speak the language, it is hard to claim that identity.” [Uhhh!  Aren’t they Americans now?]

Heritage language and culture classes devote a portion of the school day to providing instruction in students’ home language and culture. The goals of the program are to maintain and expand students’ language resources and to strengthen immigrant students’ connection to their home culture and community. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, in 2010 there were an estimated 60,000 Somalis living in Minnesota, the largest Somali population of any state in the U.S. MPS has over 2,800 students who speak the language at home.

MPS leaders responded to parent requests to offer heritage language classes for Somali students. “When I met with Somali parents last year at community engagement events, they made it clear that heritage language instruction was a priority for them,” said Dr. Bernadeia Johnson, superintendent of schools. “The academic value is undeniable, so I was determined to see it become a reality for our students.”

Their culture and country is a wreck, isn’t that why they are living here?  Are they planning to teach them how their culture failed them and their people?

Students who learn heritage language and culture develop a broader world perspective, delving into cultural, historical and geographical knowledge of their home country and the world. “When I was my students’ age in Africa, I didn’t have any sense of value for my own culture,” said Hassan. “After going abroad I realized that in order to learn about other cultures, I had to first understand my own [what a bunch of PC mumbo-jumbo!—ed].  My hope for this class is that the students will learn the tools to not only be proud of where they came from, but to be successful global citizens.”

Sounds like Minnesota is right on target with The Hijra.

Oh boy, here we go again “meatpacker” sob stories; demands for “rights”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a story about meatpackers and their immigrant labor.  Heck, a few years ago we set up whole categories on the controversy.  We had stories from Emporia, KS, Greeley, CO, Shelbyville, TN, Ft. Morgan, CO and Grand Island, NE.*   Most of those involved Somali refugees demanding their rights to worship their religion on the job (and some stories about other immigrant groups angry at the company for bending to Somali demands).

The long and short of these stories is that the “international” meatpacking companies (some are not even owned by Americans) figured out that they could use cheap immigrant labor and keep wages low.  I’ve been told by Americans who worked in meatpacking decades ago that wages were very good at Midwest meatpacking companies, BEFORE the illegal aliens were hired.  (This article I’m about to report tells us that too.)

Then the giant corporations realized that they couldn’t function with immigration raids of their plants where the feds were looking for the illegals, so BINGO! they hit on the refugee population—not only were they in abundant supply, they worked cheap and were captive (most refugees can’t get back home even when they want to).

Bill Clinton’s Bosnians!

Bill Clinton was among the first (that we know of!) to bring large numbers of refugees for his corporate buddies in Iowa.  I told you about that here in 2008.  And, I continue to maintain that the US State Department is working as the head-hunter for large corporate interests and supplying them with cheap subsidized labor.   I say “subsidized” because some of these companies are getting tax breaks for hiring poor people—and the refugee employees are getting welfare on the side.  It is a very sweet deal for these companies!    And, it’s doubly good for the Hard Leftwing Socialists because they get the third world population pouring into the US.

But, it’s not just the Lefties who want cheap labor for their Corporate friends, see Mark Krikorian at NRO on Republicans looking for cheap immigrant labor as well.   The difference is that the Republicans only want the cheap labor while the Leftists get a twofer—cheap labor and they get to change the US population (and they can demand “rights” for the downtrodden as this article tells us).

I almost forgot—and the Islamists get the Hijra.

Now to the latest story on the poor and suffering meatpacker immigrant labor force  from the Daily Planet (the reporter is Somali).

First the requisite sob story (LOL! is this basic Leftwing media reporter training—sob story right up front!).

Mohamud Kahin left his war-ravaged country five years ago, promised his siblings in Somalia they would never have to go to bed unfed and rolled up his sleeves for a new life in the United States.

Kahin arrived in Minneapolis in 2007. He has never been to school, and English remains a forever-foreign language to him.

It’s almost impossible to find a job around the Twin Cities, his relatives in Minneapolis told him when he first arrived. They gave him the most common advice given to a new adult immigrant with no English: go to the meat processing companies.

And Kahin did.

In 2008, he moved to Postville, Iowa, joining hundreds of Somali immigrants with similar stories. The 26-year-old Kahin got his share of large knives and cleavers on the fast-moving animal slaughtering and processing lines of Agri Star Meat & Poultry LLC — formally Agriprocessors. It’s the largest producer of kosher meat in the country and the biggest employer in Postville.

Kahin worked more than 40 hours a week as a meat packer in both frigid and oven-like conditions.

“My feet got really swollen,” Kahin said of the first few weeks of the job, speaking in Somali. “There were blisters on the bottom on my heel. The pain was constant.”

He had to stick with the job so he could send $500 a month to his family in Kismayo — it was a way to keep the promise he had made to his siblings: they would never go to bed hungry.

