Bowling Green, KY townhall Friday night to explain plan for Syrian resettlement there

05/26/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve been reporting on the Rutland, VT ‘pocket of resistance’ to a new resettlement office in Bernie-land, but although there has been an office (of the same federal contractor—USCRI) in Bowling Green for a long time (we have a large archive on it because they have had many problems there over the years), now Syrian Muslims will join the Iraqi Muslims in Rand Paul-land.

Little notice for a public meeting to be held at 5 p.m. on a Friday evening! What is up with that, unless the whole idea is to make sure few average working (taxpaying!) people can’t make it!

Albert Mbanfu took over the leadership of this USCRI subcontractor in 2013 here: http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/mbanfu-taking-over-as-international-center-director/image_68ff7ec2-4d2b-5336-9f17-4e5f998865e7.html

And, as far as I know they have no one attending who will help develop the whole story as Simpson did in Rutland this week.
From AP at the Lexington Herald Leader (hat tip: Joanne):

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — A plan to accept Syrian refugees in Bowling Green is raising concerns. In response, the organizations involved have scheduled a town hall to address any questions.

The Bowling Green International Center plans to help resettle refugees, including a group of 40 from Syria, in October.

Center Director Albert Mbanfu said he hopes to address concerns about the screening process and explain how these refugees come to the United States. [Bet you a buck he has already sent the plan to Washington—ed]

“My objective is that people will leave this town hall with a sound knowledge on how refugee resettlement works,” he said.

City Commissioner Melinda Hill has called the resettlement risky. [Commissioner Hill must demand to see the R & P Abstract prepared by USCRI! It should look like this one from Reno! because USCRI is the major contractor there too.—ed]

Commissioner Sue Parrigan wants more immigrant workers in Bowling Green.

“This is not against the people,” Hill said. “Our federal government has not put in place a good vetting process.”

Mbanfu says the federal government won’t put the country at risk of potential terrorist infiltrators.

“The community deserves to come out and be heard,” said City Commissioner Sue Parrigin.

The Daily News (http://bit.ly/27SlBxp ) reports that the town hall is scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday at the Professional Development and Learning Center.

Follow that link in the last paragraph and learn more, including the statements by Commissioner Parrigin who says they need more workers in KY.
And, if you are new to RRW, or perhaps you live in the Bowling Green area, I will bet you have never seen all the news Bowling Green has made over the years with refugee overload and including the news about Iraqi refugee terrorists arrested (and now in prison) who had been resettled there. Click here for background. I bet we have stories there going back to 2008!
Somebody needs to make sure that Senator Rand Paul’s office is represented! This is his home town! You can forget Senator Mitch McConnell because he has turned a blind eye to the program for decades. (Meatpacking and chicken plant money??? Just guessing!)

Rutland, VT citizens hear from James Simpson in advance of heated public meeting

05/26/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is not an exhaustive report on what happened in Rutland over the last two days. I am sure we will have more later, but just wanted to let readers know that James Simpson was invited to speak in Rutland, VT this week (go here to see our previous posts). See also ‘Remaking Rutland’ at American Thinker, here.
Here is a news account from MyChamplainValley about Simpson’s presentation on Tuesday.

Vermont meeting — On the hotseat: Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Director Amila Merdzanovic (left) and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, speak at a meeting in Rutland. Photo by Elizabeth Hewitt/VTDigger

Then here are two accounts of the meeting held last night (Wed) by the Board of Alderman to further educate the public about the plan to bring 100 Syrians to Rutland this coming fiscal year. (See here and here).
The second of those links, here, at VTdigger is worth reading in its entirety because the whole idea of the secrecy with which this plan was hatched is discussed in some detail.
Note that they are holding a public meeting AFTER the plan has been sent to Washington. I bet the mayor hasn’t even seen that plan (the R & P Abstract)!

RUTLAND — In a heated public meeting Wednesday, the members of the Rutland Board of Aldermen and community members scrutinized a plan to resettle refugees in this central Vermont city.

While some came in support of the proposal, the majority raised objections to the way the plan had been formulated.

The proposal, announced by Mayor Chris Louras last month, would bring 100 Syrian refugees to Rutland for resettlement over the course of a year beginning in October.

