Category: Legal immigration and jobs

The Somalification of Kansas

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update April 27th:  At least some in the Kansas legislature are attempting to keep shariah law from creeping into Kansas, here.

In 2008 Emporia, Kansas put up a fight.  So much of a fight that the Tyson Foods meat-packing operation closed down and moved the Somalis out.  We created an entire category about the conflict in Emporia—it is here with 37 archived posts.  Now we know from this article in the Garden City Telegram that they moved some of them (mostly young men) to Garden City, KS and put them to work at a processing plant there.   [By the way, Tyson is working its magic in Tennessee as well, here].

By the tone of the article by reporter Shajia Ahmad (a Somali or Arab?) it seems that Garden City is going to experience the Somalification (my word!) of their city without even a whimper of protest.

Just read this article!  There are clearly problems in Garden City—you can tell by the reporter’s choice of the word “challenge” instead of problem.  It is typical verbiage and standard reporting from those too chicken to speak the truth for fear of being labeled racists!

Now we know where the Emporia Somalis went.  From the Garden City Telegram:

In the last four or five years, Garden City has seen an influx of several hundred Burmese and Somali families that have moved from other areas of the country to live and work in southwest Kansas, like many other regions in the Midwest and High Plains, spurred primarily by jobs in the meat-packing industry.

Many in Kansas, especially, came to Finney County* to work at the Tyson Fresh Meats plant following the shuttering of Tyson’s Emporia-based beef-packing plant in early 2008, where many of the 1,500 laid-off workers were Somali refugees.

Social service agencies hired a Somali expert to tell the Kansans how to tip-toe around the Somalis cultural and religious practices so as best to “serve them.”   The greatest challenge is language—heck they have only been here in America for 5-10 years how could anyone expect them to have learned English!

Weber, whose agency helped sponsor Farah’s visit to Garden City to educate and inform local social service representatives and other stakeholders on salient issues concerning the Somali residents, said the biggest challenge facing locals is the language barrier.

“To translate, and know medical terms and child development terms … we’re working on it, but it’s a huge challenge for us right now,” Weber said.

Ah, the “challenges:”

Farah said the dynamics of the community in the Minnesota metropolis differ greatly from Garden City. However, understanding many simple traditional and cultural practices and norms will help in bettering communication between the agencies trying to serve refugees and other Somali residents locally.

For example, many of those in attendance Tuesday from various community organizations said they are challenged with Somali clients not showing up or returning for health or medical-related appointments for either them or their children.  [Readers, this means that, for example, they may not be returning for immunizations (measles!) or to continue treatment for TB–ed]

Farah said that in Somalia, where medical treatment is often free and appointments don’t exist, most only go to hospitals or clinics as a last resort, after home remedies, spiritual practices and all other options have been exhausted.

Does no one have the fortitude to tell them they are in America now!  And, just imagine for a moment that you were dropped off in Somalia, do you think for one minute that you would be allowed to continue your “spiritual” practices expecting Somalis to bend over backwards to satisfy your American cultural and religious needs?   LOL!  Can you see it now, some Somali (or even Kenyan) city employees calling in experts on America to tell the locals how to treat you!

When they disappear we have to “understand where these things come from:”

Farah said while Somalis celebrate the arrival of newborns, many also practice keeping the baby and mother in the home for the first 40 days.

“So it’s a little hard when you tell them, ‘come to the WIC program and we’ll register you, or come to the hospital and there’s a two week check-up on the baby,'” Farah said in reference to the USDA program that offers low-income women, infant and young children nutrition and health education and assistance. “When we are visiting with Somali moms, and then they’re disappearing and we can’t find them until they come back some time, well, we have to understand where these things are coming from.”

Americans are here to “serve” the Somalis.  It is called dhimmitude —get used to that word!

On top of navigating a new society and system, many rituals and cultural norms are important to members of the Somali community. Social workers, case managers and others in the health and service industries should be informed of such rituals and norms if they’re to serve their clients competently.

