Get that Wyoming! There is not enough federal money flowing to refugee resettlement hotspots, so Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is calling on the city’s taxpayers to pony-up more cash.
And, the best part of this article in the Seattle Times comes near the end!
Calling the city’s efforts to help immigrants and refugees “understaffed and underfunded,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said Wednesday he’ll expand city services, with a goal of strengthening help for those communities.
Murray called on the City Council to approve $409,000 in new funding to double the size of the small Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and begin work on an action plan that includes expanded access to English-language programs, support for immigrant-owned small businesses, improved relations with the Seattle Police Department and enhanced citizenship programs.
Local ethnic community organizers salivating for more $$$!
Murray said that Washington is the eighth-largest refugee-resettlement state in the nation and that almost 1 in 5 residents were born in another country.
And he said that while many think of refugees and immigrants as living primarily in Southeast Seattle, as many as 25 percent of residents in Northgate and Maple Leaf speak a language other than English.
The morning news conference was attended by many representatives of immigrant communities who said they welcomed increased city attention and resources.
Best part of a very informative article! Immigrant entrepreneur myth busted! This made me laugh out loud:
Aaliyah Gupta, interim director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, said the city knows that immigrant businesses close at a high rate but doesn’t know all the reasons why.
She said that between 2007 and 2013, 3,950 small businesses opened in Rainier Valley, while over the same period 2,390 closed. Many of those were owned by immigrants, she said.
David Lubell and his “Welcoming America” cohorts have been out peddling this notion that refugees/immigrants open more businesses than Americans do, but LOL!, I guess he is not reporting how many are closing! The reality here for Ms. Gupta is that refugees get special deals from the federal government (via the contractors) when financing new businesses and simply can’t sustain the trinket shops etc. that they open. The survivors are the convenience store owners tapping into the lucrative food stamp fraud racket.
Lubell is a contractor for the Office of Refugee Resettlement and he was hired to get your minds right about refugees!
The article ends with a discussion about getting the large number of single, poor, Muslim women together with women police officers to establish trust and cooperation. Guess there is a problem that we are not being told. Of course, the ‘M’ word is not mentioned.