Update April 28th: A little inside baseball about how Missoula got so lucky to get a refugee office, click here.
Have you been following our posts on the plan to open Montana to refugee resettlement? If not, click here for background (no time for rehashing!)
In this news story from the Missoula Independent about a phony letter that was sent to the US State Department that purported to rescind an earlier invitation by the county commission for the federal government to start sending refugees to Montana, we learn this much more important news toward the end of the article.
Bait and switch!
(Other ‘welcoming’ cities pay attention! You will not get what you have been told!)
In earlier news accounts the feds and the International Rescue Committee suggested that Montana wouldn’t get Syrians, but what do you know, all of that has changed because the Obama surge is on the way!
Not only will they get Syrians (99% at the moment are Sunni Muslims), but they will get refugees from Afghanistan and from Burma who are Muslims too!
Rohingya are Burmese Muslims that up until a few years ago the State Department did not consider for refugee status to America!
Here is what the Missoula Independent is reporting now!
When the IRC’s request was approved, the prospect that refugees placed in Missoula would actually originate from Middle Eastern countries such as Syria seemed slim, as Syrians make up a small portion of those currently entering the United States.
However, IRC officials now say resettlement of Syrians appears more likely. Most refugees who relocate to the U.S. are placed with relatives, but Missoula’s fledgling program will likely draw from the roughly 30 percent of all arriving refugees who don’t have U.S. family ties. [When you get refugees with no ties, this is truly a SEEDING process—ed]
IRC officials explained the outlook during a Thursday reception hosted by local refugee advocate group Soft Landing Missoula. They told attendees the Missoula office expects initial arrivals may include Syrian families ranging in size from four to 10 individuals [big subsidized housing apartments available?—ed], Congolese families and single woman-headed households, Afghans or Rohingyas from Myanmar. [Congolese*** are mostly non-Muslim, but all the others listed here are Muslims!—ed]
Ambitious readers! To learn more about the very ‘devout’ Muslims known as Rohingya, please see our category entitled ‘Rohingya Reports’ with 188 previous posts going back years.
Then this:
“We were kind of operating under the impression that there might not be a possibility of us getting Syrian refugees for quite a while, and that seems to have slightly shifted,” Soft Landing founder Mary Poole said at the event, “… so that’s really exciting because they were our catalyst.”
If you live in Missoula, you must ask these county commissioners if they have ever seen the R & P Abstract for your community. I bet they haven’t! If they have, demand that you, the taxpaying public, gets to see it too!
*** See also Congolese refugee women arrive with expensive mental health treatment needs.