And, we sure don’t want those Al-Shabaab Jihadists going to bed hungry either.  Remember, the US government stopped this money transfer awhile back because some was surely going to the Jihadists.

In the early 1980s [at the same time the Refugee Resettlement Act passed Congress and was signed by Jimmy Carter—ed] meatpackers left US cities and moved to the countryside—surely because property taxes in the cities drove them out and they discovered cheap immigrant labor.

According to the report, 20 to 50 percent of workers at meat processing industries are immigrants and refugees from Africa, Central America, and Mexico.

More than 30 years ago, meatpacking and processing industries were located in the heart of Midwestern cities, including St. Paul, Chicago and Kansas City. New immigrant workers [there weren’t many then, it was mostly American labor—ed] and many Americans in the industries enjoyed “comparable salaries to middle-class workers in the auto and steel industries,” according to the report.

In the early 1980s, however, these jobs were relocated to rural parts of the Midwest and South because “of a much broader reorganization of the industry,” the report said. And a sharp decline in wages has followed. [So tell me why a move to the country would necessarily reduce wages?—ed]

Today, new immigrant communities, documented or undocumented, are finding themselves in rural areas in search of meatpacking job opportunities.

Poor discriminated-against Muslim workers!  Can’t speak English, can’t take prayer breaks—boo-hoo!

Many meatpacking immigrant workers are undocumented or don’t speak enough English. Most don’t know their rights as employees or are afraid to complain. Consequently, they fall victims to supervisors.

“Abuse was often based on race, ethnicity, and immigration status,” the report said. “Undocumented immigrants were insulted and singled out for the worst jobs because they were unlikely to complain.”

Two years ago, JBS Swift was alleged to be a hostile work place for the Somali and Muslim workers because of their race, immigration status and religion, according to a 2010 news release from The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

If you have the energy, check out our 83 previous POSTS (Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy category) on what really happened with those Somali demands and turmoil created in those midwestern meatpacking plants a couple of years ago.   By the way, JBS Swift is a Brazilian Company and we get to help support their immigrant labor force through our social services!  Cool huh!

*Type each of those city names into our search function for more fun with refugee meatpacker stories.

Canada wants more private groups to sponsor refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Private charitable groups need to put their money where their mouth is!

Unlike the US where the federal taxpayer is on the hook for refugee resettlement via contractors (like the USCCB in the previous post), Canada has some private refugee resettlement.    Before the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 (Kennedy, Biden, Carter), US resettlement was done with PRIVATE CHARITY as well.

This article in The Star is a little confusing.  But, if I can summarize it:  the government wants more private charities to pick up the costs and resettle refugees; they say that refugees assimilate better when cared for by a private charity; the private charities say they don’t want to be told which refugees they must take and believe this is a backhanded way for the government to pawn off its responsibility to private charities.

I say this is solely the responsibility of private charity and not a responsibility of the taxpayer in Canada or the US and we should be going back to that idea—private groups take full responsibility for the financial well-being of refugee families and their assimilation into their new culture (if we are going to bring any at all!).

Here is the article from Ottawa in The Star (emphasis mine):

OTTAWA—The federal government is seeking to offload some of its international promises to refugees onto the private sector.

It’s asking community groups to sponsor 1,000 of the refugees the Canadian government has told the United Nations it will resettle over the next three years.

But at the same time, Ottawa is restricting the groups’ ability to sponsor refugees themselves by placing caps on private applications.

The decisions are raising concerns from not-for-profit groups that they are being forced to carry out the Immigration department’s objectives instead of their own.

[….]

Refugee resettlement in Canada is a shared activity between the government and about 80 groups, which have formal agreements with Ottawa to sponsor refugees.

Canada voluntarily accepts about 10 per cent of the world’s refugees. Last year, there were 7,365 government-assisted refugees and 5,585 privately sponsored ones, according to government statistics.  [The US is resettling roughly 50,000 to 75,000 annually in recent years—ed]

[….]

Between 2006 and 2011, the top five source countries for privately-sponsored refugees were Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.  [Mostly Muslims?—ed]

Immigrants fare better when privately taken care of—hmmmm!  Where have we heard that before!  But, we will throw you some taxpayer money too (as a sweetener).

A spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration department said the decision to ask private groups to help settle 1,000 government-assisted refugees was made because research shows refugees fare better when they are brought to Canada by private organizations.

“By providing up to six months of income support for (UN-referred) refugees supported by sponsors, we hope to help organizations new to refugee sponsorship and encourage existing civil society groups to sponsor refugees who have few or no pre-existing family or community links in Canada,” said Remi Lariviere in an e-mail.

Supposedly Canada wants  more refugees, but private groups don’t have the money (surprise!).

