Twin Falls, Idaho: Public meeting on refugees could be 'dog and pony show' if not managed properly

09/15/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Citizens critical of refugee resettlement on-going in Twin Falls, Idaho were hoping to get all of their many questions answered when a panel of “experts” come together at 6:30 p.m. on September 22nd. But, unless the meeting is fair and open to any and all questions, the opportunity to fully inform the community will be squandered by the Twin Falls Times-News.
I sure hope the organizers aren’t planning on using one of many manipulative techniques (Delphi comes to mind) that would steer the outcome to a predetermined conclusion and that is that everything is just fine and dandy, so let’s ‘welcome’ the Syrians to Idaho.

For new readers, this latest round of controversy started brewing when the resettlement contractor, affiliated with the College of Southern Idaho and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, began bragging about Syrians being on the way to Twin Falls.
By the way, Syrians have already begun arriving in Boise according to State Department data.
Here is the make-up of the panel that will answer attendees questions on the 22nd:

The panelists are:

Larry Bartlett, director of the U.S. State Department’s Office on Refugee Admissions, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration

Ken Tota, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement

ZeZe Rwasama, director of the College of Southern Idaho Refugee Programs

Brian Pike, Twin Falls deputy city manager of public safety

Mike Mason, CSI’s vice president of finance

Dr. Steven Kohtz, with St. Luke’s Magic Valley Regional Medical Center

Wiley Dobbs, superintendent of the Twin Falls School District.

And, the discussion is being moderated by Times-News editor Matt Christensen who is hardly unbiased. Readers may remember that he actually editorialized calling me a “thief” here in June when he said I snipped too many paragraphs of a news story they had published.

Here then is how this meeting should be held to allow for the free and fair flow of information

~The moderator should not be affiliated with the newspaper. Christensen must be replaced. Perhaps find a respected former judge or someone not presumed to have a bias.

~The program must be videotaped for future use and available to those who can’t be there.

~Panelists are there to answer questions, not to give speeches or lectures (we are nation of immigrants, blah! blah!). There is no need to hear opening statements that will only serve to drag out the meeting. If the organizers wish, they could provide written short opening remarks by panelists to be distributed as audience members arrive.

~Everyone present who wishes to ask a question should be allowed to do so. No one should be sending in questions for pre-screening by the moderator (as the paper is presently urging people to do). Only those present should be allowed to ask a question (or more than one question). No advance screening of questions should be permitted even at the meeting itself.

~Questions should be permitted to be asked if the meeting goes half the night. Everyone there who has a question, should get an answer. Cutting it off prematurely will only appear to shortchange one side or the other.

~Perhaps to be fair and orderly everyone who wants to ask a question must put his or her name in a hat—a hat which can be added to as the evening progresses. Names would be drawn randomly to determine speaker order.

~Questioners should be permitted to ask more than one question if during the course of the evening something needs further clarification, or something said prompts a new question.

~If someone on the panel is unable to provide the needed information on that evening, they should agree to promptly supply it and the paper should agree to publish it expeditiously.

~Any attempts to name-call, or otherwise make personal attacks, should be promptly shut down by the moderator.

Those are just suggestions off the top of my head, but the point is that no one should come away from the meeting shortchanged in any way.
I feel sure that both Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Tota do not want to be associated with charges that they participated in a meeting that was somehow less than fair and open.
And, to all involved—be sure to invite your US Representatives and Senators as well as Idaho legislators to this very important opportunity to get answers about how the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement run the program in Idaho (along with a resettlement agency) and how they can assure you that refugees will not financially strap the community or risk its security.
By the way, Idaho legislators should be especially interested because at this time Idaho is a Wilson-Fish state which means the Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Tota and the primary contractor—the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (with another non-profit, Jannus Inc., which I forgot earlier)—call all the shots for Idaho and elected officials have virtually no say about who comes, how many and what state social services are used for refugees.
Click here for everything we have ever written on Twin Falls. Go here for more on Lawrence Bartlett, and here for Ken Tota.

Twin Falls, ID: Article tells us why you must demand answers BEFORE refugees begin arriving

08/30/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….of course the trick will be trying to figure that out!
Twin Falls, Idaho has developed a very active and competent ‘Pocket of Resistance’ in spite of the local media’s effort to denigrate opponents of the UN/US State Department plan to further seed the community with third world refugees. This round of controversy began in earnest back in April when the local resettlement contractor bragged to the media that Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees were coming to Idaho.

