Category: Trump

Minneapolis: Special High School for Immigrants Cries the Blues as Somali Enrollment Drops

~ Ann Corcoran

“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 story at 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.

 

From NPR:

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.

Ann Coulter: Some Countries Don’t Take Many Refugees Because They are Preserving THEIR Culture

~ Ann Corcoran

Citing Japan, Israel and Denmark, Ann Coulter muses, here at The Hill about why some countries aren’t being widely blasted as “racist” for not welcoming masses of Middle Easterners and Africans to their tiny bits of the world.

But, we are expected to open the flood gates to America!

Ann Coulter: Can’t America have a little self-respect on immigration?

Couldn’t America have a little self-respect? Japan, Denmark and Israel do.

A must read!

Year after year, for decades, America has accepted more refugees than the rest of the world combined. No country we admire does anything close to this.

Score one for Donald Trump: In 2017, after he became president, our refugee admissions finally dipped slightly below “more than every other country in the world combined.” Go USA!

These aren’t immigrants the host country specifically wanted. We’re not saying, “You know, this country could use some people who know how to restore 17th-century woodwork” or “Wow, this guy and his wife are both neurosurgeons!” Refugee admissions to America are so reckless that this country has taken in Iraqis who deployed IEDs against our own troops and, in at least one case, one of the perpetrators — not victims — of the Rwandan genocide.

[….]

The New York Times explained Japan’s highly restrictive immigration policies as proceeding from “a desire to preserve their culture, a goal echoed by some conservative groups in the United States.” (Duh.)

And National Geographic clarified that Japan’s policy was simply a matter of the Japanese preferring “a racially unique and homogenous society.”

Luckily for the Japanese, they aren’t white, so this utterly logical, natural position on immigration didn’t trigger “white nationalist” alarm bells in our mainstream media.

More here.

I’m delighted to be able to say, see all of my posts going back nearly a dozen years on Japan, Israel and Denmark.

You will learn that those three countries do get a lot of criticism for their restrictive refugee policies, but mostly from the international Leftists and the UN.

Endnote:  If you are a new reader see ‘About’ at the top of the page!

Trump rudely fires only cabinet member doing anything to seriously halt the migrant “invasion”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Did the Open Borders Republicans looking for cheap labor finally persuade the President to unceremoniously dump the only man (probably in all of America!) who knew the nuts of bolts of immigration law and who had fought for decades to put America first when it came to the demographic makeup of the country?

jeff Sessions
As a former Senator, Jeff Sessions was by far the greatest fighter in Washington for an Americans first view of immigration, and I will go so far as to say—Trump would not have been elected without Sessions’ early and tireless support on the issue that most animated voters.

As long time readers know, I believe only one issue matters—IMMIGRATION and our ability to say who comes in to the country and when.

Tariffs, health care, the Russia investigation and even the economy are of little concern if our borders are open and our security is gone.

Demography is destiny and I now have doubts about whether President Donald Trump is serious about getting immigration under control.

Was the whole midterm election campaign focus on the caravan and the border, just a stunt?

If it wasn’t, then how do you fire the man, without even a meeting to thank him for his service—the man who was enforcing our immigration laws for arguably the first time ever?

Here is John Binder at Breitbart on Sessions:

7 Times Jeff Sessions Triumphed for Trump’s ‘America First’ Agenda

In a second report, Binder interviewed Ann Coulter who told Binder, there is “obviously no one” left to enforce immigration law in the president’s cabinet.

And, if you need more proof about how AG Sessions had your back, yesterday the ACLU called him the worst attorney general in history.

 

Readers, I am done. 

I’ve put in over 11 years writing here almost daily and I am going to take a break.

There could be more tinkering with the US Refugee Admissions Program (the primary focus of RRW) while Trump is in office, however, the chance for either removing the Refugee Act of 1980 from the books or seriously reforming it in the next few years died on Tuesday when the Democrats took the House.

I’ve written 9,469 posts since July 2007 and so there is a lot of material here. (If you are searching for something just enter a few key words into the search window.)

I plan to continue tweeting, especially on the European invasion because I think the ‘demography is destiny’ truth has really sunk in there, and the fight to save western civilization is going to be increasingly fierce.

Thanks to all of my readers for your continued loyalty and support over the years.

Who knows, maybe Trump will prove me wrong and I’ll calm down in a few weeks. But, right now I’m tired.

Boo hoo! Canada’s boy wonder, Justin Trudeau, has immigration problems too

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve forgotten all about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s now infamous 2017 tweet inviting refugees to Canada to stick it to President Trump, I’m here to remind you!

 

trudeau-tweet

 

Canada’s 2019 election is expected to be contentious, to say the least, with immigration at the forefront.

Soooo… Trudeau now wants to speed up deportations, presumably to make it look like he is not an immigration pushover.

From Voice of America:

Canada to Step Up Deportations of Undocumented Migrants

Canada’s border agency said Wednesday that it planned to increase its deportations of undocumented migrants by 10,000 a year.

These are to include not just failed refugees and asylum-seekers but those authorities regard as national security threats.

“While Canada is a humanitarian country that has welcomed many immigrants and asylum-seekers over the years, those coming to our country are expected to abide by our laws and processes,” a border agency spokesperson told the state-run Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Screenshot (780)

 

There is a backlog of about 18,000 migrants listed for deportation, with 5,300 so-called actionable cases, meaning there are no legal appeals or other reasons for them to stay.

Opposition conservatives call the number of asylum-seekers entering Canada through unmanned U.S. border crossings a crisis. They say the government does not take the matter seriously and has no plan.

Liberals call the border situation a challenge.

More here.

By the way, fearing Trump, many who have gotten in to Canada illegally in the last few years crossed in from the US.

His deportations better send them home to their own countries and not to the US.

See my Canada category for many more posts on the topic.

Refugee resettlement is a major issue in several Minnesota races

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Three Republicans have said they will work to stop or at least curtail further resettlement to the state if elected.

From Twin Cities Pioneer Press:

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 and Jim Hagedorn (Courtesy photos)
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).

More here.

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.