Day: July 10, 2014

Texas city bans “undocumented children”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Traveling again today so no time for further commentary, but wanted to be sure this piece of news gets wide circulation!  Send it to your networks!

See all of our many posts on the surging illegal alien”children” (aka unaccompanied minors), here.

More ‘pockets of resistance?’

From the Houston Chronicle  (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’).  Emphasis below is mine:

As passions over immigration and U.S. border security rise, the League City council approved a resolution on Tuesday night to ban undocumented children from being housed en masse in the municipality.

League City Council Member Heidi Thiess. http://www.leaguecity.com/Index.aspx?NID=39

League City Council Member Heidi Thiess drafted the measure, which declines to accept federal requests to operate detention or processing centers for “illegal aliens” in the city. The “potential threat of communicable diseases” and the potential impact of an influx of school-age minors on local school districts were among the reasons cited for the resolution.

The resolution was passed even though there are no known requests to bring unescorted immigrant children to League City.

[….]

More than 25 League City residents, including an immigration attorney and a United Methodist pastor, spoke during the public comment period of Tuesday’s council meeting, which followed a public workshop on Monday night.

“I encourage you to vote no to the imaginary, politically motivated resolution that is nothing but a bad idea,” longtime resident Leslye Mize said.

Carole Alexander thanked the council for presenting the measure. “We need to start controlling our borders and taking care of our own people,” she said.

The resolution passed 6-2. Council members Thiess, Dan Becker, Todd Kinsey, Geri Bentley, Andy Mann and Mayor Timothy Paulissen voted in favor while council members Dennis OKeeffe and Joanna Dawson were opposed.

OKeeffe described the measure as an unrealistic defiance of federal law.

“Cities do not have the legal right to tell the federal government what they can and cannot do,” he said. “The directives contained in the resolution are illegal, unenforceable, have no consequences for noncompliance and are embarrassing to League City’s reputation.”

Offended Muslims!

A half-dozen men, who identified themselves as Muslim, said they were offended by the 2½-page resolution’s negative description of their religion.

To address the criticism, Thiess amended the section alleging that “radical Islamic terror groups” are using a porous Southern border to enter the United States to say “radical Islamist terror groups.“

She also announced prior to the vote that a similar measure based on the League City proposal was passed by Galveston County commissioners on Tuesday afternoon.

Colorado refugees lobby for more money for ORR as a result of border surge

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  Alaska chiming in too—wahhhh! we need money for refugees!  (Hat tip: Joanne)

You have to hand it to them, the refugee industry federal contractors*** sure can gin-up a media/lobbying campaign when threatened with the prospect that their funding (through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)) might be slashed.

Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora, CO: wrong to cut funding for refugees.

Here is a Denver Post story saying much the same as we are seeing around the country—waahhhh! we are going to lose funding because of all the “children” surging across the border.  But, of course they want the children too (as clients and as potential Democrat voters)!

A Colorado Republican Congressman agrees the money shouldn’t be cut!

From the Denver Post:

People who help refugees in Colorado are concerned that their program funding may be diverted to help the unaccompanied children coming over the border, and the refugee community is taking action by visiting local politicians to lobby for their cause.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement — which funds a variety of programs including refugee assistance and the needs of unaccompanied child migrants — has proposed redirecting $94 million in funding from refugee programs to use for the humanitarian crisis of children coming across the borders.

The number of children this year has swamped projections, creating a funding shortfall, and in June the agency notified Congress that it must reduce refugee services.

Here is USCRI again (99% funded by you!):

If Congress approves the emergency funding, there will be no cuts to the refugee programs, said Stacie Blake, spokeswoman for the U.S. Committee for Refuges and Immigrants. But without that funding, she said, across the United States, programs in English as a second language will be eliminated, critical employment programs for refugees will be shut down, and thousands of Americans who serve refugees will lose their jobs.

