Guest column: Is refugee resettlement modern-day slavery?

Editor:  From time to time we publish opinion pieces from our readers as well as other comments worth highlighting.  This is from an Idaho patriot with a point of view we have heard expressed before.  Not pulling any punches here, the author is sure to infuriate some of you.

By the way, we have often asked our critics to pen an opinion piece for us about why they think the federal resettlement program is a good thing for America and they never take us up on it.  Maybe some of those critics, who lurk here daily, will be inspired to respond after reading this! 
(Emphasis below is mine)
From Idaho Patriot:

The refugee program is not unlike ancient AMERICAN slave trade.

Caboceers from the UN tap or trap their kinsman, the majority of which are uneducated and unskilled laborers, many of which DO NOT read. “Marketed” to foreign countries as laborers, separated from friends, family, and language they are relocated by the will and decision of overseers. Immediately the “cost of their transportation” puts them in debt to the government. Statistics say that the majority do not/cannot repay that initial debt.

UNHCR Gutteres
Is UNHCR Antonio Guterres the chief caboceer for global corporations?

Caboceers and wealthy contractors work together, not unlike the slave markets.

Money from the “New World” exchanges hands, and lives are shipped off to help feed the greed of massive industries. Refugees are told they have arrived in a “better” place, the proof of which is running water and flushing toilets. (Oh how lucky we would be to be relocated away from our problems to arrive in the land of bidets).

These people are segregated into poverty communities (Jim Crow would be proud of). Without employable skills, language, or ability to read they have no other option but to accept the housing supplied by their new handlers. Federal and State monies provide plantation type housing, similar to the cluster of shacks that indentured slaves were provided. Families who were destitute remain destitute but now they add debt, isolation, and language and cultural barriers to their troubles. Twice poor: economically, now cut off from their kinsmen.

Their own nationals often serve as handlers who are paid to organize and work their countrymen through the programs provided by state and federal tax dollars. The New World of promise turns out to be more similar to indentured slavery. Equipped with new skills they are now “qualified” for the jobs that “American’s won’t do”.

The reason Americans won’t do those jobs is NEVER QUESTIONED.

Perhaps it is because the work is grueling and the pay so meager that gas money is hardly covered. Perhaps it’s because nobody monitors the abuses against workers at these jobs, perhaps it’s because the hours are so strenuous that Americans would call and report it. Perhaps it’s because Americans aren’t “afraid” to lose jobs, or afraid of the government, or afraid to speak up about being mistreated. God forbid we ACTUALLY EXAMINE THE EMPLOYERS to see WHY Americans won’t work at these jobs. Billions are earned by these Masters but the indentured refugees are kept down and controlled as they fill the pockets of the fat cats on top. Refugees DON’T KNOW how to escape these situations; Americans do and perhaps that’s why we aren’t “doing these jobs”.

OUR happy community gets to feel wonderful about herself as she hands out poverty portions of used furniture, cheap food, and old clothing. Toss out all your unwanted items and feel good about your generosity, this is the other face of greed and can’t be anymore repulsive.

Get the warm and fuzzies by helping out at the refugee center if you wish but I dare you to walk the streets weekly and see how things really are. Many of you say you wish to “convert” these souls, but you aren’t going out to do so. Many of you say you “love multi-culturalism” but you live as far away from their dirty rundown dumps as possible.

What you really want is to feel good about yourself when you feel like doing a good deed. You want to pat yourself on the back when you give your 2nd hand charity. You want to promote yourself in the community by looking like you offer love and the hand of fellowship to people you don’t have anything to do with. Many of you love to have money from Federal and State programs that supply you with security and wealth from these tax funded programs for refugee schooling, medical care, adult education, housing, therapy, and other tax funded provisional programs. You care about YOU. If you were not receiving money you would not be receiving refugees.

Twin Falls has met her capacity to absorb refugees. At this point we are mistreating the ones who are already here by not seeing to their needs.

