Day: December 5, 2016

Minnesota, no surprise highest Somali resettlement state in nation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For those of you in cities and states contemplating whether to ‘welcome’ refugees, remember this:  Once you have set up a program, there is no stopping it. The federal government looks to see if your community has a particular ethnic group growing and you then will get more of them. (Obviously, even if you have had a terror attack as St. Cloud did!)

st-cloud-mall-attack
Minnesota CAIR director worried that the September Islamic terror attack could cause blowback against Somalis in St. Cloud. Not to be deterred, the Obama State Department and Lutheran Social Services are still pouring Somalis in to St. Cloud. Photo: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/09/23/st-cloud-mall-stabbing-update

LOL! The feds want the refugees to be with their own folks, their own kind of people (never mind that that seems a bit racist to me!).
Since I was  having fun with numbers, see my previous post about how Somalis are being resettled at the fastest rate in US history, I thought I would have a look at where the 334 Somalis were resettled in Minnesota in the last 2 months.  So, here we go (Wrapsnet.org). Top two in red.
 

Burnsville (3)

Chaska (1)

Fairbault (1) typo?

Faribault (29)

Inver Grove Heights (6)

Mankato (4)

Marshall (11)

Minneapolis (164)

North Mankato (2)

Owatonna (2)

Rochester (15)

St. Cloud (57)

St. Joseph (1)

St. Paul (26)

Waite Park (1)

Willmar (11)

Many Somalis find work in meatpacking plants (which are luring them to the state!). When I made my summer swing to visit many meatpacking/manufacturing towns overrun with refugees, I stopped at a rest stop near Rochester, MN and I was shocked to see Muslim women praying on the lawn of the rest stop in the middle of lovely farm country stretching from Wisconsin to Minnesota.  I said to myself, I guess I am in Minnesota and my East Coast neighbors would not believe this!
One more thing, this story floating around over the last few days says Minnesota will get 2,500 total refugees this year (we assume they are using the standard fiscal year as we do).   At the rate of Somalis we are reporting here, that means that just over 2,000 of the 2,500 would be Somali. (If Trump doesn’t step in on January 21 and cut off the flow from Islamic terror-linked countries.)
By the way, most of our Somali refugees come through Kenya so I hope Trump’s people aren’t blindsided by that! Somalis are Somalis wherever in the world we find them.
***Update*** I just remembered this post I wrote in 2015 when I looked back for ten years at all the towns in Minnesota seeded with Somalis, click here.

First two months of FY2017, Somali 'refugees' entering US at highest rate ever!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

rpcLogoSmall [Converted]I mentioned this fact a few days ago here when I analyzed the first 6 weeks of FY17 (it began on October 1, 2016), but now the data is in for the first two full months.
You can’t make this up!
In light of the many Somalis who have been arrested and convicted on terrorism charges (here is the most recent case) and in light of two highly publicized cases of Somali youths we cared for on our taxpayer dime attempting to kill Americans since September in St. Cloud, MN and in Columbus, OH, we are admitting the highest weekly average of Somalis to the US that we have ever done in the last 30 years!
Using the data available to the public at Wrapsnet.org (Refugee Processing Center), we searched for the number of Somalis (virtually all Somalis are Muslims) admitted between October 1, 2016 and December 1, 2016 and this is what we found:
2,598 were admitted in the last two months. (More Somalis than Syrians, here).
And check out the top ten states which ‘welcomed’ them. (40 states got some number of Somalis, but large numbers will head to Minnesota and Ohio as soon as their initial resettlement funds run out.)
Top Ten states for Somali resettlement in the first two months of this fiscal year:

Minnesota (334)

New York (283)

Kentucky (169) It is new for KY to be anywhere near the top for resettlement, where are you Rand Paul?

Ohio (158)

Arizona (146)

Missouri (136)

Texas (133)

Washington (113)

Colorado (97)

Pennsylvania (89)

You might think the Obama Administration is working overtime to get this many in here before you know what!
By the way, I heard some mainstream news commentator say the other day that Washington, DC was third behind Minnesota and Ohio for Somali population.  It just isn’t so, there may be some in the DC area, but DC gets almost no refugees.
Note to the Donald Trump transition team: You can’t solve the problem if you only restrict entry to some Middle Eastern countries!  Although we pick up most of the Somalis from camps in Africa, we are admitting Somalis who have “made their way” to far flung corners of the world, including to Europe!

For refugee program, we need something more than Inspector General Hotlines!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (PRNewsFoto/Office of Inspector General Department of Health and Human Services)
From time to time I hear from people who have some waste, fraud, or abuse they want to report involving the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (RAP).
You do know that both the US State Department and the Dept. of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement, have Inspector General Offices.
Those offices have hotlines where you can report something you think is illegal/wasteful or flat out a fraud.  I am told by people in government that those OIGs are decent watchdogs and shouldn’t be feared.

But, we need something more!

Someone (maybe the new Trump Administration) could create a hotline that would address many other concerns, for reporting things like the following:

~For reports of waste, fraud or abuse of taxpayer dollars relating to the RAP witnessed in local communities when it is not clear if it is federal or state/local funds being potentially misused.

~For whistleblowers who work, or have worked, for a resettlement agency (public or private) and have witnessed something that they feel must be reported, but fear for their jobs.

~For unhappy refugees who might want to go home.

Just a thought!
In the meantime, if you have unearthed something potentially fraudulent as you investigate your local refugee program, try the following Inspector General Office hotlines:
US Dept. of State is here (the DOS does the initial work of hiring the contractors and distributing the refugees).
And, HHS fraud hotline, is here (the Office of Refugee Resettlement distributes millions in grants to non-profits which pay for much of their office/staff etc.).
Endnote:  I had to make a new tag, I had all sorts of frauds (food stamps, immigration etc), but needed a general ‘fraud’ tag.