The refugee industry is everywhere these days claiming that one of the most important reasons to import hundreds of thousands of refugees is that they revitalize crumbling cities.
We need refugees to save dying cities!
In fact,. as I write this US refugee resettlement contractors, hoping topressure Donald Trumpto set a high ceiling for refugee admissions for FY2020 (which begins October 1 of this year), are hammering the big lie—refugees save dying cities.
Bashing Trump….
Here is just one example, the Washington Post recently published an opinion piece by two leaders of World Relief(one of nine federally-funded refugee contractors) claiming just that and saying the Trump is hurting cities by reducing the numbers of impoverished refugees being admitted to the US.
But, get this, the New York Times ,in an extensive expose in August, tells us that yes, Bill Clinton’s Bosniansdid bring some economic revitalization to St. Louis, but it didn’t last. The primary reason for the unfolding failure—Democrat-run cities are crime infested. (There has been no Republican mayor in St. Louis since 1949.)
‘It’s Not the Same’: Why War Refugees Who Helped Revive St. Louis Are Leaving
[Article opens with some economic success stories. BTW, a large number of Bosnians are Muslims.]
For St. Louis, a city that had bled population for decades — it had about 400,000 residents in 1990, down from more than 800,000 in the 1950s — the influx of what was estimated to be the largest population of Bosnians outside Bosnia seemed to work magic. For the first time in generations, the urban narrative of abandoned houses, stagnant business and vanishing people appeared to be changing.
But it didn’t last.
Today, St. Louis, like some other Midwestern cities, is battling a new round of contraction, with a stagnant economy, challenged schools and one of the highest murder rates in the country. And over the past few years, the people who fled brutal violence and concentration camps in their homeland and created Little Bosnia have been fleeing again, to the suburbs.
The beginning of the end for the Bosnian community of St. Louis and the melting pot myth was the murder of a Bosnian young man by a gang of thugs. See my 2014 post about the murder.
Black and Hispanic teens sentenced to long prison terms for Begic’s murder. The NYT never mentions who the killers were.
A deadly hammer attack in Bevo Mill — in which Zemir Begic, a young Bosnian man out with his fiancée, was killed by four teenagers — shook the community in 2014. Bosnians marched in the streets, arguing that the police had not done enough to keep the neighborhood safe.
[….]
Similar stories have been playing out in American cities since the Baby Boom decades of the 20th century, and have proven hard to reverse. After mass flights to the suburbs, even heavy investment in urban centers, with shiny new business districts and rapidly changing downtowns, have often failed to help cities, particularly in the Midwest, replace the residents they had lost.
In St. Louis the process has been particularly painful, because the people who were fleeing were the very ones who had been seen as saviors.
[….]
At its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Bosnian population, including American-born Bosnians, reached about 70,000 in the city of St. Louis and the surrounding county, according to the International Institute of St. Louis, a charitable agency that sponsors many of the region’s refugees. Now, with some Bosnians having left the state entirely, the agency estimates that the figure is less than 50,000.
The International Institute of St. Louis is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), but you can bet USCRI is still peddling the myth that refugees will save dying cities—maybe for a few years in the case of industrious Bosnians, but it won’t happen at all with extremely impoverished Africans.
“I feel hurt by the fact that a specific demographic at Wellstone has been taken away from us.”
(Aimee Fearing, former Wellstone principal)
When I read this storyat Minnesota Public Radio I couldn’t help but think about buggy whips. You know the expression about how as times change, so too do industries when the demand for certain commodities disappears.
But, the big difference is that with government programs, those benefiting certain people personally (with jobs etc.), instead of dying a natural death, taxpayer dollars are found to keep the government equivalent of the buggy whip industry alive.
At one time Wellstone High School, a special school for immigrants, was 65% Somali, today it is 30%, and those benefiting from the refugee industry generally in Minnesota are crying the blues.
As refugee admissions hit record low, one Minneapolis school fights to adapt
[Big opening section featuring a Somali success story to appeal to readers’ emotions before launching into the difficulties ahead for a special school for special people.]
For nearly two decades now, Wellstone has served as a training ground for hundreds of young refugee and immigrant students, many of whom grew up to be economists, health professionals and engineers — even as its population has fluctuated with each stroke of a presidential pen that expanded or reduced refugee admissions to the United States.
In recent years, though, not many people like Mah are entering the country because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and the sharp reduction in refugee admissions. As a result, Wellstone is bracing for one of the lowest student enrollment years in its history.