The department’s Lariviere said Canada is seeking to increase the number of refugees it resettles to a high of up to 14,500 refugees and other vulnerable populations by 2013.

But both Dench and Wiebe said it’s not certain that goal can be met.

Wiebe questions whether the voluntary sector has the capacity or the resources to help resettle more refugees.  [Call in the taxpayers!—ed]

[….]

But community groups pin the changes to budget cuts — they say it’s cheaper for the government to ask private groups to pick up part of the tab for their international obligations.

Bottomline—There is not enough charitable money to bring in large numbers of impoverished people because private citizens and “charitable” groups only want to sacrifice so much or contribute personally only so much as they bring in ever more culturally diverse, job seeking, and socially needy people.  There are not enough private citizens/groups putting their money where their mouth is to be responsible for the immigrants’ long term well-being, so they milk the taxpayer all-the-while claiming we critics have no heart.

VDARE publishes definitive piece on Bishops funding and asks a question?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Could the US Conference of Catholic Bishops be using federal funding for the settlement of sexual abuse cases?

It isn’t such a farfetched question.  Remember in early 2010 we posted charges by a man closely connected to the Episcopal Church who alleged that it is the federal funding for refugee resettlement that is keeping that cash-strapped church afloat.  See those posts here and here.

As I said at the time and still say today—there needs to be a regular annual financial audit (available to the public) of each of the nine major federal refugee contractors.   Their hundreds of subcontractors should also be audited (financially!) on some regular schedule.    They will tell you they are audited, but its largely a “programmatic” audit that looks at how well they are doing getting the refugees jobs or hooked up with social services.

And, here is a question that continues to perplex me especially at the Christmas season when groups like the ACLU come alive and demand that there be a separation of church and state, why are they silent on federal funding of the Catholic Church?

Here are some key points from Thomas Allen’s definitive post on funding for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled, Is The Refugee Racket Helping Pay For The Catholic Church’s Child Abuse Settlements?

~2011 revenue for Migration and Refugee Services, USCCB’s refugee contracting arm: $72.1 million.

~[I]n fact USCCB independently raises only about 2% (two percent) of its $72.1 million total revenues. The rest comes from contracts, grants and earnings from federal programs.

~“Affiliate funding” does not mean voluntary donations. This is not charity. The USCCB and its Catholic Charities affiliate assist refugees only when paid by the U.S. government.

~Even volunteer time and donated items given by local community members turns into money for USCCB. It imputes a dollar value to all volunteer activity and gives the bill to the feds under the misnamed Federal Matching Grant program.

On this last point, I gotta laugh. I knew a young man who volunteered at one of the major refugee contractors here in Maryland. He received no pay (as I said he volunteered) and used his own old car (got no repayment for mileage) to be the one-man “welcoming committee” to pick up newly arriving refugees at the airport.  Often one will read about the lavish welcome refugees get upon landing in the US, not so in large numbers of cases.   Little did this young man know that his hours and his mileage were being turned into the federal government for repayment to the contractor from the US taxpayer.

Read the whole VDARE article and save it!

Oh, and one final outrage—word is that the US State Department pays for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Washington, DC office!  And, they use your money to lobby for things like Obamacare and Amnesty for illegal aliens, here and here.

Don’t cry now for the Catholic Churches predicament with Obama.  Apparently they haven’t learned the lesson well enough yet—when you take Caesar’s money, Caesar owns you!

Amsterdam mayor tells failed asylum seekers to clear out by Friday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It seems that 130 “refugees” who have been ordered deported have been camping in downtown Amsterdam since September.    Earlier this month we told you about another such group in The Hague.  Those were Iraqi Muslims; there is no mention of nationality of those in the Amsterdam encampment.

Here is the story from Dutch News:

Some 130 failed asylum seekers who have set up camp in Amsterdam’s Osdorp have been told to clear their tents by Friday.

Judges have ruled the camp must go because of safety fears and Amsterdam’s mayor Eberhard van der Laan has given them until Friday morning to comply.

Judges said there are serious hygiene issues at the site because there is no running water and rubbish is not cleared. In addition, the camp is proving a nuisance to people living in the area. Van der Laan has come up with temporary accommodation to house the refugees while their cases are being re-examined.

The camp was set up in September by a group of some 40 failed asylum seekers who argue they cannot return to their home countries, either because it is unsafe or because they have no papers.

Under Dutch asylum rules, failed asylum seekers are not entitled to any help with housing unless they agree to work towards their return.

If you are wondering about US asylum seekers, they are simply released into America with the hope that they will return for their asylum hearing.   If they fail to be granted asylum, they are ordered deported, but then most of those just disappear into ethnic communities joining the US illegal population awaiting amnesty from Obama.