St. Louis refugee contractor wants to help make the area the fastest growing immigrant community in America by 2020

To further that goal they recently purchased a closed Catholic School (bye-bye Catholics) and are converting one room into a Muslim prayer room!

Readers, the International Institute of St. Louis is a subcontractor of one of the big nine*** federal refugee contractors—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).  USCRI is 99% funded with taxpayer dollars.  More on the International Institute’s finances after this news.

More cultural clashes coming to Missouri?  Have we so quickly forgotten the recent Bosnian murder? African Americans don’t take kindly to refugees, who are getting a lot of government help, moving in to their communities!

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

In the shuttered St. Elizabeth Academy just east of Tower Grove Park, the tiny room with the small window used to be a bathroom, but it will now serve as a prayer room for Muslims.

The room has been emptied, the only addition a bar along one wall to hang prayer rugs.

It’s one small, but important addition to what is being prepped as the new home for the International Institute of St. Louis, which has helped more than 20,000 refugees legally resettle into the area by offering English classes and assistance in finding housing and jobs.

At its current location on South Grand Boulevard, the Institute has no designated place for Muslims to pray.

“I’d walk out and see men near the elevator or stairwell, in a corner with a piece of cardboard down, praying,” said Anna Crosslin, president and CEO of the Institute, which has been in operation since 1919.

Adding the prayer room points to the ongoing challenges to serve refugees from more than 75 countries, coming to St. Louis with various customs, languages and beliefs. Since moving into its current facility in 1999, the Institute has more than doubled the number of people it serves, to about 7,500 a year.

“We feel we need to be above 12,000, and there is no way we can do that now,” Crosslin said.

The Institute also plans to enhance career development and job training opportunities. The efforts are part of the region’s goal to be the fastest-growing metropolitan area for immigrants by 2020.

[….]

When I arrived in September 1978, we served about 1,200 annually, primarily through our (English as a second language) classes,” Crosslin said. “There was no formal refugee resettlement program in Missouri — that happened in winter 1978-79.”

[….]

With immigration reform efforts nationwide and the St. Louis Mosaic Project initiative locally, Crosslin expects the number of clients served each year to reach 12,500 by November 2019, the Institute’s 100th anniversary.

If she is right, this will be an enormous jump in numbers for St. Louis.  The whole state of Missouri “welcomed” just about 12,000 refugees since 2004.  2,564 of those were Somalis, btw.  Most went to St. Louis and Kansas City, some were spread around the whole state.

So, if you are wondering where all their “refugee” clients will come from, these won’t all be refugees “served” by the Institute helping them find housing and get jobs—all of these contractors are getting geared-up to get federal bucks to “serve” the new Obama amnesty recipients.

There is much more, here at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

When you read the Institute’s about page, note that they brag about doing free job counseling and training.  It isn’t free!  Taxpayers pay for this special help for immigrants and refugees. 

Follow the money!

Here is the Institute’s most recent Form 990.

On page nine, we learn that the Institute that year (2012) took in about $5 million (rounded number) and $3.9 million came from government grants (78%).  Interesting to see that they took in nearly a half a million for translation services.  Remember I have been telling you all about the growing cost to “welcoming” communities for translation services for immigrants who run into any problems in schools, healthcare facilities, housing agencies and the criminal justice system.  Costs of hiring translators falls on the local taxpayer and guess who is supplying the translators—looks like the same agency being paid to bring ’em in!

Crosslin herself isn’t a big dipper—she gets under $150,000 in compensation (nothing like the salaries of some of the biggies), but there is one line that interested me (I wish I had an accountant handy to explain!).  They paid out $2.1 million in compensation to “disqualified persons.” (page 10, line 6). What is that?

Here is our complete archive on St. Louis, note the number of crimes either perpetrated by immigrants, or those (more often) perpetrated against refugees and immigrants.

*** For new readers, these are the big nine federal contractors.  There are 350 subcontractors under them working in 180 cities in the US.