For example, Farah reminded the group that most Somalis are Sunni Muslims, who are prohibited from eating pork and other pig products. What’s more, many only shake hands with others of the same gender.

Yes, indeed we must learn to serve the Somalis.  (Anne Richard would surely tell you so as she gets ready to admit many more to the US for her gang of globalist industries looking for laborers and Democratic Party voters.)

* Until I looked just now I hadn’t realized that I have written many posts on Finney County, KS where we are told whites of European descent are now in the minority.

Idaho refugees get federal grants to start businesses

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

First, it is well-established that Idaho has a refugee overload problem.  We most recently told you about it here.

Then in what seems to be a pattern, what I call fluffy-puffy (refugees see first snow!) stories about refugees and their previous hard lives from which they had to “flee” (popular word in refugee writing 101) appear in local papers.  Just like this story about a well-educated Congolese man who had to flee Africa and found his way to Idaho—as if he chose Idaho.  No, it doesn’t work that way.  Refugees don’t initially choose where they will live—a refugee agency (a contractor) picked Idaho.   These are stories to soften up potential critics.   But, that isn’t what I want to tell you about today.

What was most interesting to me was the side bar to the story in the Idaho Statesman that says this:

Some refugees who worked as educators in their home countries and others interested in the field are in the process of opening their own child-care businesses. They’re enrolled in the New Investment New Opportunities program through the local nonprofit Micro Enterprise Training and Assistance.

NINO, which began in October, provides small federal grants from the national office of refugee resettlement to help refugees kickstart their businesses.

About 20 men and women have signed up in Boise, said Terry McDonald, who heads up the program. Participants are in various stages, from still working on their child-care licensing to preparing to open their doors.

Grants not loans?

Let me understand this.  The federal government is giving GRANTS not LOANS to refugees to open child-care businesses.  Are there no out-of-work Americans in Idaho who would like to run child-care programs and are they getting GRANTS?   I wish we had enough people following the federal government’s spending to research just how these GRANTS are being used. How much is siphoned off for salaries and offices at each step?  And, does anyone audit these programs?

We need someone to please follow the money through the labyrinth of groups sucking on the federal tax payer.  I tried to find a Form 990 for the group Micro-Enterprise Training Assistance (META) and couldn’t find one.  Here we see that META is an affiliate of Mountain States Group and got a start in 2002 with a grant from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

If you go here at the META website you can see a list of funders and you might think—well there are all sorts of private funders listed, right?  However, if those private businesses are giving, it isn’t much because when you then check out the Form 990 here for Mountain States Group (p.9), you see a different picture.   This is simply one more ‘quasi-government’ group that is taking taxpayer money (your money) and laundering it through a series of non-profit groups which are in turn spending it to fund businesses for refugees that will compete with you!

In that most recent Form 990 (linked above) Mountain States Group had a total revenue stream of $10.7 million and $9.8 million came from taxpayers—from federal (and probably state) funds.

Now, have a look at USA Spending.gov and you will see that Mountain States Group received $52 million in 177 different grants from mostly the Office of Refugee Resettlement.   Scroll down here at the Office of Refugee Resettlement for some recent grants to Mountain States.

It has been my contention since I started writing this blog in 2007 that if the federal government wishes to be involved in immigrant business, immigrant social services, immigrant this and immigrant that, then this should be done through offices and agencies of government and not through unaccountable non-profits.   I am sure these grants are not thoroughly audited, but most importantly a citizen wanting to complain has little recourse.

If this money was being disbursed  directly by an agency of government (rather than being laundered through layers of non-profit groups) at least one could go to one’s elected officials and complain—and vote those officials out of office if they aren’t responsive.   

Readers, the political Left is changing this country bit by bit through these non-profits and, adding insult to injury, using your money to do it!

Endnote:  This is one more post in my new category entitled ‘legal immigration and jobs.’

