What is it with coffee shops and their desire to selectively hire a certain class of people? Isn’t there a law against this sort of discrimination?
Earlier we learned about Starbucks’ hiring event in San Diego, now a little start-up coffee shop plans to open in Louisiana and hire refugees and political asylees .
What! no needy Americans looking for jobs in Baton Rouge?
What happens if some African American or (gasp) white citizen applies for a job? Will their application be rejected?
A new coffee shop that will hire and help refugees has leased a space in the Bayou Duplantier Shopping Center on Lee Drive, near the intersection of Highland Road, with plans to open in early 2018.
Following the San Diego Starbucks model? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/08/08/starbucks-making-good-on-promise-will-interview-refugees-in-california-for-jobs-as-baristas/
Light House Coffee has been in the works for nearly a year and is the brainchild of Amber and Steve Elworth. He is a minister at Chapel on the Campus. Until recently, she was an English instructor at Catholic Charities of Baton Rouge, which is an official refugee resettlement agency of the federal government.
Through her work at Catholic Charities, Amber Elworth came to realize the many challenges refugees and political asylees face as they try to become self sufficient, so she determined to establish a small business that will help them.
“I wanted to create a structure that will enable more people to get involved in helping refugees,” she says. “The needs are overwhelming and no one person can solve even one person’s needs.”
Light House Coffee will serve a variety of coffees and pastries as well as a few light meals. The cafe will hire refugees and asylees to work as baristas, servers and cashiers.
Just noticed now that the event was held at the SIMPLOT auditorium. Thought I recognized that name—-first saw it here when we heard that the JR Simplot Company was building a new meatpacking plant near Boise. Of course! Cheap refugee labor! So much for humanitarianism!
Here is the news from Boise Weeklyabout the event this past Monday (emphasis is mine):
Anne Richard: Get involved to help us diversify Idaho. George (Soros) wants it that way!
President Donald Trump’s name doesn’t appear on the agenda for the 34th annual Frank Church Conference, titled “America’s Future: Refugees, Migration and National Security,”but discussion of Trump’s restrictions on refugees and immigrants took center stage Monday at the filled-to-capacity Simplot Ballroom at the Boise State University Student Union.
[….]
The Frank Church conference was packed with panel discussions and addresses from a number of experts on the issue of refugees, both national and local, including representation from the Idaho office of Refugees, the Idaho chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Boise office of the International Rescue Committee. The conference’s midday address was delivered by Anne C. Richard, former Assistant Secretary of State.
[….]
In her conclusion, Richard offered a question instead of a statement.
“What are you going to do about this?” Richard asked the gathering. “Will you vote? Will you write a letter to the editor? Will you visit your member of Congress? Will you stay abreast of current events? I put it to you.”
I’ll repeat for the umpteenth time—you have to match them with political action if you want the truth to come out. That is, if you want to preserve western civilization (in addition to your home town!).
When I look at the Boise Weekly story I’m seeing only one comment at this time. Where are you Idahoans?
Soros groupie!
About Anne Richard, former Obama Asst. Secretary of State and former Veep at one of the nine federal contractors—the International Rescue Committee:
Richard, like so many in the refugee industry has revolved in and out of government for decades. She says on herbiography at wikipediathat in 1994 she helped create the International Crisis Group. Sometime when you have a few minutes it might be worth your time to understand what that group was (and is).
Discussions continue throughout 1994 as to what form this new organisation should take. There are heated debates about whether the organisation should be an operational outfit directly involved in delivering aid, or an advocate for action by others.
On 17 November, Abromowitz’s Carnegie Endowment publicly announces “a concerted effort to consider the launching of a new International Crisis Group” with three main functions: assessment, advice and advocacy. George Soros’s Open Society Institute provides US$200,000 to finance continued planning activities. Over the latter half of the year, former US Congressman Stephen Solarz travels to over twenty countries to discuss the proposed organisation and raise funds. Not everyone welcomes him, One senior European government minister complains, “What you are trying to do is to get us to give you a golden stick with which to beat us over the head, in order to get us to do what we’ve already decided we do not want to”.
Continue reading here to see who else was involved and note Soros’s continued funding role.
See my ever-expanding archive on Idaho (a target state if there ever was one) by clicking here.
Where are you Rep. Labrador? Are you looking for more refugee labor for the state too?
Idaho folks need to look very carefully at who is funding political campaigns in the state especially as the 2018 governor’s race rolls around. That race is a perfect opportunity to focus attention on the issue of refugee resettlement in the state. Make it a pivotal issue in the campaign.
