Update: Be sure to see the mayor of Missoula’s op-ed of a few days ago. Not so much for what he says, but for the large numbers of comments on both sides of the issue. Makes you realize that there is a huge divide in Montana about whether it is wise to bring in the third world.
A family of 6 “Congolese” refugees have arrived in Missoula, MT as the first “east African” refugees we are told. (The Congo and the DR Congo are not in east Africa. The countries producing refugees in east Africa are Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. Just saying!)
Here is the story (Montana Public Radio) on the family that will be very costly for Montana and US taxpayers to support:
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — An exhausted Congelese family of six experiencing culture shock has arrived in Missoula, the first of an anticipated 100 east African refugees expected to be resettled in Montana over the next year, a resettlement agency official said.
The family arrived last Thursday and International Rescue Committee Missoula director Molly Short Carr declined to identify them because of privacy concerns, but said three of the family’s four children spent their entire lives in a Tanzanian refugee camp.
Temporary housing? The US State Department normally requires that they be placed in permanent housing upon arrival, and heck this contractor in Missoula has had months to get housing organized.
The family has been placed in temporary housing. The IRC will help them apply for social services, Social Security cards, register the children for school and help the parents enroll in English classes. The parents speak Swahili and French.
A total of 25 refugees are expected to arrive in Missoula by the end of September. Missoula County commissioners previously invited 100 refugees a year to resettle in the county, and the IRC re-opened its Missoula office earlier this year.
Meanwhile advocates for diversifying Montana in Helena say they will wait until after the November election to renew their call for Africans/Middle Easterners for their city.
Great Falls Tribune (hat tip: Joanne):
HELENA – The head of an effort to relocate Syrian refugees to Helena said Monday the group is delaying efforts until after the Nov. 8 election, saying the current political climate has stifled progress.
Stephen Maly, vice president of World Montana, said a grass-roots effort to bring Syrian refugees has been in “arrested development because of political turmoil surrounding the issue.”
“We’re trying to make progress without getting involved in politics,” he said.
Maly said there is draft legislation for the 2017 session to change refugee policy. But that is a federal issue and “not in the state bailiwick.”
He said the timing is horrible for his group of volunteers “to push something forward in political climate. People are misinformed and angry.”
“It’s not in the cards until the election is settled,” he said.
Continue reading and see how the subject of refugees has become a big issue in the gubernatorial contest there. This is the sort of effort you should make where you live—inject the refugee controversy in to any race you can in your state!
But, it also confirms what we have been saying—November is it! If Hillary is elected the flood gates to the third world will be flung wide open!
See our extensive archive on Montana, here. And, why are we getting so many refugees from the DR Congo? Because in 2013 the Obama Administration said we would take 50,000 because the UN told us to!