Last week, the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program submitted the proposal to resettle Syrians in Rutland to the federal government. They anticipate they will hear a response in July.

Many residents bristled at Louras’ approval of the project because he didn’t consult with city aldermen and they raised concerns about the impact the resettlement will have on the community.

In a meeting that stretched longer than three hours, the aldermen and residents expressed frustration with Louras’ decision, which they said was carried out behind closed doors and without an appropriate level of community input.

Amila Merdzanovic, the director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, and Stacie Blake, director of government and community relations at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, answered questions from board and community members for hours Wednesday evening.

Continue reading here!
Be sure to see that USCRI rep Blake says refugees are not placed in unwelcoming communities…hmmmmm!
Also, just keep in mind that, at this very moment, plans for all of the old and new resettlement sites are being prepared and sent to Washington. It is our contention that those plans (see the Reno plan here) should be released to the public in advance of going to Washington for approval for your money to be spent!
More later…..

Breaking news! Spartanburg, SC Christians have run out of "vulnerable" Americans in need of help!

05/25/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be so cynical, but honestly why are foreign-born poor people needier and more deserving than America born disabled, impoverished and struggling in the eyes of these ‘good Christians’? Is it somehow more charitable to care for immigrants than their own neighbors? Are ‘refugees’ somehow cooler than our own poor people (of all colors!)?
Let me be clear—-if they were using their own charitable dollars they can do whatever they want, within the law of course. But, this is your money and mine and so it becomes our business how they spend it.

Jason Lee — Lee spoke to the Spartanburg Interfaith Alliance this week. Beware ‘interfaith alliances’ as they are behind establishing and promoting new sites almost everywhere they get involved.

Here is the latest from Spartanburg, a year-old resettlement site that brought national attention to Rep. Trey Gowdy’s Congressional district. Even as Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration he was unable or unwilling to stop the flow of refugees to Spartanburg (he probably didn’t want to rock the boat with Speaker Ryan!)
Besides my perennial question about why we can’t help our own citizens (and vets!) first, I want to point out that a year ago Jason Lee said they would only bring a few refugees to Spartanburg, but now he says 120 will be arriving in the upcoming year. Will it be 200 the year after that?
You see, readers, that is how it works. They get a foot in the door and then keep wedging it open wider and wider!
From GoUpstate.com:

The director of a local aid agency that assists refugees is urging the faith community to become involved in resettlement efforts in Spartanburg.

World Relief Local Director Jason Lee spoke about the process of bringing refugees to the area at a Spartanburg Interfaith Alliance meeting Tuesday morning at Temple B’nai Israel.

He said last year World Relief helped resettle 49 refugees fleeing persecution. This year the organization has been approved to resettle 120 refugees in Spartanburg, he said.

World Relief has 27 U.S. offices and is one of nine refugee resettlement organizations that partner with the U.S. State Department.

“We’re compelled by our faith. … We’re called to stand for the vulnerable,” Lee said.

As long as they are foreign born vulnerable!

Continue reading because it appears that they don’t have enough volunteers to handle 120 new refugees.
By the way, the refugee contractors, like this subcontractor of World Relief, need to have enough volunteers logging their hours to show that they have ‘skin in the game’ so to speak. The feds expect the subcontractor to offer up something in their phony public-private partnership. Originally the subcontractor was supposed to be putting up cash, but as long as they have volunteers whose hours are measured in cash then they get the green light from the feds for the number of refugees they want. Each refugee comes with a per head payment to the contractor. Of course the payment is federal grant money (your money!) and thus there is never any incentive to slow the flow or reduce the number as they build their little fiefdoms.
For new readers, we have a yuge archive on Spartanburg, click here to learn more.

Catholic Charities eyeing Arkansas for new resettlement site

05/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Not enough hours in the day to keep up anymore. The US State Department and its contractors are on a roll trying to set up new resettlement sites to accommodate Obama’s increased numbers especially the mostly Syrian Muslims on the way.

Frank Head (Catholic Charities) left, helped start a new group Canopy NWA for the purpose of creating a new refugee resettlement office in northwest Arkansas. http://www.arkansas-catholic.org/news/article/4641/Canopy-group-will-make-sure-refugees-are-covered

Here is news from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette:

Arkansas took in about 1 out of every 1 million refugees who sought shelter worldwide last year — 13 of the 14.5 million refugees accounted for by the United Nations.

