The answer is no, but there isn’t any reason it shouldn’t. It is only about 75 miles from the state’s largest resettlement site—Milwaukee. (Any town within a hundred miles of a federal contractor’s office is fair game).
Janesville, Wisconsin is Speaker Paul Ryan’s hometown and a reader asked me recently, that since he is so gung-ho for refugees to come to America, does he have them where he lives?
Maybe a few have moved from other resettlement cities in Wisconsin—Milwaukee or Oshkosh, but there is no federally funded resettlement office there.
Since I checked the data for our inquisitive reader, here are a few facts about the numbers going to Wisconsin.
I started my search in the fall of 2008 (just as Obama was being elected) and ended the first of May.
Wisconsin ‘welcomed’ 7,143 in those nearly 8 years. That is a small number compared to the the big states like Texas which resettles that many in one year.
In Ryan’s 1st District, none went to Janesville, but a tiny number, about 30 went to Waukesha, just outside of Milwaukee. Only a handful went to Racine.
Of the 7,143 who went to the state of Wisconsin, the breakdown is as follows: Burmese (4,029), Iraqis (1,083) and Somalis (811), in addition to smaller numbers of many other ethnic groups.
According to the Washington Post the impact on his family might not be so great anyway since his kids all attend private Catholic School.
Schools are where ‘welcoming’ towns first experience the cultural and economic pressure a few years after opening their doors to the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program.
What? No mosque, no interfaith group as we learned about this morning in Charleston, WV pushing for Syrians to be seeded into Janesville?
So, why not Janesville? Maybe there is a cheese factory nearby in need of cheap immigrant laborers?
Endnote: Republican Paul Nehlen is hoping to upset Ryan in the upcoming primary there on August 9th.
Category: Who is going where
West Virginia you are up next as expanding federal refugee program looking for fresh territory
And, West Virginia is fresh indeed! It is one of the states the UN/US State Department program forgot (until now). Other states with tiny refugee populations are Joe Biden’s Delaware, Bill Clinton’s Arkansas, a few states in the deep south and of course Montana and Wyoming. I always assumed that Democratic Senator Bobby (“Sheets”) Byrd had kept the program out of West Virginia, but he is gone.
I just now checked the State Department data and since 2008, West Virginia ‘welcomed’ 156 refugees with the largest number being Iraqis (59), Burmese (46) and Eritreans (40). Tiny numbers of course compared to states which receive in the thousands each year. Guess the low-wage refugee workers will now be competing with out of work coal miners.
Here is the news from the Charleston Gazette-Mail (emphasis is mine):
They all think that economic boom times will follow the refugees (it doesn’t, all of you citizens of West Virginia, please learn from what happened in Utica, here).
As Charleston’s population continues to decline, a refugee resettlement service is considering opening an agency in the city that would assist hundreds of refugees in moving to the area.
Episcopal Migration Ministries [one of nine top federal contractors—ed] a refugee-resettlement agency, sent Jeffrey Hawks and Allison Duvall to Charleston to learn more about the city this week. Hawks is a consultant for the organization, while Duvall is an employee.
The West Virginia Interfaith Refugee Ministry [remember my warning about these ‘interfaith’ groups!—ed] a group that started to create greater understanding of the plight of Syrian refugees, is working to turn Charleston into one of the Episcopal Migration Ministry’s “resettlement communities.” The ministry has 30 of those communities in cities throughout the United States.
The agencies work with local organizations in each city to assist refugees with translation, food, clothing, housing, education, mental health support, medical services, job training and community orientation.
Anti-Muslim sentiment is rampant throughout the country. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, has called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Many have called for preventing Syrian refugees, fleeing the carnage of civil war in their country, from entering the country. A West Virginia lawmaker even started a petition to ban them from West Virginia.
However, a group of Charlestonians sat in a meeting room at St. John’s Episcopal Church Thursday afternoon and took turns trying to convince Hawks and Duvall that Charleston would be an ideal place for refugees from Syria and other places to live…
More evidence that the federal contractors are out looking for fresh territory in which to seed Syrians (and other refugees).
But they didn’t have to do much convincing. Episcopal Migration Ministries has already researched Charleston and decided it would be a good fit for refugees. Ultimately, whether the city can be selected as one of the ministry’s resettlement communities will be up to the U.S. Department of State, Hawks said.
