Kentucky Refugee Contractor Pivots to Helping Refugee Clients Cope with Covid

Kentucky is in the top ten refugee resettlement states in the nation, but between the President’s reduction in the number of refugees that can be admitted and the present suspension of the refugee program due to the Coronavirus crisis, the resettlement agency in Bowling Green, International Center of Kentucky, is not seeing many new arrivals and is now trying to educate their ‘clients’ about the virus and help many with their unemployment problems.

Before I get to the story, I hope all of you are well.  I don’t know about you but even with more time, I’m not being as productive blogging here and at ‘Frauds and Crooks’ these days as I should be. But, one good thing is that there is more time to communicate with family and with friends, especially elderly friends, in my community.

From the Bowling Green Daily News:

Pandemic disrupts refugee resettlement by International Center

Before the rise of the coronavirus pandemic, Bowling Green’s refugee resettlement agency planned to welcome 400 arrivals this year.

Albert Mbanfu director of the International Center in Bowling Green will be helping refugee ‘clients’ get their unemployment insurance.

Now, with more than 500,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide, those plans have been thrown into chaos. International Center of Kentucky Executive Director Albert Mbanfu said Thursday that he expects the center will resettle less than half of the refugees it did last year.

“They will be barely trickling in,” Mbanfu said, speaking to a group of community representatives who assist with resettlement efforts.

[….]

Now, Bowling Green’s International Center has largely pivoted to assisting refugees who’ve been laid off work and informing the local community what steps they need to take to protect themselves from COVID-19, the respiratory disease that coronavirus causes.

Through social media and on its website, Mbanfu said, the center has been sharing videos in various languages like Swahili and Arabic to help inform Bowling Green’s refugee community about the virus and its effects.

Leyda Becker, Bowling Green’s international communities liaison, said the city also has resources in multiple languages online at bgky.org/ coronavirus.

Local refugees have also been impacted by business closures spurred by the pandemic. Mbanfu said Trace Die Cast, a top employer for local refugees, has laid off “almost all of our clients.” The employer is filing for unemployment insurance on their behalf, Mbanfu said.

I wonder why a company that makes automotive parts is laying off so many workers?

Mitch McConnell: money is on the way!

A representative from U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office said during the meeting that a $2 trillion stimulus package passed by the Senate and headed for House approval on Friday will offer some relief.

More here.

I have a pretty extensive archive on Bowling Green, see here, where there have been many problems involving refugees over the last dozen years.

Desperate Bowling Green, KY School System Overloaded with Refugee Children

What!  How can this be? Too many refugees are arriving in one location in a year that we are told has one of the lowest arrival rates of all time.

Iraqi terrorists arrested in Bowling Green in 2011. As a result of this pair getting through our supposedly robust security screening, the entire cohort of Iraqis arriving in the US had to be rescreened that year.

Bowling Green, by the way, is the location where those Iraqi refugee terrorists were found about eight years ago and it is Senator Rand Paul’s hometown.

It has been a controversial resettlement location for years, see my archive here.

There is one important bit of information you need to pay attention to as you read about how the schools can’t cope.  Hint! It involves a key component of Trump’s recent Executive Order that seeks to allow some cities and states to turn away refugees.

From Bowling Green Daily News:

Local schools ‘overwhelmed’ by refugee arrivals

The Bowling Green International Center  is working with a special stakeholder group that will address local school superintendents’ concerns that their schools have been “overwhelmed” by the number of refugee arrivals in recent years.

“We’re barely getting by,” Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Rob Clayton said.

Clayton was joined Thursday by Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields at the International Center’s fourth quarterly meeting with local resettlement stakeholders. [Just a reminder that you—members of the public—should be admitted to these meetings, but I know the contractors do everything in their power to keep the public out.—ed]

Together, the two superintendents emphasized a need for what they described as a more sustainable approach to refugee resettlement.

“We’re at capacity,” Fields said, describing the dearth of resources available to current English learner students in his school district.

By the end of the school year, Fields said, his district anticipates reaching the 20 percent mark for students classified as English learners. In Warren County Public Schools, one in five students fall into that category.

“As of September, we will have 190 Swahili speakers in our school district,” he said. “We have one translator.”

[….]

In some cases, due to the nature of their persecution and displacement from their homeland, refugees have interrupted educational experiences.

Bearing the responsibility for educating those students is sometimes a Herculean effort, Clayton said, citing an example of a 19-year-old student with no formal education.

[….]

Overall, the center received 513 refugees as of Sept. 20. That’s up from 297 refugees resettled in Bowling Green during the previous fiscal year.

Here it is, the major point I want you to see.  Refugees are placed with family members who came before them so that once you have a contingent of certain ethnic groups in your ‘welcoming’ town or city more of that ethnic group will follow.

Also, note that there is no way to control “secondary migration” as refugees are permitted to move and often do for jobs or to be with their own kind of people.

Despite the uncertainty around what number the Trump administration would set, the Bowling Green International Center has seen a steady stream of arrivals.

