Rochester, NY: Confirmation that the US State Department has packed the pipeline with refugees in advance of Trump

01/08/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is direct confirmation from a resettlement contractor in Rochester, NY that indeed the pipeline of refugees headed to America is packed to overflowing and that local resettlement agencies are struggling to cope with the numbers.
Of course this means that refugees will suffer as will local communities, governments/school systems that must adjust to rapid cultural and demographic change (in addition to shelling-out for taxpayer-funded expenses for schooling etc.).

trump-refugee-rejection — Not sure what the 10 different options are that Trump could choose, but we can think of one at least—pause the program on day one and force Congress to trash the present law or reform it.

On January 20th, Donald Trump could simply turn off the spigot, and if he does there will be howls of rage by contractors who say he is mean and hateful as he cuts off the flow of not only refugees, but the MONEY that comes with them from Washington!
This article at the Democrat and Chronicle (hat tip: Jim, LOL! Not the Jim quoted in the story!) tells us that the local resettlement contractor is in a tough spot because they can’t cope with the uncertainty.
They can’t go out and hire staff to take care of the huge, unexpected influx!

Nearly 1,200 people arrived in Rochester as refugees in 2016, a huge spike from 2015 that has put serious strain on the local agencies through which they pass.

The influx a 56 percent increase over last year’s total mirrors a nationwide increase and reflects Rochester’s role as a major center for refugees like Haidar Al-Hasooni, a 16-year-old from Iraq.

Like most newly arriving children, he attends the Rochester International Academy (RIA), which has nearly doubled its enrollment since the start of the school year. [For more on this part of the story, be sure to click here.—ed]

[….]

The increase in refugee arrivals coincides with President Barack Obama’s decision to raise the total national number from 70,000 to 85,000 for the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ended in September.

That includes Syrians, 80 of whom settled in Rochester in 2016. There were also significant increases in arrivals from Somalia (231, up from 103); Cuba (179, up from 119); Iraq (105, up from 54); and the Republic of the Congo (99, up from 39).

Rochester welcomed 756 refugees in 2015. This year, it was 1,176, and the pace has remained frenetic into the winter.

“This is usually a very slow time for us, but this year it’s the opposite because there are so many people in the pipeline,” said Jim Morris, associate vice president for family services at Catholic Family Center.

[….]

Even when refugee arrival trends are apparent, it is difficult for local agencies to plan very far in advance. Numbers can fluctuate in response to a variety of domestic and international factors, with the election of Donald Trump as president foremost at the moment.

“We’re not really built for the (current) level of arrivals,” Morris said. “We can get through a couple of months like this, but a sustained high level for seven or eight months makes it very difficult. … But we can’t really scale up, because it will likely go back down. The new administration could do one of 10 different options.”

More here.

Getting new housing in your town? Then you will get refugees!

01/08/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If Trump doesn’t turn off the spigot, both of refugees and funding/regulations for low income housing (Obama’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing!), then expect refugee contractors to find your town!

Changing the heartland one town at a time!

tysons-map — Tyson Foods is the top employer in Garden City, Kansas and the primary reason Somalis and other refugees move there. If you have a Tyson Foods plant (or any BIG MEAT plant near where you live, you will have refugees too.

Here we have news from Kansas where a federal refugee contractor crows about all the new housing that could be available for refugees in Liberal, Dodge and Garden City, Kansas.
Governor Brownback recently withdrew the state from the Refugee Admissions Program, but that means nothing unless he is willing to sue the federal government on states’ rights grounds.
His withdrawal means that contractors, like the International Rescue Committee, will move in to run the program with Washington. As we said here, Brownback cannot be trusted on this issue!
From KSN.com (Refugees may double for southwest Kansas in 2017):

GARDEN CITY, Kan. (KSNW) — Southwest Kansas welcomed 67 new refugees to the area in 2016, just shy of the 80 the International Rescue Commission [Committee—ed] was authorized to re-settle, but that number could soar this year.

“We do have the capacity to settle 140,” said Amy Longa, who manages the southwest Kansas site of the Commission. “I do not know how many we’ll end up settling by the end of the fiscal year.”

