Just now I was looking at stats for the month of October and realized I hadn’t reported in a very long time about where readers come from to get their refugee news.
Although only tiny numbers arrive here from more than a hundred countries and territories, here is a screenshot of the first part of the list (in descending order).
Of course, the US is number one with tens of thousands of visitors this month.
Don’t ask me why the EU is listed as a separate country when individual EU countries are also listed.
This post will be filed in my category called simply ‘blogging’and that is where you will find other information about RRW from over the months and years.
I know things are tense as we head into the final week before the midterm elections, but if you want to comment here at RRW, you gotta tone it down.
Many of you are new readers, so you don’t know about my policy regarding comments. I have a few rules. First, no threats of violence to anyone. No foul language. And, no attacking another commenter personally. You can attack their ideas and opinions, but not the person.
Frankly, if you can’t make your point with a good argument, attacking someone personally only makes you and your opinion look weak.
I moderate comments when I have time, so you may not see yours posted immediately.
And, I apologize, I had a look at RRW’s spam folder the other day and see that wordpress has been sending some of you, even long-time commenters, to spam for no apparent reason. I’ll check that more often.
One last thing, if you write a book or send many links, I might have to not post your comment. I don’t have time to open each link to check what you are sending, and no one reads long comments anyway.
If you have something long (under 600 words!) and think readers here would find it useful (on topic!) then send it as a comment with a note asking me to consider it as a guest column.
First, I moderate comments and sometimes I’m very remiss in getting to them, and for that I apologize.
A friend just now alerted me to the fact that she had commented a day ago and I hadn’t posted it. When I went to look for her comment I found about a dozen others that I missed somehow yesterday. Were they even there yesterday when I last checked?
Also, I screen-out comments that threaten violence to anyone. I also try hard to screen out comments with foul language. That is difficult to do sometimes because an otherwise excellent comment might have one common swear word that I let go in order to not lose the whole comment.
If you send a link as your comment with no explanation as to how it fits my post, I often don’t post those because I haven’t the time to go to the link to find its connection to my story. For new readers, it is just me here, no staff, no interns, no volunteers.
And, finally, I don’t want commenters making personal attacks on other commenters. Frankly when you do that it is a sign to me that you have not enough brain power to make a reasonable argument and are resorting to name-calling.
Yesterday I broke my rule (posted attacks) when an apparent troll was busy with infantile names for other commenters and suggested we white people are lazy and all live in trailer parks (racist much!). I posted those comments just to give you a flavor of the sorts of people who do read RRW—including followers of the religion of peace like this man.
And, finally I do post opposing views and don’t weed out comments where I absolutely do not agree with the commenter’s views, just as long as there is no name-calling, foul language or threats to kill or physically harm someone!
Sorry again that I am pretty lousy at getting comments posted in a timely manner!
I’ll be leaving today for a ten day visit to various family members in the west.
It is going to be a challenge to not write a post for those ten days. It might be the longest stretch in 11 years that I won’t have helped to educate my devoted readers about the US Refugee Admissions Program and related migration issues here and abroad.
Even when I did my 2016 (6,000 mile) roadtrip to visit towns struggling with refugees, I managed to post along the way. However, right now I haven’t a decent laptop in good working order. So, maybe that is a message that I need to take a break.
This is the artwork the SPLC created when they named me in their now deleted report: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/04/20/splc-takes-down-their-field-guide-to-anti-muslim-extremists/
But, I want to leave you with somethings to read! (9,275 posts to choose from!).
So, let me tell you what is available here at RRW especially for new readers, but also for longtime readers who need a refresher.
On the header here at RRWyou will find a link to Frequently Asked Questions, check it out! It isn’t completely up to date, but you might find something useful there.
I also have a category entitled ‘Where to find information’with hundreds of posts about reports, documents, research etc. You might want to look down the categories drop-down in the left hand column and see if there are any categories of information that interest you. I recommend ‘crimes’ and ‘health issues.’
I have a few Youtube videos available here, if you have never seen them. You might also want to see the talkI gave in May of 2015 in Iowa (that is the day I had an opportunity to speak with candidate Donald Trump solidifying my support for his candidacy).
By the way, RRW has a very good search function. Simply type a key word or words in to the search window (upper left hand column) and it will lead you to posts on that topic. I recommend you begin by typing your state name and see what I have said about it on previous occasions over the years.