Pew: Foreign-born workers getting jobs, not so much for Americans

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Federation for American Immigration Reform reports the following in its end of the week wrap-up:

The Pew Hispanic Center has released a new report that found that “Foreign-born workers are…experiencing a faster rate of growth in employment than native-born workers.” This continues a trend that began at the start of the economic “recovery” in June 2009, and it highlights the fact that our immigration system is operating to the detriment of American workers.

Given the influence of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other special interest groups that push for an increased immigration level, it should surprise no one that even in the midst of the worst unemployment America has seen in the past 30 years, our government continues to admit millions of foreign workers every year, with some politicians campaigning for even higher levels of admissions – Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) being the latest.

Be sure to have a look at the Pew Report which tries to soften the blow by linking the employment rate to increased population levels of mostly Hispanics and Asians.  They say that the white and black American populations are not rising as rapidly so it stands to reason that Hispanics and Asians are getting the jobs (say what?).

Boise’s got problems (again!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the most frustrating things about writing about the US State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program is that the same stories cycle around from month to month and year to year (each new young reporter thinking they have a cool story).

This morning I see that lo-and-behold Boise, ID can’t support thousands of refugees, as if they have just discovered this problem.   I immediately had a look at our Boise archives and sure enough we’ve been reporting on the Boise overload since 2008!…and, about the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) whining about it!

From NPR in Boston (reporter Molly Messick):

In the last few years, more than 4,000 refugees have found their way [Dear young reporter, they don’t “find their way,” they are taken there by a federal contractor–ed] to a far-flung spot: Idaho. Most of the state’s incoming refugees come to Boise. For years, the city’s strong economy, good-quality affordable housing and supportive community created an especially favorable environment for refugee resettlement. The recession has shifted that picture.

[…..]

“Three years ago, we were just seeing a few extreme cases of refugees that had consistent difficulty with integration, and then it really happened very suddenly, where there were 50, 60, 100 families really struggling,” she says.

She says, “for years” Boise was a favorable environment for refugees—heck, as I just mentioned, I have stories from 2008 where the overload was already evident (and the IRC’s Boise program only started in 2006)!   Here is one where the IRC Pres. George Rupp is bawling in Boise for more government money because the refugees aren’t finding work.

IRC says they are NOW slowing the flow (remember in 2008 they already knew they had problems):

The recession has complicated the hard task of refugee resettlement nationwide. The shift is especially stark in Boise, because the city has long been regarded as a good place for refugees to put down new roots.

“Boise was particularly favorable, yes,” says Bob Carey, who oversees resettlement and migration policy for the International Rescue Committee. Carey’s based in New York, but the IRC has a Boise office, too, opened in 2006. At that time, Idaho had the fastest growing economy in the country, and unemployment in the Boise area was under 3 percent.

“It was a very strong employment market, and there were certainly many jobs available for refugees at the entry level when they arrived in Boise,” he says. “So for those people who were able to work, we could generally find them jobs that would allow them to support themselves within 90 days.”

Now, Boise is one of the places where the IRC has reduced the number of refugees it aims to resettle each year, cutting back by about a third. In addition, it and other local agencies that help refugees find work have adopted new strategies.

Let’s take a little side trip to the IRC’s most recent Form 990 (I haven’t looked at one of their financial reports to the IRS in awhile).   The organization had an income stream in 2010 of $316 million—-$200 million came from you, the taxpayer.   Former Columbia University President*and now IRC President George Rupp took home $428,571 in salary and benefits putting him surely in the 1%.  More then ten employees took home six-figure salaries and most of those topped $200,000.

It is classic doing well by doing good!   Maybe they might want to share some of their good fortune with the now unfortunate refugees like Rwandan mother of two,Virginie (the star of this article today).  But, no, foisting her on the taxpayer is what this is all about.

Despite the clear difficulty of Virginie’s situation, there’s room for hope. Virginie and her daughters have been lucky to get subsidized housing, at a moment when many waiting lists are closed.