This is mainly due to the role a refugee’s U.S. ties play in the resettlement process.

Refugees can ask to be resettled with family members already established in the country.The International Center also sees a significant number of “secondary migrants,” who initially resettle in other parts of the country and then travel to Bowling Green, often seeking work.

So, although you may hear the contractors squawking about Trump’s plan to let communities (or states) decide if they want more refugees, once a seed community is established there is usually no going back and the resettlement contractors know it.

Bowling Green, KY: More confirmation that refugee resettlement is not about humanitarianism, but about supplying cheap labor

I had plenty of confirmation on my recent 30-day swing through cities and towns of the west and mid-west that it is industries looking to boost their bottom lines that drive most refugee resettlement in America. 
It is food processing/meat packing, manufacturing, and the hotel industry that have discovered they can enjoy the cheap labor (while refugees continue to bolster their income with welfare*** of all sorts) at the expense of the US taxpayer and at the expense of the cultural and social upheaval communities experience.

Chris Kantosky
Kantosky is the COO of the International Institute of Kentucky. He must have told the BGN reporter that they are choosing which refugees come to which city by a weekly lottery system in Washington, DC. Photo at Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-kantosky-b12445115

Here is one more piece of news to support what I have been saying for years.   And, remember as you read this that Bowling Green is Senator Rand Paul’s home town.
At one time, Paul was questioning the UN/US State Dept. Refugee Admissions Program.  That was in the wake of the arrests and ultimate conviction of two Iraqi refugees found to be terrorists living and working there (so much for security screening!). He is nowhere to be seen on the issue now.
I want to urge all of you, as you to do your research on your refugee overloaded city (or city about to become a ‘welcoming’ city), to research the campaign contributions of your elected officials right down to the local mayor and council level.  Find out their business connections and expose them!
And, don’t allow yourselves to get bogged down by the open borders Left trying to tell you that the driver for the seeding of your towns with diversity is a humanitarian desire to help the downtrodden of the world (tell them to help our own poor people first!).
From the Bowling Green Daily News (hat tip: Robin).  What! Kentucky has no more Americans who want jobs?
You should know that the International Center is a subcontractor of USCRI, that is the same federal contractor working in Twin Falls, Idaho and wishing to start an office in Rutland, VT and Reno, NV.

Resettled refugees are being sought at a greater frequency to fill local jobs, Chris Kantosky, chief operations officer of The International Center of Kentucky told the Barren River Area Development District board on Wednesday.

“There are 650 open manufacturing jobs in Warren County alone,” Kantosky said. The International Center also has worked to help fill a 75-job need in Barren County, and within two weeks 50 of the jobs were filled by refugees, he said.

“They are coming to Bowling Green and Warren County because we have jobs, a great educational system, a low cost of living, the community is safe and there is an opportunity to excel,” said Kantosky, who has been working with refugees for the past 26 years.

[….]

A one-time allocation of $1,125 federal funds per refugee, or about $5,600 for a family, is used to finance resettlement logistics. The money needs to be spent in about 30 days to buy everything from a clock radio to beds, furniture and food to outfit the apartment selected for the refugees to stay. By the time the individuals reach the Nashville International Airport from their home country, they are a car ride away from a hot meal in their new home.

What Mr. Kantosky isn’t telling you in the previous paragraph is that his agency gets approximately another $1000 per head to spend on themselves!
Now this is incredible.  I knew the contractors sat around in DC and divvied up the refugees as they came in (LOL! I envision many squabbles as they bid for bodies! But, has it come to this—a lottery!).  So where are the real reporters at places like the New York Times and Washington Post—why aren’t you demanding entry to the weekly lottery meeting!  I would like to know if any industry lobbyists are in those weekly meetings!
Bowling Green News continues:

Refugee resettlement locations are determined by a weekly lottery in the nation’s capital. “A refugee can only go back to their home country if their country is re-stabilized,” Kantosky said.

And, about this bit about not going home—many refugees who get here are unhappy and want to go home, but they are trapped because most can’t afford the airfare home.  This is the part of this program that makes many of us think about slave labor!
Click here to see our extensive archive on Bowling Green and the many problems they have had there over the years in addition to the Islamic terror scare a few years ago.  And, mosques are springing up everywhere to accommodate the growing Muslim refugee population.
***Most refugees are on welfare of some sort which makes anyone who employs them eligible for the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit.  An employer thus has a greater incentive to hire a refugee than some American who is struggling, but doesn’t want to be on welfare (including food stamps).  A refugee’s salary is subsidized by the US taxpayer, while an average American’s job isn’t.  I’ve wondered if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was somehow involved in creating this system.
Any ambitious researchers out there who would like to dig deeper into this program which incentivizes hiring refugees and write a guest post, let me know!  refugeewatcher@gmail.com

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):

jason Blais
Rev. Blais is giving the audience an untruth! Photo is at the Bowling Green Daily News story.

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 townhall Friday night to explain plan for Syrian resettlement there

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!

Mbanfu
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]

Sue Parrigan
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!)