Now check this out! The local Islamic Center is one step ahead of you all with their propaganda campaign (gotta fill that new building!):
Hawks and Duvall met a friendly crowd Thursday evening as well. They attended “The Refugee Experience” at 7 p.m. at the Islamic Association of West Virginia, in South Charleston. At the community event, refugees spoke about their experiences resettling in Charleston.
And, then this is new! I have never heard of a federal contractor expecting up front money from a wannabe subcontractor. They must really be stretched to get Obama’s 85,000 refugees in here by the end of the year and be ready for his proposed 100,000 for next year.
…those in Charleston organizing the effort will need to raise about $90,000 for upfront costs. They will need to pay for the salary of at least one employee of the agency for every 75 placements.
Continue reading here.
I can’t guarantee that Trump can save us, but I know for sure that Hillary Clinton will put the refugee program on steroids if elected in November!
P.S. It is Sunday morning, maybe it’s time for any of you Episcopalians reading this to have a word with your priests and church leaders about what they are doing in the name of your faith!
An afterthought: It occurred to me right after I hit ‘post’ that this story might bring in new readers who don’t know that we have been writing about several new sites to be colonized including Missoula, MT, Ithaca, NY, Reno, NV, Rutland, VT and Fayetteville, AR. Many more will be popping up soon as they prepare for the new fiscal year which begins Oct. 1.
Bowling Green, KY pastor: 'we need to have more faith in the process'
…..but does he know what that process is?
We are only about one month away from this blog reaching its 9th birthday. Most of what we have been writing for those nearly 9 years is about “the process,” so on this 90 degree day (I am hot already!) I want to blow a gasket over the ignorance still surrounding the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program.
It’s not that I expect every American to have been to this blog (nearly 5 million have!), but I am furious that the mainstream media and cable news have been so disgustingly uninterested in investigating and reporting about how the program works! So, years after Bowling Green, KY has been a preferred resettlement site for refugees of all kinds, there are still many citizens who are shocked to learn that the federal government is dumping diversity on your town whether you like it or not!
And, we still have pastors like this one who hasn’t been reading the news. If he had he would know that WE ARE ONLY RESETTLING A TINY FRACTION OF THE TRULY PERSECUTED CHRISTIAN SYRIANS!
Publications like CNS News (a Christian news network) with its report this week, is getting its information directly from government data bases. They are not making this up! These are the facts in its headline!
Record 499 Syrian Refugees Admitted to US So Far in May Includes No Christians
Bowling Green will NOT be getting Syrian Christians but primarily Syrian Sunni Muslims! Sunni Muslims are the persecutors of the Christians! Sheesh!
Here is what Pastor Blais is quoted as saying at the Bowling Green Daily News about the meeting last night (hat tip: Robin):
The Rev. Fr. Jason Blais, a pastor at the Holy Apostles Orthodox Church, said many Syrian refugees are Christians displaced by genocide, and said the United States bears some responsibility for the current situation in Syria.
Although Christians face persecution, Blais said, his church’s mission goes beyond helping one group.
“It’s important for us to be able to help whoever comes because in no small way they’ve contributed to growth of our faith in the country of Syria over the past 2,000 years,” he told the Daily News following the meeting. “If it weren’t for them there wouldn’t be an orthodox here on these shores.” [He is talking about Syrian Christians who will not be coming to the US in any numbers!—ed]
Blais also responded to what he described as “animosity” toward refugee resettlement at the meeting.
“I think a lot of it is maybe birthed out of the political climate,” he said. “What was really disappointing to me is when the facts were given and people said ‘Well I don’t want to belief that. That’s not true.’ ” [I repeat! They are not getting all the “facts” and I think they know it!—ed]
“I think we need to have a little bit more faith in the process,” he said.
Faith in the process! I’m sure the good reverend doesn’t know what that is! But, maybe he can still learn!
Continue reading here.
In addition to 40 Syrians, Bowling Green is going to get 400 other refugees! That is a huge number. I sure hope the Mayor and Council have asked for the R & P Abstract (it will look like Reno, Nevada’s) the contractor (USCRI) has sent to Washington which would tell how many others and from what parts of the world BG is going to get.
And, for all the folks in Bowling Green who didn’t know what was going on there in the last decade with the arrival of thousands of refugees, see our archives on your town by clicking here. And, did you know that there is a national grassroots network of ‘pockets of resistance’ to the resettlement program.?