Refugee lobbying delegation visited Congressional office:

A delegation of about eight refugees recently visited the Aurora office of U.S.Rep. Mike Coffman. Narabada Bhandara from Nepal learns how to make a resume in the workshop at the Africa Community Center in Denver, Colo., Tuesday, July 8, 2014.

“We explained that you cannot solve one crisis by creating another crisis,” said Bhuwan Tyakurel, a community leader with the Global Bhutanese Community Colorado.

Coffman agrees.

“It would be wrong to divert any funding that is already dedicated to serving the African, Burmese, Bhutanese and Nepalese refugees in my district who are already in this country,” he said via email. “No doubt, what is occurring at the border is a humanitarian crisis but arbitrarily punishing one immigrant community for the benefit of another is wrong, and what is needed right now is a solution that stops the problem at our border from getting worse.”

All of our reporting on the ‘unaccompanied minor’ invasion may be found by clicking here.

***The contractors

 

Minnesota report: unvaccinated Somali child was “Patient Zero” in 2011 measles outbreak

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From Hiiraan:

A new report investigating a recent measles outbreak in Minnesota offers a new window into how the disease can be spread by just one unvaccinated person.

High levels of autism in Somali children in Minneapolis lead parents to not vaccinate children for measles. Photo: NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/health/17auti.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Here’s how the 2011 outbreak, which sickened 19 children and two adults in Minnesota, happened:

An unvaccinated Somali-American 2-year-old some have dubbed “Patient Zero” traveled with his parents to Kenya, where he contracted the measles virus.

When the family returned to Minnesota, the child showed symptoms, including a fever, cough and vomiting.

But before he was diagnosed as having measles, the child had already passed the virus on to three other children at his daycare center, and another household member, CBS News reports.

Ultimately, more than 3,000 people in in the tight-knit Twin Cities Somali community were exposed to the disease.

[….]

Minnesota Department of Health researchers say that is typical in the Somali immigrant community, where MMR vaccination rates remain low, CBS News reports.

In 2004, the number of Somali children in the state who were on schedule with their MMR topped 90 percent.

“By 2010, that was down to just 54 percent,” epidemiologist Pam Gahr, who led the new research, told CBS.

She says the steep drop in vaccinations stems from misinformation about a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

See our health issues category with more on measles, autism and other health issues in the US immigrant/refugee population.

Twenty Jewish groups want more tax dollars to “welcome the stranger”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Not letting a good crisis go to waste, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) has generated a letter to Obama and the Congress looking for more payola from the feds to take care of the illegal alien “children” surging across our Southern border.

Mark Hetfield is CEO of HIAS. He wants critics of refugee program investigated!

HIAS is the same organization that last year called for an investigation of any local citizens who object to refugee resettlement in their towns and cities, here.

From JTA:

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Twenty Jewish organizations urged President Obama and Congress to deal humanely with the unaccompanied children and refugees from Central America who are crossing the U.S. border.

The statement released Tuesday, which was written by the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, calls on the government to “welcome the stranger” in dealing with those entering the United States through Mexico from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

“The safety and well-being of these migrants – and particularly the unaccompanied children – must be at the heart of every policy decision made in response to this humanitarian crisis,” according to the statement, which was signed by such groups as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International and the Jewish Federations of North America.

In the statement, the Jewish organizations call for a long term, holistic solution “that prioritizes safety and opportunity.” They call for increased border enforcement in connection with measures to ensure that those in danger of persecution in their homeland can seek asylum in the United States. The Jewish groups also are calling for increased funding for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Policy.

[….]

Also signing the statement were Ameinu, Association of Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish Women International, Keshet, National Council of Jewish Women, the Rabbinical Assembly, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities, The Solomon Project, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Union for Reform Judaism, Uri L’Tzedek and The Workmen’s Circle.

For new readers HIAS is one of nine federal refugee contractors (below) which will stand to gain increased funding if more of your tax dollars go to processing each of the illegal alien teens (HIAS potential “clients”) entering the US over the last many months.

HIAS was one of the leading advocacy groups pushing for amnesty through the so-called “comprehensive” ( gang of eight) immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year.

***The contractors