Tennesseans urged to sign petition, Governor must hear from the people!

Editor:  This is a guest post by Don Barnett, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a resident of Tennessee. 

If you are from Tennessee, the most important thing you can do is to post this information on your facebook page/other social media, and send to your e-mail lists.
Since the governor is supporting the status quo on refugee resettlement in Tennessee, TN he needs to hear from the people. Be sure to let your other elected officials know how you feel as well.

 
Barnett:
Don BarnettSupporters of maintaining the status quo in refugee resettlement in Tennessee – that is, allowing the federal contractor to run the program for its own benefit without a requirement that it report refugee social services usage or accurately report the numbers resettled – often point out that refugees pay more in taxes than they consume in benefits, so why all the fuss?

The resettlement program is so little understood and secretive that the contractors can make blatantly false statements and be assured those statements will be reported as fact by the media.

As reported in The Tennessean, the contractor notes that “a 2013 report presented to the Joint Government Operations Legislative Advisory Committee determined that refugees and their descendants provided $1.4 billion in revenue for Tennessee between 1990 and 2012, compared with requiring $753 million in state support.”

Haslam
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R) doesn’t want to rock the boat on refugee flow to TN. Photo: http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2015/06/30/lawmakers-downplay-obamas-impact-insure-tennessee/29491441/

The 2013 study was actually very limited and makes no such sweeping conclusion.

In assessing the cost of publicly funded benefits for refugees the study looked at just 2 programs – public education (including ELL) and Tenncare(Medicaid). It ignored a whole range of programs which Tennesseans use and fund both with Tennessee tax dollars and as federal tax payers.

Sen. Mark Norris noted that at last count 11 state funded programs were being accessed by arriving refugees.

The study assumed that refugees were using Tenncare (Medicaid) at the same rate as average Tennesseans even though up to 59% of refugees have been placed into Tenncare upon arrival in recent years.

A recent federal study found staggering welfare usage rates even among those in the country for 5 years – majority still on food stamps, 44% on Medicaid, 29 % of families with one or more members on SSI, 17% on TANF and so on.

In spite of known high welfare usage among refugees, the report assumed refugees pay state taxes at the same rate as average Tennesseans.

The study, which was supposed to have determined to what extent the feds had placed an unfunded mandate on the state of Tennessee, was hijacked by the pro-refugee lobby, i.e. the local Chamber of Commerce and refugee contractors.

The seemingly positive outcome of the study was foreordained even though the study authors themselves concluded “The information necessary to complete a comprehensive study on the possible cost shifting from the federal government to the state for the resettlement of refugees is not available.” And even though a complete reading of the study does not allow for any positive conclusion despite refugee industry statements.

Perhaps Tennesseans best hope is passage of senate resolution SJR467 which would allow The Thomas More Law Center to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement on 10th amendment grounds. The public services law center will take the case at no charge to the state of Tennessee. Not only might it shed light on this program, but most importantly it would clarify to what extent, if any, the federal government can force a state to use state taxes to cover unfunded costs imposed by a federal program.

The resolution has overwhelming support in both houses of the Tennessee legislature but has stirred fierce opposition from the usual suspects, including Governor Haslam.

All Tennesseans concerned with this should sign the petition included here http://keeptnsafe.com/petition/ and tell the Governor to stop trying to block the democratic process.

For our extensive Tennessee archive, click here.  See here for background on what the governor is doing.
This political work on-going in Tennessee, on the question of refugee resettlement and states’ rights, is groundbreaking!

Another story about refugees living in slums, Syracuse this time….

….where Catholic Charities is seeding the city with Somalis!
Let me repeat! Catholic Charities is responsible in this story about Somalis living in slums in Syracuse.

holy trinity syracuse
No Easter mass today at Syracuse’s former Holy Trinity Catholic church which became a mosque in 2014, thanks to Catholic Charities continuing transformation of Syracuse. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/08/08/syracuse-catholic-church-becomes-mosque-update/

Watch! Instead of recognizing that we are resettling more impoverished people (with no chance at upward mobility) to American slums in the name of ‘Christian charity’ than we can afford, they will all be demanding more tax dollars rather than a slowdown in the process.
Obama and his ‘religious’ contractors, are expecting to resettle a whopping 85,000 this year alone!
Cloward and Piven live before your very eyes!
From Syracuse.com (emphasis is mine):

Syracuse, NY — There’s no heat or water in the dead of winter. Urine and feces dirty the hallways. Children go to school scarred by bedbug bites. Drug dealers take refuge inside busted doors.

This is what America looks like for dozens of refugees, who fled war and persecution to find a North Side apartment complex that is no refuge.

And U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, paying thousands of dollars in rents each month to owners who haven’t consistently paid water bills, maintained the property or provided adequate security.

That’s according to a class-action lawsuit filed in February on behalf of more than 40 Somali refugees living at the Kimton Apartments, 1313 Butternut St., for years known as “Little Mo” after the Somali capital of Mogadishu. The lawsuit argues the problems are so big that they affect everyone living in the building.

Mike Melara
Mike Melara runs this office of Catholic Charities using his “entrepreneurial” instincts.

Tenants “came to this country with the promise of a new life, where they and their children would be safe,” lawyer Josh Cotter wrote in the lawsuit. “Upon their arrival, they found their new home is not much better than the refugee camps they just left.”

[….]

“African houses are more beautiful than American houses,” she said.

[….]

Very few Somali refugees make it to America.  [The reporter apparently has no clue that the number of Somalis admitted to the US is well on its way to 150,000!—ed]

Continue reading about the slum landlord and its property manager connected to Catholic Charities.
The report says the Somalis have been offered opportunities to leave, but don’t want to break up their Somali “community.”  So much for assimilation!
Photo:  Learn more about the man running the resettlement program in Syracuse, here.
For new readers, click here for past posts on New York, one of the top 5 resettlement states in the nation.
Update!  This morning Chuck Todd on Meet the Press suggested that what happened in Belgium wouldn’t happen here because our Muslims were not living in slums with no assimilation going on….oh really Chuck!