That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directlychanging hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service headquartered in Baltimore, MD.
I always assumed it was an informal relationship where the largely federally-funded ‘religious’ charity (LIRS is 96% funded by you and not via the collection plate) just happened to be bringing immigrant workers to small town America.
Now we learn that there is a formal (secret!), contractual arrangement planned for pilot projects in four states with JBS USA a Brazilian-owned company. And, it makes me wonder if this isn’t new and whether similar arrangements are being made with others of the nine federal refugee contractors.***
For those of you in places like St. Cloud, MN frustrated that you can’t get local elected officials to listen to you, remember their seemingly illogical resistance to slowing the flow of refugees has nothing to do with humanitarianism and everything to do with changing America for the almighty dollar!
Global meatpacking giant goes all in for refugee labor
A Lutheran resettlement agency that places United Nations refugees into dozens of U.S. cities and towns is working with the world’s largest meatpacking conglomerate to train refugees for work in four American states while also softening up the local natives to be more “welcoming.”
The secretive pilot program between Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the U.S. subsidiary of JBS Swift aims to pump more refugees into Georgia, Texas, Iowa and Michigan to work in the company’s meat plants. If successful, the pilot program could be renewed for a second year and replicated at JBS meat plants across the U.S., WND has learned.
JBS Swift, the Brazilian-based global meat-processing giant, has agreed to pay Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, or LIRS, $155,000 to implement the pilot program over the next year in the four states, according to a draft of the partnership agreement obtained by WND from a person with inside knowledge of the deal.
“The shock here is to find out that a religious agency is being paid by a foreign global corporation to train refugees and ultimately transform the demographics of small towns in America’s heartland,” said Ann Corcoran, an expert on the international movement of refugees and the nine volunteer agencies that resettle them for the U.S.
The deal between the global meat producer JBS and the Lutheran agency has been dubbed “Rebuilding Dreams,” and is described in the draft document as a “grant and collaboration agreement” between JBS USA and LIRS in the four states.
“The primary goal of this agreement is to improve the capacity of JBS USA and local resettlement agencies to support and improve the hiring and retention of refugee employees at four pilot sites in Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Georgia,” according to the document.
The following are the cities in those states where JBS has meatpacking plants:
Iowa – Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, mostly pork production
Michigan – Plainwell, mostly beef
Georgia – Elberton, Douglas, Athens, Ellijay, Canton and Carrollton, mostly chicken
Texas – Waco, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Pittsburg and Mount Pleasant, mostly chicken
“Rebuilding Dreams will achieve this goal by creating customized trainings and resources for key stakeholders, building stronger relationships through communications and technology platforms, enhancing the collection and evaluation of data, and improving the overall quality and culture of the workplace experience for refugee employees,” the agreement states.
The agreement also calls for improving the local “welcoming culture” in the cities where the refugees will be placed.
Part of United Nations agenda for sustainability
JBS is a transnational, global corporation that beats the United Nations “sustainability” drum on its website, and it also cashes in on the globalized “labor mobility” concept pushed by the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Read more here. The story is a detailed must-read about how a global corporation and a supposedly religious charity are changing America by changing the people.
And as a side reading project, see this 2006 article from the Greeley Tribune involving Swift (JBS bought Swift) explaining how the meat industry went from being a desirable place for Americans to work to their model today that is increasingly reliant on the global movement of labor—-middle America be damned!
Don’t miss Bloomberg: Big Meat worried about Trump’s reduced refugee flow, here.
For Republicans it’s about money!
We know the Dems are pushing refugee resettlement in order to boost the number of Democrat voters, and if you are wondering why the Republicans aren’t doing enough to get the program controlled—look to the Chamber of Commerce and GLOBAL Corporations that have convinced the Republican leadership that the free flow of cheap and captive (uncomplaining) labor across borders is the future.
The jig is up!
Big Meat gets cheap labor, the Dems get voters, and you, the taxpayer, get to subsidize it all (including welfare for workers paid insufficient wages!). If you complain you are a hater, a racist and an Islamophobe!
LIRS is headquartered here in Baltimore. This is their own description: The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues.
LIRS, in Baltimore, is not a separate group from the others on the list! LIRS is the lead contractor that deals directly with the US State Department and divvies up incoming refugees between the agencies below—LOL! it is the ‘mothership’ to the following:
So what do you do? Go to this postI wrote earlier this month and get to work where you live!