You will see in the archive that a few years ago there was a huge controversy there because the resettlement contractor was accused of ignoring the needs of hundreds of Burmese refugees resettled in BG and placed in substandard housing.
Bowling Green, KY info meeting on Syrian refugees turned into heated debate
I’m sure there will be more reports today about what went down in Senator Rand Paul’s hometown last evening when the local resettlement agency honcho held a meeting to explain to the community that he had applied for 40 Syrians to add to Bowling Greens already large Muslim community, but here are two reports.
Both indicate that the meeting went longer and got angrier than organizers expected, and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) employee indicated there will be another public meeting before the close of the fiscal year (Sept. 30th). We will be watching for that.
The bottomline however is the refugee industry spokesman says (too bad folks!) the local community will have no say anyway!
You are going to have to go to both stories to see what happened because I am so bogged down with a huge list of things to post (including more of your testimonies to the US State Dept.) over this holiday weekend and no time to analyze further.
Here is WKU Public Radio where the head of the Bowling Green USCRI office shows that he is not up to date with the latest from Washington where we are told the screening process for Syrians has been shrunk to 3 months!
Albert Mbanfu, executive director of the International Center of Kentucky, explained the extensive screening process that takes 18-24 months before refugees are approved for resettlement in the U.S.
This is not just about Islamic terrorism!
The other report is from WKBO and here (below) is the bit that jumped out at me. We are beginning to get reports from people with direct knowledge of the inner workings of the Refugee Resettlement Program and apparently here is one who made a comment last evening. (I wonder if we could get a national whistleblower club going!).
One woman said she worked with refugees for 30 years, and doesn’t trust the system.
“There is a lot of fraud within the agencies that are placing refugees. They’re paid per head by the number of refugees that they sell [resettle?—ed], and you gotta follow the money.”
In both reports you will get the very clear signal that the resettlement agency, working for the federal government, is in the cat bird seat and refugees are coming to Bowling Green anyway (whether you like it or not!).
There is one way out for Kentucky, a Wilson-Fish state just like Tennessee. Because of how Wilson-Fish states are structured it is the contention of many that it is a 10th Amendment (State’s Rights) issue. The Governor of Kentucky can sue to stop the program!
Kentuckians with concerns need to hound your governor!
LOL! One of the two stories above uses the words “testy town hall” in its title. Maybe we should have a whole new category for those testy town halls, see Rutland, VT this week as well.
What will Senator Rand Paul do about new influx of Muslims to his hometown?
Yesterday I told you about a public meeting to be held today in Bowling Green, KY where the major resettlement contractor working there, Bowling Green International Center, a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, will attempt to explain why they will now be adding to the Muslim population of that town.
Writing at World Net Daily, Leo Hohmann, reports on Senator Paul’s response. For any of you attending that meeting at 5 p.m. today, be sure to see if you can spot any representatives of Paul’s office in attendance. Be sure to let them know what you are thinking.
Here is just a small snip from Hohmann’s detailed report:
Bowling Green is not new to Muslim refugees. The city has been transformed over the past decade from a typical Middle America town that had no Muslims to one that now has more than 7,000 who account for at least 10 percent of the city’s population. It had no mosques 15 years ago and now has several including a large Islamic Center. The Islamic refugees have come from 23 countries, mostly from Bosnia, Russia, Burma, Iraq and now Syria.
[…..]
Paul’s office told WND he is not in favor of the Syrian refugee dumps in Kentucky or anywhere else under the current vetting process being used by President Obama.
“Senator Paul believes we must pass the SECURE Act,” said Sergio Gor, the senator’s press secretary. “This legislation would suspend visa issuance for countries with a high risk of terrorism and impose a waiting period for background checks on visa issuance from other countries until the American people can be assured terrorists cannot enter the country through our immigration and visa system.”
Paul was much more outspoken against refugee resettlement three years ago, before he contemplated a run for president.
Continue reading here.
I, at one point a few years ago, had a lot of hope that Senator Paul, because of the way he questioned the program, would indeed become a leading Senate advocate for its reform. Of course it isn’t too late for him to accept the mantle.
P.S. Kentuckians might want to pound Mitch McConnell too, but I bet he is too deeply indebted to big industries in the state (Perdue maybe???) always on the lookout for cheap captive labor that refugees provide.