We are also dealing with questionable leadership who, DESPITE THE OUTCRY FROM THEIR COMMUNITY, don’t want to limit or cut off the federal money received for their part in this refugee trade. These programs are now BUILDING INDIGENT populations that are drowning Twin Falls in higher crime, garbage, and displaced souls.

This program needs to end.

Editor:  My interest in the refugee program back in 2007 was initially begun because it came to citizens’ attention that refugees were being resettled in my county into the worst slum sections of our major city and reports were that they were not given necessities such as bedding and winter coats.  Look around where you live and see if meek refugees are being neglected.
Suggestion for reform…..
This reminds me that we have a suggestion for something that could be done very easily by Congress and that is to create a repatriation fund to help unhappy refugees (and other legal immigrants) rejoin their own people and cultures where they came from or in a another country that is within their own cultural zone.  Even the introduction of such a bill in Congress would ‘smoke out’ very quickly those who really care about the refugees as people, from those who are using them for cheap labor or for their own personal selfish reasons.
See our category entitled, Comments worth noting/guest posts, for more reader opinions.
For our complete archive on the controversy in Twin Falls, Idaho, go here.

Twin Falls, Idaho: College board (supporting refugee resettlement) limits free speech at recent meeting

News from a “Pocket of Resistance” to more federal government colonization of towns throughout America…..
Here is the latest from MagicValley.com *** the publication that sent a threatening letter to RRW and editorialized against us recently.

The College of Southern Idaho houses a refugee resettlement program.

One of the favorite techniques used to tamp down resistance to refugee resettlement was apparently on display at a recent Board meeting of the College of Southern Idaho (which houses and supports a refugee resettlement contractor).   They don’t want to hear the opposition, so they come up with methods to silence speech.
From local reporter, Julie Wootton, here is how the story begins.  But be sure to read the whole thing because this publication wants to be sure you visit them to see their paid ads and so forth (emphasis is mine):

TWIN FALLS • A crowd showed up Monday to a College of Southern Idaho meeting to voice opinions about the Refugee Center program.

It’s the third month community members have come in droves to a board of trustees meeting.

Board chairman Karl Kleinkopf told the crowd of more than 50 people that it’s board policy that those who have spoken within the last six months would be moved to the end of the list of speakers.

He set a time cap of 30 minutes for the public forum due to the “tremendous amount of new business.” This is the first time the board has set a time limit for a public forum.

One commenter who did get to speak was Terry Edwards who said the program is costly, secretive and puts the community at risk.  That about says it!

Note to ‘Pockets,’ you don’t have to always play in their sandbox!

Go on the offense! Why not call for a public meeting and invite all the players!    Invite the US State Department, the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (in HHS), the major federal resettlement contractors (and their subcontractors) operating in Boise and Twin Falls, and the Idaho Office of Refugees/Jannus Inc.
Don’t forget to include elected officials at the city and state level who support the program, ask them to come to a public forum in order to answer the many questions citizens have.  Maybe CSI would offer a free auditorium for the evening because surely they would like all the facts reported to the public.  Surely, the elected officials and ‘stakeholders’ have nothing to hide!
Ask those who advocate bringing more UN-chosen refugees to Idaho to answer all of the public’s questions about how the program is run, who is coming to Idaho, what industries are seeking cheap immigrant labor, what will the resettlement cost be to local and state taxpayers, how are the refugees screened (for health problems and security concerns), what might the impact be on housing for Idaho’s own poor and disabled people, what will the impact be on the local health department, how many children are now going into the school system and how many are projected for the future, etc.
Let those who support the program make their case IN PUBLIC.  But, organizers, be sure that all questions are asked and answered if it takes all night!
This post is filed in our new “Pockets of Resistance” category to inform those of you forming ‘pockets’ where you live of what others are doing!
We first heard that phrase— pockets of resistance—(coined by the federal government to refer to us who want transparency!) at an Office or Refugee Resettlement meeting in Lancaster, PA in June 2013, here.  It is the same meeting where we heard that the “NEW Americans” are “seedlings” being purposefully planted in the “soil” of your communities.
Click here for our Twin Falls, Idaho archive.

