We’ve written about Gov. Snyder and his plan to re-populate Detroit with 50,000(!) Syrians, but where does he expect 50,000 (or even 5,000) to work, or will they just bring federal welfare dollars to the city?
Here is the latest from the The Detroit News (hat tip: Joanne). Emphasis is mine.
Michigan, already home to one of the largest communities of Syrian immigrants in the nation, can expect even more in the coming months as lawmakers warm up to the idea of welcoming more people from the war-torn country.
[….]
The prospect of accepting the migrants has support in Michigan, where about 4,000 refugees were resettled last year, with more than half of those from Iraq, according to data from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health & Human Services.
“Gov. Snyder believes Michigan should be a welcoming state,” said Dave Murray, spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder. “We are open to working with the federal government to see if there is a role that Michigan can play with this issue.”
It’s unclear how many Syrian refugees could end up living in Michigan. Resettlement inside the U.S. is influenced by several factors, including whether the refugee has relatives living in the U.S. already, and the capacity of the resettlement agencies in local communities to handle individual or special casesand languages spoken.
“Each state also has the ability to comment on the capacity of the agencies and the communities in which they propose to place refugees,” said Danna Van Brandt, an adviser for the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration within the State Department.
Liar, liar pants on fire!
It is absolutely NOT true Ms. Van Brandt that each state has the ability to comment on the capacity for the communities to handle more refugees, as all of you working in ‘pockets of resistance’ can attest. If they consult at all, they consult only with ‘friendlies’ like Gov. Snyder!
More welfare please!
The Detroit News continued with, get this, they want more welfare for Michigan refugees! This when we already know ,thanks to the work of Senator Sessions’ office, that Middle Easterners (Muslims and Christians) are gobbling welfare at a higher rate than other refugees.
Activists in Metro Detroit’s Arab community are pushing for the federal government to offer more aid to refugees from the Middle East and Africa.
“We’ve seen refugees coming here from the Middle East for the last 36 years,” said Haifa Fakhouri, president, CEO and founder of the Arab American and Chaldean Council….
[….]
The Arab American and Chaldean council is helping refugees through programs run by the United Nations, Catholic Relief Services and through efforts by churches and mosques, Fakhouri said.
Someone please do an economic study to counter the idea that refugees bring boom times to dying cities!
Logic tells us that that is simply impossible. Leave out the welfare dollars, the special loans for start-up refugee businesses, and money for HUD housing (coming from Washington, from taxpayers!) and then do the study! Be sure to factor in the remittances leaving the US permanently as refugees send money “home.”
Finally a clever reporter notices!
Every time you hear about how we have to help Europe out of its crisis remember that the vast majority of our Syrian refugees are chosen by the UN from UN camps, and here we see that 15,000 are in the pipeline from UN camps (previously we were told 17,000). Whether it’s 15,000 or 17,000 that is still over the 10,000 Obama says we will take in FY2016 (which got underway on Oct. 1).
Does Ms. Fakhouri understand that 97% of the Syrians who came through the Refugee Admissions Program so far are Muslims!
The Detroit News:
The refugees from Syria would be people who are already in the pipeline and waiting to be let into the United States, not the thousands working their way through eastern Europe and landing in Greece. It was not immediately clear how admitting a larger number of Syrian refugees who are in the processing pipeline would help alleviate the crisis that European countries are grappling with.
About 15,000 Syrians are waiting for the clearance process to conclude, according to the State Department.
There is much more including a list of Michigan elected officials for and against the Governor’s wish to bring ’em in! Continue reading here.
By the way, back in 2008, the US State Department slowed the flow to Michigan as the state was overwhelmed with welfare-gobbling refugees, so what changed their minds?