As if they don’t have enough problems with the tens of thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota, the Minneapolis city council passed a resolution yesterday, welcoming Syrians to join the gang in Minneapolis.
Frankly, I’ve wondered why so few Syrians have been sent (by the US State Department) to Minnesota so far and wondered if the DOS was worried that there could possibly be some tensions created with the added diversity in the city where Somalis are king.
Arab Muslims (98% of Syrians entering US right now are Muslim) and black Africans aren’t always the best of friends, and the Syrians will add competition for the same welfare dollars as the Somalis enjoy now.
See screenshot from Wrapsnet.org below showing how many Syrians have been placed in Minnesota. I went back to FY2012 and only these few are recorded so far (with none in FY 2017 to date).
From Minneapolismn.gov:
The Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Betsy Hodges approved a resolution today supporting the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Minneapolis and calling on other Minnesota communities to support a national effort to resettle the country’s most vulnerable refugees.
The resolution notes that “hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are making life and death decisions to flee Syria and neighboring countries because they are unable to access shelter, health care, education or protection, and neighboring countries have closed their borders to new arrivals.”
[….]
More than 14,000 Syrian refugees have resettled in the United States since the beginning of the conflict in 2011. The Twin Cities is a leader in welcoming refugees and has resettled more than 12,500 refugees from 40 countries, including Syria, since 2011. [Only 5 from Syria have been placed in Minnesota so far—-ed]
“Minneapolis has long stood as a place of welcome for refugees from throughout the world, including those seeking resettlement from Syria,” said Mayor Betsy Hodges. “Today we restate our City’s commitment to welcome Syrian families to make homes and new lives here.”
Continue reading here.
Here below is the screenshot from Wrapsnet.org (US State Department’s data base for arriving refugees):