But it’s not just Wellstone that’s witnessing the ripple effect of the dwindling number of refugees entering the country. Refugee-serving agencies in Minnesota have also seen a dramatic decline in the number of refugees coming to their doorsteps for resettlement services.
Here it is—they must keep the infrastructure alive—another way of saying that they must keep the taxpayer dollars flowing their way!
Former Principal Aimee Fearing
To keep the infrastructure alive, Wellstone and service agencies are finding new ways to adapt to the changing refugee-services landscape — by shifting resources and tapping into new demographics.
Donald Trump is to blame….
After he took office in 2017, the president followed through with many of his promises. For example, he barred people from certain predominantly Muslim nations, including Somalia, from entering the U.S. and reduced refugee admissions to the lowest level since the program was created in 1980.
Those restrictions have affected the refugee stream to Minnesota, which for years has been one of the top states for refugee resettlement. More than 3,000 primary refugees arrived in Minnesota in 2016, but only 1,000 came in 2017, and 660 last year, according to figures from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
The dramatic reduction in refugee admissions will be felt this school year at Wellstone, where the student population has dropped from 400 four years ago to 180 now, according to school counselor Ali Kofiro.
[….]
Though the students at the school have come from all over the world, including East Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America and Mexico, Somalis typically were the majority. In 2015 and 2016, for instance, 65 percent of the students were Somalis. Today, that number is less than 30 percent.
“I feel hurt by the fact that a specific demographic at Wellstone has been taken away from us,” said Aimee Fearing, former Wellstone principal who now serves as the executive director of K-12 academic programming at Minneapolis Public Schools.
For Deqa Muhidin, an ESL teacher at Wellstone, the shrinking number of refugee arrivals hangs as a question mark over the future of the school. “Our school’s future will definitely be up in the air,” said Muhidin. “And my role will definitely be up in the air.”
[….]
The reduction in refugee admissions is also affecting nonprofit organizations and resettlement agencies that often rely on serving refugees to get funding.
Continue reading here. It is a long article, but useful especially for Minnesotans as it goes on to discuss the refugee contractors operating in the state and how they are adjusting (or not!) to the loss of much federal funding.
Endnote: One wonders about assimilation if the immigrant kids are kept separate and treated as special people in their own special school.
I woke up this morning with my head spinning about the results nationwide, and couldn’t at first figure out where to dive in to tell you what I think about the midterm election results.
Over time, I’ll have more to say about what it all means, but I do know this—there will be no legislative reform of the US Refugee Admissions Program in the next two years.
Now that the House is controlled by the Dems, that means that each committee will revert to Democrat control. And, they will never open for review the Refugee Act of 1980.
Minnesota not-so-nice power duo: Keith Ellison with US Senator Amy Klobuchar (will she run for Prez in 2020?)
Any further reform of the refugee program will have to come from the White House and if I were a betting person, I would bet that they have done about all they will do before 2020 which is to keep the numbers low.
Enough of that, I could be wrong.
As for my friends in Minnesota, don’t get angry at me for asking, but was outgoing governor Dayton right when he famously said in 2015, if you don’t like immigrants find another state?
Here is just one of many stories this morning from Minnesota with Keith Ellison, the state’s new Attorney General saying—-if you mess with Minnesota we will fight back. Which sounds like a veiled threat to silence speech.
Keith Ellison Defeats Doug Wardlow Completing DFL Sweep of Statewide Offices
An emotional Keith Ellison took the stage at St. Paul’s Crowne Plaza hotel late Tuesday night to deliver his victory speech after defeating Republican Doug Wardlow in the race for Minnesota’s Attorney General Office.
The race has been a constant source of controversy on both sides of the aisle, though Republicans were hopeful that Ellison’s past affiliations as well as a domestic-abuse allegation made against him by an ex-girlfriend would keep him from winning the state’s top law-enforcement job.
Polls frequently showed a tight race with large numbers of undecided voters, but Ellison managed to squeak out a victory over Warldow, winning 49 percent of the vote compared to Wardlow’s 44 percent.
Ellison began his victory speech by praising the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party as one based on the “values of love, respect, transparency, and accountability.”
[….]
“We don’t care who it is—if anybody is messing with somebody in Minnesota, your Minnesota attorney general is going to stand up for them and fight back,” he concluded. “Tonight is a good night. Every statewide elected official is a Democrat in Minnesota.”
Some Republican candidates want to suspend refugee resettlement in Minnesota. Can they do that?