Pivotal posts!
Here are some pivotal posts we wrote in early years. They aren’t so much brilliant revelations as they are posts about news that became important for my thinking about the issue of refugees in America.
In 2007, I was frustrated with my local newspaper—the Hagerstown Herald Mail—which refused to investigate when refugees began arriving quietly in our rural county with the help of the Virginia Council of Churches. Citizens were first concerned about news that the refugees were being neglected and wanted to know the facts. I asked a reporter at the paper to help find the answers to a series of question.
You canread those questions here, they are pretty reasonable and still relevant today, but the paper was not interested in answering them. I began writing this blog as a response to the paper’s lack of interest in finding facts.
We had a public meeting and ultimately the US State Department closed the program in Hagerstown, here. The Virginia Council of Churches said we were an “unwelcoming” community just because we wanted all the facts put on the table!
Another important revelation occurred over the next two months, when blog partner Judy reported here and hereabout how so many refugees in Ft. Wayne, Indiana had to be treated for TB that it was busting the county’s health department budget.
What the heck? We aren’t screening out people with TB!
Early on, I found out the program was pretty much controlled by nine non-profit groups funded with millions of tax payer dollars—-this wasn’t about heartfelt private charity. We were paying for it at the same time we were being kept in the dark about how the program operates.
Then came revelations about lies….
In 2008 we learned that thousands of Somalis had gotten in to the US fraudulently, see here. Family reunification was closed for Somalis and some other Africans as a result. It stayed closed for years.
Not long after, in 2009, we began to see reports that Somali ‘youths’ raised in America (on your dime!) were secretly leaving the country to join the Jihadists in Africa, see here.
By that time in 2009, I was hooked on the issue. I was appalled at the secrecy of the program generally. Why are local citizens kept in the dark as refugees are moved to unsuspecting towns and cities? How were they getting in to the US with communicable diseases, and what is going on in Muslim ‘communities’ where those refugee kids we raised preferred jihad to a good life in America?
Bottomline, as I said, I was hooked at that point and since the mainstream media wasn’t eager to find and report answers, I figured it was up to me.
Eleven years have flown by!
I won’t be completely absent…..
@RefugeeWatcher
While I am away I’ll be tweeting (see my twitter feed in the right hand column here at the blog). I have over 14,000 followers, but twitter seems intent on keeping my numbers stagnant. Every time I add about a hundred, they wipe them out in the coming days!
My partner on facebook will continue to post there at our facebook page, here.
If I come across access to a computer in my travels and something exciting happens with refugees, I will try to post, but no promises.
Oh, and since I moderate comments, your comments might not show up for days, but will try to get them up eventually.
Am I nuts or what!
Eleven years ago RRW was launched because refugees were being quietly placed in the county seat, Hagerstown, of my rural western Maryland county and I (and others) wanted some answers about who was doing this and why.
Our local newspaper, theHerald Mail, refused to investigate and write an article that would explain what I eventually learned, on my own, was that the US Refugee Admissions Programwas responsible.
I didn’t start out with strong opposition, in fact, one of my initial concerns was that some of the refugees placed here seemed to have been abandoned in some pretty lousy neighborhoods.
But….
Why the hush-hush about the program? (The secrecy part was what really hooked me!)
So, I figured I would have to learn about it myself and let people know what I found. How much time could that take? Little did I know, my life would change forever. Since that first day, July 1, 2007, I have rarely missed a day (slowing a bit lately by skipping Saturdays!) writing about some aspect of the program and/or more broadly about refugees and immigration generally.
For me, immigration and how it is managed worldwide is all there is—the only issue that will determine how our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will live.
As far as I am concerned, no other political issue matters!
In those eleven years, RRW has published 9,244 posts that have been read by people in every country or territory in the world (except one country and one island group).
And, if you are wondering, what about those tiny Pacific Islands like Kiribati, Tongo, and Vanuatu—-yes, I’ve had readers from there as well!
Here is my wordpress countries map:
It looks like only people of Western Sahara in Africa and Norway’s Svalbard Islands have never been visitors to RRW!
Thanks for continuing to read RRW.
For new readers, see my category entitled‘blogging.’
That is where you can find posts detailing other facts about RRW with guidance on how to find information archived here.