Jessica Lilley, USCRI field representative, obviously traveled to Twin Falls from USCRI’s Arlington, Virginia headquarters to help organize against the growing ‘pocket of resistance’ that has developed in Twin Falls. Photo: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-lilley/15/308/3b0

You will have to read the whole article from Friday, here at MagicValley.com for details on the latest news. I can’t post much of it or the editor will have his lawyers send me another letter, but there is one important thing I want you to see.
First, here are the opening paragraphs:

TWIN FALLS • A refugee center in Twin Falls isn’t likely to go away even if the College of Southern Idaho stops sponsoring its program, officials say.

A local group — the Committee to End the CSI Refugee Center — wants a measure to shutter the center on ballots by May, says the group’s leader, Rick Martin, a widely known right-wing activist [LOL! bias alert!—ed]. They also want to recruit candidates to run for the college’s board of trustees in November 2016 with the goal of phasing out the center.

The group submitted its measure this week to the Twin Falls County Attorney, a preliminary step before the group can begin gathering signatures to get it on the ballot.

Then this! Once they get a program up and running in your town, it becomes almost impossible to shutter it later because they are in the process of admitting family members of the first group they brought in. The contractors are usually gleeful to shove that bit of news into critics faces.

Jessica Lilley, a program officer with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants [USCRI—ed], addressed the topic Tuesday during a meeting with the Magic Valley Refugee Advocates, a group formed this summer to support the local program.

“You already have a community of refugees here” with family members still oversees, she said, and the U.S. Department of State will want an agency in Twin Falls to fill the gap as the relatives of refugees resettle in the United States.

She goes on to threaten that they will just drop them off in neighboring towns, but they will end up in Twin Falls anyway.
Continue reading here.

This is why any of you wondering if you might be a target for refugee resettlement need to do your sleuthing and demand a public discussion of the plan coming from Washington BEFORE refugees arrive.

Remember you have a right to know what the UN/US State Department has in the works for your community and they will not be giving your town any advance warning! It will be up to you to expose the plan.

How might you learn that refugees are (secretly!) destined for your town or city?
First, go here and see if you are located anywhere near the 190 resettlement offices. If you are anywhere within a hundred miles of one of the government contractor offices, your town is fair game.
If you know anyone in local elected government, call them now and ask if they have heard any news about refugees coming (the feds are getting desperate for fresh territory!). By law, the resettlement contractor is supposed to “consult” local elected officials, but it might be the most cursory of contacts.
Then you need to check with two local agencies—the health department and the school system—the first two places, especially right now as schools open, where some local official might have the inside scoop.
Another tip-off might be the soon-to-be open new industry, such as a meat packing plant, which wants to employ cheap immigrant laborers. Federal contractors like USCRI work closely with not just manufacturing type industries or the food industry, but with the hotel industry as well. They like to give the impression that this is all about ‘humanitarianism,’ but it isn’t. That is just the cover! Frankly it is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY and about changing America demographically.
For background on Twin Falls, go here. And, to contact Mr. Martin, see the website, Magic Valley Refugee Watch, here.
For more on USCRI….
See USCRI’s website here. The organization is headed by Lavinia Limon who was Bill Clinton’s Director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. Limon is one of several contractors who have moved in and out of government over their careers resettling refugees. If you want to know more about her, click here, for our Limon archive. One of my favorite Limon posts is this one from 2008 when the US State Department did shutter the USCRI subcontractor office in Waterbury, CT for not taking good care of the refugees they had been paid to take care of!

Idaho: Why might Senator Crapo have sounded so squishy at recent town hall meetings?

08/18/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you here the other day that Idaho Senator Mike Crapo was confronted at several August recess town hall meetings with a barrage of questions relating to the resettlement of third world refugees to Idaho.

senator-mike-crapo-arrested-for-drunk-driving-1-10579-1356313830-2_big — We have no idea what sort of Senator Republican Mike Crapo has been for Idaho, or whether he would listen to constituents, but his cagey answers on refugee resettlement in Idaho suggest he might have more important factors influencing him than some very vocal voters.

He struck me as pretty squishy in his responses.
One of the primary things citizens in refugee resettlement target zones need to look into is how much (especially Republican) elected officials are getting from big business (or Chamber of Commerce) donors who have an interest in the importation of cheap labor.
Seems the folks in Idaho did a little digging on Crapo.

Remember we told you that a big meat packing plant is planned for a small town near Boise, here.

Well, what do you know! it seems that one of Senator Crapo’s largest donors in recent years is one of the ‘agribusiness’ companies involved!

We have been chronicling for years the role BIG MEAT is playing in changing (colonizing) small town America—from Nebraska, to Kansas, to Iowa, to Colorado just to name a few states getting slammed. LOL! from a meatpacker’s point of view, this is a great business model. They pay cheap wages for what amounts to slave labor and you, the taxpayer, subsidize the immigrant family with welfare payments (for food, housing, schooling and healthcare).
First, I know it is long, but I want you to see a January press release from the J.R. Simplot Company. (Hat tip: a concerned citizen of Idaho)

J.R. Simplot Company and Caviness Beef Packers to Build New Idaho Beef Processing Plant

Published on January 07 2015

Amarillo,* Texas-based Caviness Beef Packers has formed a joint-venture with the J.R. Simplot Company to build a new Idaho beef processing plant near Kuna, Idaho.