How many times now have I had reports that refugees are getting subsidized housing as American citizens including the disabled wait on the list (if they can get on the list).

* I wonder did ol’ George know Columbia professors Cloward and Piven and was he a supporter of the Cloward-Piven strategy to create chaos by overloading the welfare system (under the guise of helping the downtrodden).

Special government-funded employment services for special people

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That means for refugees (and employers of refugees) and not you!   (This is another in my recent series of posts in a category I’ve titled ‘legal immigration and jobs‘ here.)

I’ve told you before, here, about the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee (CRIT) whose Director Abdirizak Hassan was charged some years ago with misusing government grant money and subsequently changed the name of his organization from the Somali Community Center to the present innocuous sounding name—Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee (henceforth CRIT). Well, he is still getting federal government grants—no debarment for him!  Debarment is when someone has cheated on a government grant and is then not allowed to apply for another one.

Hassan has also been known to pop back and forth to Somalia from time to time—I thought that was a dangerous country from which he sought asylum in the US?

Here is what CRIT says on its website about their employment services (I have highlighted my favorites, and added some notes!):

Are you an employer who needs good, conscientious workers?

The Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee (CRIT) can help you find good employees without a placement fee! [yippee it’s free! because the feds are picking up the tab!—ed]

We have unrestricted work-authorized refugees with experience in assembly line/production, warehouses, hospitality, quality control, and professional fields.

Why hire a refugee?

* Refugees are permanently work-authorized: You don’t have to worry about tracking them down annually to ensure they are still work-authorized

* You could qualify for tax incentives by hiring refugees: Since many refugees receive public assistance, your company could qualify for tax credits and training incentives when you hire them.   [So, what did I tell you special deals for employers—WHAT TAX CREDIT?—ed]

* Our job placement services are FREE: Rather than spend money placing job advertisements, contact the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee. Let us help you find qualified workers FREE OF CHARGE.  [Your business doesn’t have to spend money because the US taxpayer is picking up the tab for special people—ed]

* Refugees have passed numerous background checks during their resettlement: If employers hire refugees, they will not have to incur the significant cost of performing background checks because extensive background checks were done before they arrived in the U.S.  [Kind of like those Iraqi refugees in neighboring Kentucky charged in a terrorism case, turns out they lied on their background checks—ed]

* Refugees have higher job retention rates than other groups in entry level jobs: According to the National Immigration Forum, Dee Zee Manufacturing’s Human Resources Manager Cindee Moyer said “Before I hired refugees, I had a 60% turnover rate. Now I have a 20% [turnover]. I had a 6% absentee rate, now it’s down to .1%.”

* Refugees receive free support from the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee: CRIT provides post-placement support for our clients to help them retain their jobs. We assist with filling out paperwork, resolving any on the job issues, and accessing social services. We are always here to serve both the refugee employee and the companies they work for. [Again, employers can pay lower wages because worker needs (food, shelter, healthcare) are being subsidized by the taxpayer—ed]

* Refugees are motivated, hard workers: Because refugees lost their homes as well as their careers in their home countries, they want to regain what they have lost and achieve economic stability. [It’s kind of like slave labor because they can’t go home.—ed]

And, last but not least, they don’t say it, but refugees are willing to work on the following holidays because they are Muslims and don’t give a hoot about our holidays!

    * Refugees are flexible about what shift they work and what days they work: Many refugees will work second or third shift or weekends and holidays. Many of our refugee workers can work on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Independence Day.

So again, who is funding CRIT’s “free!” special headhunter service for big business in Tennessee—you are—the US taxpayer!

Here is CRIT’s most recent Form 990.  Out of a gross income of $243,185, $213,105 comes from you via government grants (p. 9).  So, although it is politically incorrect for me to say it so bluntly, you are funding headhunter services for employers who then hire Muslim refugee workers over American workers in Tennessee.  Great huh!

End note:  I wonder if CRIT is working with Tyson Foods to fill their cheap/captive labor needs, here.