Catch me on Cleveland radio tomorrow morning!

Tomorrow morning at just after 9:30 a.m. Eastern you can listen to my live interview with Bob Frantz at The Bob Frantz Authority 1420 AM.  I’ll be talking about how ‘Welcoming America’ has targeted Cleveland (and really all of Ohio) as a prime refugee resettlement site as well as other news about how the Obama Administration is changing America by changing the people!
As time goes on, I’ll try to be better about letting you know about interviews in advance.

Montana response to refugee plan includes dire warning

Last week we told you that a group in Montana was proposing that the state begin to resettle refugees in significant numbers.  The only state that has no refugee program at all is Wyoming, but over the years Montana has resettled a handful (LOL! sort of like refugee advocate Joe Biden’s Delaware).  However, that could all change as writer Stephen Maly suggested in an opinion piece in Helena’s Independent Record.
Now comes a response by Montana resident Paul Nachman*** which I’m posting here for several reasons.  First, his excellent piece could be a model for others working in ‘pockets of resistance’ and it’s a reminder to use the local media as much as possible (not everyone is on the internet!).  Secondly, he makes some very good points in a thoughtful way, and last but not least, he raises a specter of something more and more experts are beginning to notice—in the coming years we will have a glut of low-skilled workers and no jobs.  So what then will happen to all of the third world immigrants we have imported ostensibly to do the jobs Americans won’t do?  Nachman asks that question.

After you read the whole essay, you might want to send a letter or comment to the paper yourself.  Help Montanans decide if they should “change” the character of their state by “welcoming” refugees from places like Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

From the Independent Record:

Stephen Maly’s op-ed “Exploring the possibility of welcoming Syrian refugees to Helena” (June 25) is heartfelt. But it’s also a nonstarter because most of what Mr. Maly wrote has negligible overlap with the current realities of refugee resettlement in the United States.

These realities usually startle people new to the subject. One pictures carefully selected refugees shepherded to new lives in America by doting non-governmental organizations rooted in religion (e.g. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service) or civic concern (e.g. International Rescue Committee). Surely such groups assist their charges in finding housing and employment and in assimilating to American life, while also providing financial support until “their” refugees attain self-sufficiency? And surely they fund this support and the salaries of their professional resettlement workers using contributions gathered by “passing the plate” in their churches or by attracting private philanthropy?

Well, no. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does the selecting, pressing their selectees on national bureaucracies such as the U.S. State Department. In turn, the State Department — working with LIRS, IRC and seven other NGOs — identifies American cities and towns for concentrated resettlement of the refugees, typically paying minimal attention to the capabilities and resources of these receiving communities. Indeed, the communities often learn about their new arrivals after the fact.

The sponsoring NGOs’ refugee work is funded almost entirely by the federal taxpayer, not from resources they’re raised themselves, so they’re best viewed as federal contractors. And the contractors’ obligations to any particular refugees end after a few months, no matter how inadequately their charges have assimilated during that brief span.

Continue reading here.

Now this is the part that I found alarming because I have been hearing this warning from several sources lately.

Mr. Maly’s worry about systemic worker shortages is probably misplaced, anyway. The cover story in the July/August Atlantic is “A World Without Work.” Author Derek Thompson argues that galloping computer-driven automation is en route to destroying, on net, tens of millions of American jobs. If so, the issue for our society will be the distribution of sustenance to those forced out of the workforce, without engendering the resentment of those still working. We certainly won’t need to import workers from abroad.

There is more, please continue here.

***Paul Nachman (PNBL48@hotmail.com) is a retired physicist and a founding member of Montanans for Immigration Law Enforcement (www.montanamile.org). He also volunteers in a research group at MSU in Bozeman.

Please send a comment to the Independent Record especially if you have information about how the refugee program is problematic where you live.
***Update***
Want to send a letter, click here.  It is a 200 word limit and you can also go here to submit it:  irstaff@helenair.com