No wonder Roanoke isn’t feeling very welcoming toward more refugees (remember this story! ).
Hey, all you big companies looking for cheap refugee labor take note! We bring an awful lot of refugees in to America with mental illnesses. From WDBJ7 (Hat tip: Suzanne):
ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ7) The man who shot and killed a person and shot three others at FreightCar America has been identified as 53-year-old Getachew Fekede from Kenya.
Police on the scene of this morning’s shooting in Roanoke. Shooter is a refugee former worker at the FreightCar America facility there.
Police say he died from a self-inflicted gunshot would.
Three other employees were shot. One of them has been released from the hospital.
Roanoke police say around 10 rounds were fired from a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.
Fekede last worked at FreightCar America in March. [They make railroad cars—ed]. He arrived at the building by bicycle, police say.
Fekede came to Virginia in 2011 as part of a refugee program.
No mention of Fekede’s nationality (his resettlement contractor*** would know). We don’t take Kenyans as refugees, but we take thousands of Somalis and other African migrants (Sudanese, Ethiopians) who have re-located to Kenya. So keep an eye out for more news about where he is really from and what his religion might be. [Update: a reader tells us he is probably Ethiopian.]
Longtime readers may remember the famous failed kidnapping plot in Roanoke in 2009 where several refugees were found guilty of attempting to kidnap one or more prominent women in the town and hold her/them for ransom.
Also we have 2,024 posts in our refugee crimes category, here.
*** Commonwealth Catholic Charities is responsible for refugees resettled in Roanoke.
We have been trying to identify the new resettlement sites the US State Department has been bragging about. They are very secretive about where they want to go next, but they need new sites as they wear out their welcome in long established sites and because Obama has determined that the numbers are being vastly expanded for FY2017 which is already underway. Mrosko was involved with the Welcoming Cleveland initiative we mentioned here in 2013. There are about 600 refugees being placed in Cleveland now. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2013/07/16/tom-negri-and-welcoming-america-are-planning-to-change-cleveland-starting-tonight/
There is no list one can access (they have mentioned 47). There are only stories like this one that sneak into local news that tip us off as to where they want to go next. For new readers, Catholic Charities would be a subcontractor of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Catholics in Youngstown must have run out of poor Americans to care for there.
From WKBN News (hat tip: Joanne):
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown held a community forum to discuss the thought of bringing refugees to Youngstown.
About 200 people, both for and against the idea, attended the meeting at Saint Columba Hall Wednesday night.
It was an opportunity for those who are enthusiastic about the possibility of refugee resettlement, as well as those who may be resistant to the idea, to learn more about the issue, ask questions and engage in a dialogue.
[….]
“Maybe 25 to 30 people, which is not that many, and help them by being involved in the work of the Catholic Charities here,”said Cleveland Migration and Refugee Services Director Thomas Mrosco.
On that last point, we have been led to believe that a new resettlement site cannot be established unless it starts with 50 refugees in the first year. Then, like it or not, the pattern is that the next year they will get 100-150 until they are like the town of Lancaster, PA be swamped with 700 needed third worlders arriving every year!
See our ‘Ten things you need to know if you are ‘welcoming’ refugees for the first time.’ Once a site is opened, there will be no going back and your town will not get to pick from the ethnic groups the DOS is bringing in.
Here is the original list of sites, click here. And here, below, are the new sites we have identified so far:
Asheville, NC
Rutland, VT
Reno, NV
Ithaca, NY
Missoula, MT
Aberdeen, SD
Charleston, WV
Fayetteville, AR
Blacksburg, VA
Pittsfield, MA
Northhampton, MA
Flint, MI
Bloomington, IN
Traverse City, MI
Watertown, NY (maybe)
Here are some of the facts as we know them:
West Virginia is a relatively new resettlement state which has received only 176 refugees in the last ten fiscal years.
However, in addition to Catholic Charities resettling refugees, Episcopal Migration Ministries wants to open a new office in Charleston. Presently CC has three locations and one of those is in Moorefield, WV. This is the magnificent headquarters building Brazilian-owned JBS has in Greeley, CO. JBS owns most of Pilgrim’s Pride. So think about it! If you have Pilgrim’s Pride or any other JBS company in your town, it is being changed so a foreign-owned company can have cheap/compliant/foreign labor. (This is a photograph I took as I passed through Greeley on my RRW road trip this summer.)
What else is in Moorefield?I’ll tell you! There is a Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant located there.