A local group called Canopy NWA wants to raise that number despite a contentious atmosphere about the country’s obligation to alleviate what the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees has called a severely unfair burden on a few countries.

[….]

“We’re talking about one or two families a month,” Frank Head of Catholic Charities said at the group’s May 4 meeting. “People wouldn’t even notice if we didn’t talk about it.” [I am sure they would like to get the refugee flow moving before people start talking about it!—ed]

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is one of the nine charitable organizations authorized to accept refugees into the country through agreements with the U.S. Department of State.

The group operates in Northwest Arkansas through Catholic Charities Immigration Services. Catholic Charities sent a representative to the May 4 meeting, held at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville. So did the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, another of the nine authorized groups.

Nina Zelic, director for refugee services for the Lutheran organization, told the dozen interested attendees her group is evaluating the region as a potential site for opening another chapter.

More here.

If you are from Arkansas, you need to educate your governor. It looks like he thinks this is some sort of private initiative!

Oh, and be sure to read about Utica!

Think about Utica, NY before you jump on the "welcoming refugees" bandwagon

05/23/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Two years before I started writing RRW, Utica, NY was dubbed the ‘town that loves refugees’ by the United Nations. They even had some propaganda show they took on the road to embarrass other cities into ‘welcoming’ refugees just as Utica had!

Now (11 years later) Utica has all sorts of problems.
Here in January 2015 we reported on the school system there suing the state of New York for more money. Why? Refugee overload!
The school system can’t handle the numbers of refugees who speak over 40 languages in their schools.
From the Wall Street Journal:

Utica officials are grappling with high poverty rates, rising enrollment and big deficits.

Now, just a week or so ago, the school system lost a lawsuit filed by six refugee teenagers who claim they weren’t permitted to attend high school there.

Here is what the NY Times said about the case (by the way, typical of mainstream media reports on refugees, the NYT implies that the refugees simply made their way to Utica from the third world without explaining that the city was targeted as a resettlement site by the federal government and its contractors***!):

The Utica City School District settled a lawsuit on Thursday over its treatment of young refugees, who, the suit charged, were being excluded from the city’s lone high school because of their age and because they did not speak English.

The lawsuit, filed last year on behalf of six refugees by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Legal Services of Central New York, claimed that Utica shunted refugees who were older than 16 into lesser alternatives to high school, like a G.E.D. program only for English-language learners. New York law provides the right to a free public education until age 21.

Similar allegations, that refugee children are being excluded from public schools, have been leveled at districts elsewhere around the state and across the country.

Utica, in central New York, has become a magnet in recent years for those escaping persecution in their home countries. Today, nearly one out of six city residents is a refugee, according to the Civil Liberties Union.

Message to towns considering welcoming refugees—They do not bring economic boom times! Refugees bring poverty and social and cultural strife!

Utica mosque — Utica Methodist church becomes a mosque.

Special treatment for special people!
Further confirming that Utica has a problem with refugee overload, the White House has singled out Utica’s refugee teen population for $2 million worth of summer jobs! What about American kids who need summer jobs?
From Syracuse.com:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Utica is among 11 communities nationwide that will share $21 million in grants for summer jobs programs aimed at helping disadvantaged youth, the White House and U.S. Department of Labor said Monday.

Utica will receive almost $2 million to help 400 students in the city’s refugee population receive summer work experience and part-time jobs the rest of the year, White House officials said.

Again, think about the BIG LIE that refugees will help your struggling city. They won’t! The only money they will bring in to your town is the money Washington throws the city through myriad welfare programs—food stamps, medicaid, section 8 housing, and now funding for summer jobs. Washington doesn’t grow money on trees! The taxpayers of America are propping up refugee saturated cities!

If you live in newly targeted refugee placement cities—Rutland, VT, Reno, NV, Missoula, MT and Ithaca, NY (and more!)—think long and hard if you want to be like Utica, NY some day!

Click here for our Utica archive.
*** The resettlement contractor in Utica is the Mohawk Valley Resource Center and that is a subcontractor of Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (one of the US State Department’s top nine refugee contractors).