*** For new readers, these are the nine major federal refugee contractors largely funded by you, the taxpayer, see here. Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism so don’t let them shut you up!
Readers, I do have news from elsewhere that needs to be posted, but the St. Cloud upcoming council vote is shaping up to be a pivotal event.
What I truly don’t understand is why Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota (a subcontractor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Serviceheadquartered in Baltimore) is so hell bent to bring more third worlders, especially Somalis, to a town where they (Somalis AND LSS) face such a backlash.
You would almost think the Lutheran resettlement contractor is benefiting financially beyond its per head payment for the refugees they place in Minnesota communities.
Now they plan to put on a webinar in mid-November to supposedly tell the public that refugees don’t cost taxpayers a dime just when a member of the city council wants a REAL economic assessment of what resettlement is costing the community beyond the trouble in schools and neighborhoods and the general social and cultural upheaval that comes with cities being rapidly changed demographically.
When you look at their list of handpicked webinar speakers (below from the St. Cloud Times), see who is represented and who isn’t:
No one from the police department is listed
No one from the school system
No one to explain the costs for interpreters in the criminal justice system and in hospitals etc.
No one who can speak to the amount of remittances being sent out of St. Cloud and back to Africa
No one to address the issue of jobs that refugees take from low-skilled American workers….
And, how about they put a representative of the Minnesota Meatpacking industry on the panel to explain how they need the Lutherans to supply their cheap labor!
Of course they won’t do that, and they won’t do this ‘fact finding’ in a public meeting because here they can control the information, who registers and what questions are asked in this webinar format. (Ha! Ha! wouldn’t it be fun to have a counter webinar that same day and time!)
The presence of this panelist explains much. Teresa Bohnen is not only President of the St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce, but also Vice Chair of the state chamber and works closely with the US Chamber of Commerce that lobbies for amnesty for illegals and for more refugee laborers. If only they would all be truthful about their wish for a steady flow of migrant labor. Come on just say it! We work for the meat industry! http://www.sctimes.com/story/money/2016/02/05/bohnen-elected-state-chamber-board/79840982/
A group hopes to distinguish between fact and myth about refugee resettlement with a public webinar in November.
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota will have a webinar from 3-4:30 p.m., Nov. 14.
Panelists, including staff and state and local leaders, will talk about how resettlement works and the costs and benefits of the program in the St. Cloud area.
Panelists include:
Yusuf Abdi, director of refugee services, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota.
Karin Blythe, resettlement supervisor, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota.
Teresa Bohnen, president, St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce.
Melissa Huberty, human services administrator, Stearns County Human Services.
Mary Zelenak, health protection and promotion supervisor, Stearns County Public Health. [Be sure to ask her about TB rates in Minnesota immigrant population!—ed]
Rachele King, state refugee coordinator, Minnesota Department of Human Services.
The discussion over the cost of refugee resettlement in St. Cloud has been reignited recently, as a St. Cloud City Council member announced a plan to temporarily stop refugees from resettling in St. Cloud.
Jeff Johnson, who represents St. Cloud’s Fourth Ward, submitted a draft resolution this week calling for a moratorium on refugee resettlement in St. Cloud.
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also launched a petition Tuesday urging the St. Cloud City Council to vote no on the moratorium, which the organization called a “despicable, racist, Islamophobic, and ill-informed motion targeting refugees.”
And, of course, as I look around this morning I see that CAIR’s arrival on the scene draws the national media! A local Fox affiliateis reporting on the controversy surrounding one city councilman’s proposed moratorium on refugee resettlement and even the Washington Postis now reporting. I expect to see the spinners and liars from the New York Times arriving soon! LOL! the new ambulance chasing—CAIR chasing!
It looks like the showdown will be Monday, October 23rd when Councilman Jeff Johnson will propose that the mayor and council ask the federal government and its agent in Minnesota—Lutheran Social Services of MN—to give them a break until more is known about the economic impact of resettlement on the city and until there can be some assurances that the process going forward is transparent. Federal law does give a role to local governments to weigh in with their suggestions.
If this is the first time you are learning about the latest uprising in St. Cloud, see my posts here, hereand here recently.
The moral of this story is if you can draw out CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) you can get some national attention for your efforts!
As I said inmy previous post, CAIR must fight to keep Muslim refugees coming in to the US in order to continue to build their political power base. It is that simple!