Here are some things we know about Pilgrim’s Pride: It is owned by the Brazilian meat giant—JBS (you may know them as Swift & Co.) headquartered in Greeley, CO.
And, now get this. The very same Labor Department, that I would normally be complaining about, says that in some locations in the US, Pilgrim’s Pride is DISCRIMINATING against African American job applicants, Caucasians and women! They are choosing Hispanic laborers (and it would appear refugee laborers) over Americans!
This is from a Dept. of Labor Press Release dated 10/7/2015:
ATLANTA — One of the world’s largest chicken processors systematically discriminated against qualified African-American applicants seeking entry-level jobs as laborers and operatives at its chicken plant in Marshville, North Carolina,the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs alleges in a lawsuit filed against Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation.
“Discrimination will not be tolerated by employers who profit from government contracts,” said OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu. “OFCCP will use every action available by law, including canceling Pilgrim’s federal contracts if necessary, to ensure workers are treated fairly.”
The complaint results from an OFCCP investigation into the company’s selection procedures. This is the second lawsuit filed by OFCCP against the company in less than 30 days. The first complaint, filed on Sept. 15, 2015, alleges that Pilgrim’s Pride systematically discriminated against qualified African-American, Caucasian, and female applicants for entry-level laborer and operative positions at its chicken plant in Athens, Alabama. Both complaints were filed with the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges and seek complete make-whole relief, including instatement of qualified black applicants at the chicken processing facility, payment of lost wages, interest, front wages, and other fringe benefits, including but not limited to retroactive seniority.
[….]
As a result, some African-American, Caucasian, and female applicants were rejected despite having education and experience levels comparable to male and Hispanic applicants. The Athens plant is no longer in operation.
Based in Greeley, Colorado, Pilgrim’s Pride is the largest chicken producer in the U.S. The Brazilian food giant JBS S.A. owns 75 percent of Pilgrim’s Pride’s outstanding common stock.
From 2007 to 2011, Pilgrim’s Pride received more than $36 million in federal contracts as a provider of poultry to agencies such as the departments of Defense and Agriculture.
Could that same discrimination being going on in other Pilgrim’s Pride plants?
Back to Moorefield and Catholic Charities.
I checked the numbers from the Refugee Processing Center and here is what I learned. In the last 10 fiscal years, 176 refugees were resettled in WV. 49% of those went to Moorefield (CC lists poultry processing job availability there in its R & P Abstract).
Beginning in about Fiscal Year 2010, CC began resettling Burmese refugees (36 total) in Moorefield. In 2012 they began placing Eritreans there (42) and then 6 Iraqis and 2 Ethiopians followed. I know that numbers-wise it is small compared to the numbers being placed for the benefit of BIG MEAT around the country, but it strikes me as a very clear indication of how supposed ‘religious’ charities are working for the benefit of meat processors. But why? Is it all about money? What is in it for the pols?
Then we get to the politicians. Moorefield is in WV District 2 (Rep Alex Mooney) who won that district when former Rep and now US Senator Shelley Moore Capito moved on to the Senate. Both are Republicans. What is in it for them to defend this practice of hiring refugees when African Americans, and Caucasian women need work in WV?
I don’t know the answer except for the Dems we know they are looking for more Democrat voters.
But as each of you begins to unravel why refugee labor is changing your towns (and why your elected officials aren’t listening to you), you need to figure out what is in it for Republican elected officials at all levels because I can assure you this is not about ‘humanitarianism!’ That is only the cover for big business (and the Chamber of Commerce!) to continue to push for more refugee admissions to the US. Update: Reader Brenda sent this handy list of US poultry plants, wonder how closely it correlates to Refugee Resettlement sites?
Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me why Mormons want to change Utah and America. Don’t ask me if the Mormons have run out of poor Americans to help. Don’t ask me if the Mormons know that almost all Syrians coming to the US are Muslims. Don’t ask me if they know that Syrians and Somalis can’t be properly vetted. Don’t ask me why the Catholic bishops don’t insist on resettling persecuted Christians. It is all a great mystery.
What isn’t a great mystery is that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration and Refugee Services is 97% taxpayer funded.
Does it need the Mormon money too? (I guess you can never have enough money.) Here is the good news for the Bishops from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The U.S. bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services is receiving a $1.25 million grant from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to aid in its refugee resettlement efforts once the newcomers arrive in the United States.