It depends on many factors at play in the international resettlement efforts, but the number of new refugees settling in Dodge, Liberal, and Garden could potentially double this year over last year.

[….]

The housing shortage in the region is an obstacle, but it is being addressed.

“We’re now seeing a little more opportunity with the recent building,” said Carol Davidson with Garden City Community Development, “and we also have plans in the future, this next year 2017, we do have a development that’s going in.”

“19 duplexes, 12 fourplexes, and five 36-unit apartment complexes,” said Cory Hodapp, who owns the company building a new housing complex in Garden City. “We’ll have half of the duplexes and half of the fourplexes complete this year.”

Good news for the IRC and Tyson Foods!

It’s good news for the IRC, which competes with the market to help find homes for refugees.

“What we have been working on the past two years is reaching out to landlords and creating partnerships with landlords to create housing,” said Longa. “Not only in Garden City, but in Dodge and Liberal as well.”

As we have reported on many previous occasions, the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program works closely with large companies like Tyson Foods and others to supply them with cheap immigrant labor. Those laborers are further subsidized by your tax dollars including those used to expand low-income housing.
So, don’t fall for the humanitarian mumbo-jumbo! Refugee resettlement is an industry! Chambers of Commerce want it, housing developers want it, big industries want it for cheap labor, local mosque leaders want it, politicians want it (money!), and the resettlement contractors get jobs and nice salaries all while pretending to wear a white hat of humanitarianism!

We have many previous posts going back several years on Garden City, click here. And, see Garden City’s wikipedia page where someone had to be sure that the recent arrest of three Kansans who allegedly planned to blow up one of the Somali apartment complexes has been added to the page.
There is another article about Kansas and refugees, here, in recent days. You might want to have a look at.

Chicago: Story about Rohingya Muslim airport workers is instructive

01/08/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Joanne for sending this story about supposed discrimination against non-English speaking workers at O’Hare airport in Chicago.

rohingya-boat — Explain to us again how we are security-screening the Rohingya who have fled Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh in boats and are scattered throughout Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Do they have any documents in plastic baggies on these boats? I doubt it! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/04/07/illinois-zakat-foundation-to-open-cultural-center-specifically-for-rohingya-muslims-in-the-state/

Before you read it consider these points:

~The ‘star’ of this story and his Rohingya Muslim fellow worker are ‘boat people’ who arrived in Malaysia, likely with no papers, and only stories about abuse in Burma, or possibly Bangladesh. We brought them as refugees to America.*** So while Congress and others focus their energy on Syrian refugees who CANNOT be thoroughly screened, we admit Rohingya Muslims who have been wandering all over Southeast Asia and we don’t know who they are either!

~This article describes a growing practice of hiring Muslim refugees in airports!

~While there is squawking about companies, like the airplane cleaning company, using non-English speaking workers with suggestions they are being cheated, there is no suggestion that the notorious union SEIU is also using them for its purposes!

~We have admitted (Wrapsnet.org) 13,500 Rohingya Muslims during the Obama Administration. 543 arrived in the last three months.

Here is the news at DNAinfo:

WEST RIDGE — A Rohingya refugee who immigrated to the U.S. two years ago from war-torn Myanmar hoped he would find opportunity and a second chance by settling in Chicago, with a job at O’Hare. Instead, Amir Hussin Bin Mohamadur Rahman has found himself at the center of a workers rights struggle unfolding within Chicago’s labor force.

Rahman, 25, got a job shortly after his arrival in June 2015 with Scrub, Inc., a company that employs workers who clean the cabins of planes after flights.

That relationship ended in late November after Rahman publicly rallied alongside Service Employees International Union members and other airport workers in a one-day strike with the “Fight For $15” minimum wage campaign.

Rahman also spoke out at an employee meeting advocating for Scrub, Inc. workers to unionize, an act he alleges led to his firing.

[….]

At different times, Rahman and Ahmad made their way to Malaysia before immigrating to the U.S. and resettling in the Rogers Park/West Ridge area where an established Rohinga refugee community exists. [It exists because the US State Department and a refugee contractor place them there. Just what Chicago needs (poor refugees competing with poor Americans for jobs)—ed]

Continue reading here.
***We have an extensive archive on Rohingya resettlement, click here (193 posts).