Minnesota has welcomed thousands of refugees since the federal resettlement process was set in 1980. So why does a trio of key Republicans up for election want to stop the program now?
Well, it depends on whom you ask.
Jim Newberger, Jeff Johnson, Jim Hagedorn
Jeff Johnson, Jim Newberger and Jim Hagedorn have each said they will ask the federal government to pause refugee resettlement in Minnesota if elected Tuesday. And they’ve each made it a key issue in their campaigns.
Johnson, who is running for governor, said he is concerned about how much it costs taxpayers, as well as high unemployment rates among Somali men.
Hagedorn, who is running for U.S. House in the 1st Congressional District, claims refugees are poorly vetted and pose a threat to national security.
Newberger, a candidate for U.S. Senate, alleges that some refugees don’t want to follow American law.
The Democrats running against them support the state’s openness to refugees, arguing that they strengthen local communities. Immigration experts and advocates say that Republicans’ opposition to the program is purely political and misses the benefits the newcomers provide.
The story goes on to tell us that all the Democrats running in the state have spoken out in favor of more refugees for the state claiming that the refugees have benefited the state by bringing cultural diversity and that the refugees fill cheap labor needs (of course that last is my phrase).
As for the question: Can they stop resettlement if elected?
I’m not going to wander in to the legal weeds on that. There is still a lawsuit pending in Tennessee on the issue of State’s Rights that holds some hope for relief.
Suffice it to say, if Minnesotans elect these outspoken Republicans, and they forcefully take their concern to the President and his US State Department, the flow could be diverted away from Minnesota for now (as long as Trump is in the White House).
Of course the open borders Leftists (and the federal resettlement agencies) will say that its the ‘unwelcoming’ attitude in the state that requires the slowdown in placement there. (Code for calling you racists!).
I guess what I am trying to say is that there is no easy legal avenue that would allow Minnesotans to take a break from the contentiousness there now.
However, I know for sure if enough Minnesotans make enough political noise and elect candidates willing to speak as strongly as these three, you have a fighting chance of saving taxpayer dollars, staying safe, and maintaining some control of who is placed*** in your state by Washington and federal resettlement contractors.
In other words—there is no rest for the weary!
*** Of course, as Minnesota knows all too well, secondary migrants are moving in from other states to be with their own ethnic ‘community’ there and there is no way to stop that migration.
Thanks to reader Julia for sending the storyfrom the Daily Mailwith the rather long headline:
REVEALED: Iraqi refugee who planned to carry out terror attacks with bombs he built in Las Vegas was caught in elaborate FBI sting teaching agents to make IEDs with skills he learned in Iraq
Check out the Daily Mail story with photos and a video. The video mentions that the brother of the alleged wannabe bomber reported that they are Iraqi refugees.
Ahmad Suhad Ahmad
But what interested me more than the actual news is that the US media is once again burying the information about Ahmad Suhad Ahmad being a REFUGEE we welcomed to America.
Ahmad reportedly wanted to bomb someone or something in Mexico.
I searched for a US story to write about and there are plenty, but most didn’t mention the refugee part of the story. This one was the most interesting.
Refugee Caught Making Bombs For Assassination, Media Covers Up Story
A refugee has been caught in the nick of time as he was making bombs to prepare for a terror attack, but the mainstream media wants to hide it from you.
Ahmad Suhad Ahmad, a refugee from Iraq, was caught in an undercover sting operation by the FBI making bombs in his Las Vegas hotel.
This is the reason you have to vet “refugees” as they attempt to flood into the United States.
Not every one of them is a freedom seeking migrant looking for a better life. Some of them want to take yours.
It is also the reason you have to vet stories from the mainstream media as it will do anything to push the idea that all refugees are good and there is no danger.
And, if I didn’t make myself completely clear in the post I wroteabout the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, because the mainstream media fails to tell the general public the full truth about refugees and how the resettlement process works, and about many other issues, conspiracy theories grow and fester.
Unfortunately, it is constant deceptive reporting from major media’s Leftist world-view that produces irrational actions by people who are angered by the continual half-truths they see every day at the Washington Post, the New York Times and on CNN (to name a few of the main culprits.)
And, it is how President Trump’s railing against “fake news” resonates with those now getting most of their news from alternative media on their phones and computers. They see the full story (both sides!) by reading widely on the internet and feel they have been lied to by the dominant media.
Update: Just as I am ready to post, I see some stories now reporting the alleged bomb-maker’s refugee roots.