Bill Canny heads the USCCB Washington office. http://www.usccb.org/news/2015/15-078.cfm
The Mormons, as the denomination’s adherents are popularly known, have refugee processing capabilities overseas, said MRS executive director Bill Canny, but do not offer domestic resettlement services.
Canny told Catholic News Service that this is the first time in memory that the Mormons have made such a gift to an agency within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, although Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas aid and development organization, has received grants from the Mormons dating to the Ethiopian famine more than 30 years ago.
Grants of this nature, of this size, Canny added, don’t often happen, “not often enough.”
Canny said the Mormons had conducted a successful fundraising drive to aid Syrian refugees. Afterward, “they then approached nine resettlement agencies***, offering each of them a gift to help with resettling refugees currently. So they got in touch with us as one of the resettlement agencies. We began to discuss how to distribute the money and the in-kind goods, and we wrote a small project for them, and they agreed to it and gave us the go-ahead.”
Of the $1.25 million, $425,000 is in cash while the remaining $800,000 is an in-kind contribution from the Mormons, according to Canny.
Continue reading here.
You can thank the Bishops for the thousands of Rohingya coming to a town near you!See here. See especially Esar Met, convicted of murder in Salt Lake City, UTAH.
***Since I’ve been writing about the taxpayer funding that the resettlement contractors received in 2014, here is what the US Bishops got. Screenshot of page 10 from their Annual Report for 2014(maybe they have a Form 990, but I can’t readily find one).
If you are checking my math, you need to add the federal grants line to the travel loan collection fees because those fees are really your money too. The contractors collect the airfare loan money (that you loaned the refugees) and keep a cut of it for themselves. The loan money does not all return to the US Treasury.
By the way, individual Catholic Charities may be getting additional federal/state or local grants. I suggest you visit USA Spending.gov and look up your local Catholic diocese or Catholic Charities. Click here. You will be amazed at what you find.
Previously I reported that Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is 95% funded by you, and USCRI,another of the nine federal contractors, is 97% funded by you. Cut off their federal funding and they would be out of business!
We told you the other day that Northampton, Massachusetts was ready and eager to “welcome” Syrian Muslims (99% of Syrians being admitted to the US are Muslims) this coming fiscal year which begins in only a few weeks, on October 1.
Catholic Charities, the primary resettlement agency there is holding two meetings this month to find support and help for the refugees because they do admit that after 90 days Catholic Charities’ (taxpayer-funded) help ends. At that time the refugees become dependent on the goodwill of the city and the welfare that Catholic Charities has signed them up for. Mayor David Narkewicz is apparently on board with his city becoming a “host” city for Syrians and impoverished Congolese refugees. Do they have jobs for them in Northampton? Or, does Northampton just want some poor people because diversity is beautiful.
Here is the news at Masslive.com. Our earlier post on the new refugee program for Northhampton is here. How is the housing in this upscale city? A shortage of housing seems to be a growing problem everywhere.
Northampton residents are invited to attend two public conversations on the upcoming resettlement of 51 refugees into the city.
Catholic Charities of Springfield***, the agency contracted with the State Department to facilitate the resettlement, will host the sessions along with a “welcome home” steering group of local leaders.
The first, to be held Sept. 19 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the JFK Middle School cafeteria, will be attended by Mayor David Narkewicz. The second will take place Sept. 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Northampton Senior Center.
Susannah Crolius, the Catholic Charities coordinator of outreach and resource development, said the conversations are part of an effort to build a long-term support and integration network for the refugees.
[….]
The State Department typically provides funding for 90 days of services after refugees relocate to the United States….[Catholic Charities gets a cut of that for administering the program—ed]
[….]
Catholic Charities is adopting a small-scale, carefully planned approach, Crolius said; 51 is the minimum number of refugees a host community can accept. [The following year CC will ask for 100 until like Lancaster, PA, the city could get up to 900 a year.—ed]
The is more at Masslive.com.
***Readers who live in this area should read all of our posts on Springfield, Masswhere the mayor has been begging for years for the flow to be slowed as the city was overloaded with poor refugees. LOL! the top post at that archive is about hungry refugees in Springfield being arrested for killing and eating the small wildlife in the public park. Does Northampton have a public park?
I’m going to bore readers to death with this, but if the Republican Congress does not increase funding (and maybe even cuts what the contractors like Catholic Charities have been getting!) for the massive numbers of refugees proposed for FY17 these new sites will not be opened. Catholic Charities does not have the money on its own to do this, it requires funding from the US taxpayer to administer this program.