Rather than go back over the resolution and what it could possibly do (or what might happen on Monday night at city hall), I think my best contribution to this story is to supply readers with background on how a small Minnesota city became ground zero for a battle, the results of which, will in fact help determine the future of literally every town and city in America in the decades ahead.
It’s the Lutherans in the case of St. Cloud.
We know that Somali refugees have been placed in Minnesota by the US State Department since the late 1980’s. By the early 1990’s the flood gates were opening as three major federal contractors: Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services of MN (whose ‘mothership’ is Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service where, by the way, rumor has it that some scandal is brewing), and World Relief saw Minnesota’s generous welfare as a real plus for the destitute Somalis. See my 2011 post here.
Not only was the generous welfare a draw, but big companies needed cheap labor (a window company in Owatona for example, or meat packing plants all over the state, including in St. Cloud!).
LSS as employment agency?
CEO Harpstead pulls down a salary and benefits package of over $300,000 annually to head the $91 million a year operation
Initially there was no direct resettlement of refugees in St. Cloud, that didn’t come until 2011. But, the so-called secondary migrants were moving to the city helped by an EMPLOYMENT OFFICE run by none other than Lutheran Social Services of MN. WTH!
Why was a non-profit ‘religious’ charity running an employment office to benefit large corporations? Was someone paying them to find refugee laborers for St. Cloud area businesses? Who? Taxpayers?
Hereis an August 2010 story from Minnesota Public Radio announcing that in the coming year LSS of MN would be bringing 300 refugees directly to St. Cloud over the next 3 years.
But, we learn that since 2002 (right after 9/11), LSS was running an “employment office” there:
Kim Dettmer, Director of Refugee Services at Lutheran Social Services, said no one has an exact figure for the total number of refugees living in the St. Cloud area. Many community and nonprofit leaders estimate that the African population in St. Cloud is between 8,000 and 10,000–this figure includes people who came to the United States as refugees and who have since become naturalized citizen and no longer have refugee status. Lutheran Social Services learned that St. Cloud had a large and growing Somali population, so it opened an employment office in St. Cloud in 2002 to provide extra support.
One of those companies looking for cheap (Lutheran-supplied) labor was apparently Gold n’ Plump a St. Cloud-based chicken processing plant which found out that maybe cheap Somali Muslim labor isn’t cheap after all. It had to pay out an undisclosed cash settlement to Somali workers in a legal dispute discussed herein the Star Tribune.
In a landmark settlement that could change the way Muslims are treated in the workplace, St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump Inc. has agreed to allow Somali workers short prayer breaks and the right to refuse handling pork at its poultry processing facilities.
The federally mediated agreement is among the first in the nation that requires employers to accommodate the Islamic prayer schedule and the belief, held by many strict Muslims, that the Qur’an prohibits the touching and eating of pork products.
Community organizers form Red-Green axis:
One of those involved in the settlement was community activist Mahmoud Mohamed. I told you about him and his ‘ethnic community based organization’ here in early 2010and here again in December of that year where he claims to be part of the “we” who brought the first refugees directly from camps to St. Cloud. I don’t know if he is still active, or if SASSO is still calling shots in St. Cloud. And I don’t know if Mohamed is still working with the hard Left community organizer Luke Tripp. Someone needs to do a little research.
The controversy surrounding the resolution vote on Monday (and hopefully there will be a vote so that citizens there can see exactly how each council person votes) did not happen in a vacuum or come out of the blue. In addition to those events I just mentioned, a lot has gone down in St. Cloud over the years, including but not limited to:
A controversy about Somalis harassing an assistance dog, here. (my first introduction to St. Cloud)
Controversies in the high school, one of many posts here.
A huge zoning battle over the construction of a mosque in the middle of a neighborhood, here.
The knife attack by a Somali at the local mall, here.
Muslim arrested for mosque vandalism blamed on citizens (Islamophobes!) originally, here.
Local paper did not like me visiting St. Cloud, here.
Go herefor many more stories in my archive about St. Cloud.
Update!How could I forget this! MN Governor Dayton said in St. Cloud 2015: anyone who doesn’t like immigrants can get out of Minnesota, here.
Bottomline, Lutheran Social Services of MN is responsible for the exploding Somali population in St. Cloud and the chaos and controversy that has followed.
Not in my name!
What you can do: If you are of the Lutheran denomination, you need to let your ministers know exactly how you feel about changing America by changing the people in the name of your faith group (and for Caesar’s money)!