Pending approval of permits from all necessary regulatory agencies, construction of the nearly 300,000 square foot plant would begin in spring 2015 with an expected fall 2016 opening.

The new joint-venture will operate under the name, CS Beef Packers, LLC. The joint venture is expected to invest $100 million to complete construction of the plant.

The plant is expected to process a maximum of 1,700 head per day, and could create up to 600 new jobs.**

The primary purpose of the plant will be to harvest cull cows and bulls from Northwest dairy farms and cattle ranches throughout the Intermountain West. The plant will also include hide and rendering processing and have the ability to process niche-fed beef programs.

Scott Simplot, J.R. Simplot Company chairman, said the new plant will be the first significant processing operation in the region, reducing the need for dairy farmers and ranchers to ship cattle out of the area for processing.

It’s estimated that there are more than 600,000 dairy cows and more than 600,000 beef cows in the region.

“This effort complements the area’s dairy industry including milk, cheese and yogurt processors,***” Simplot said. “Our company has farmed and ranched in the area for nearly a century and we’re excited to be a part of this joint-venture that will further guarantee the long-term success of the region’s dairy and beef industries.”

Caviness CEO Terry Caviness said Simplot and Caviness are both family-owned companies that complement each other. “Together we will bring significant strengths and expertise to this project,” Caviness said. “We look forward to being a valued partner to area ranchers and dairymen as we expand our footprint in the United States with another world-class beef packing facility.”

Demand for beef is at an all-time high. The new plant will take advantage of advances in food safety and process technologies to create a processing facility that incorporates the best available technologies to effectively process beef safely and humanely. The final product will be prepackaged boxed beef that will primarily be marketed toward food-service suppliers and retail outlets.

“We are excited to bring a new advanced plant to the area. This plant is ideally suited to meet the increasing demand for processing from the dairy and beef cow industry,” said Tom Basabe, president of Simplot Land and Livestock. “Caviness Beef has a long-history in beef processing. Caviness is the perfect partner to join Simplot in this joint venture.”

About Simplot

The J.R. Simplot Company, a privately held agribusiness firm headquartered in Boise, Idaho, has an integrated portfolio that includes phosphate mining, fertilizer manufacturing, farming, ranching and cattle production, food processing, food brands, and other enterprises related to agriculture. Simplot’s major operations are located in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, and China, with products marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide. The company’s mission statement is Bringing Earth’s Resources to Life. For more information, visit http://www.simplot.com .

About Caviness Beef Packers

Caviness Beef Packers is a private, family owned company headquartered in Amarillo, Texas. The company operates processing plants in Amarillo and Hereford, Texas. The company focuses on beef processing and marketing beef products nationally and internationally. Caviness products are marketed extensively to national foodservice, retail and further processing customers. For more information, visit http://www.cavinessbeefpackers.com .

Contact: Ken Dey, Simplot Communications Manager, (208) 780-7318 or ken.dey@simplot.com

*Amarillo! We have written about Amarillo for years, the city is completely swamped with refugees (to work at meatpacking plants there) and the mayor has been begging for relief! See how messed up Amarillo is with refugees by clicking here.
** 600 jobs for whom?
***yogurt processors! Are we talking about the huge Chobani (Turkish CEO) plant that recently opened near Twin Falls that is likely also using cheap refugee laborers?

Follow the money!

So this is the clincher!
The number two contributor (of the top five) to Senator Mike Crapo’s campaign committee from 2009-2014 is, guess who: JR Simplot Co.
See here at Open Secrets.

Top 5 Contributors, 2009 – 2014, Campaign Cmte

Contributor	Total	Indivs	PACs
Amgen Inc	$26,600	$16,600	$10,000
JR Simplot Co	$22,000	$0	$22,000
Zions Bancorp	$20,500	$15,500	$5,000
Murray Energy	$20,006	$15,006	$5,000
Common Values PAC	$20,000	$0	$20,000

Is that why Crapo was so cagey and reportedly indicated support for the refugee resettlement program for Idaho.

Crapo told the Times-News in July that he understands the need for a refugee program.

Whose need?

Now look at this!

The Idaho POR (Pocket of Resistance) is doing great work! Here is some serious digging reported by Vicky Davis at The Voice of Idaho. This is really really good stuff!
To contact the concerned citizens (the resistance!) in Idaho, go here, to their new website.

Pockets of Resistance growing and spreading, WND tells us where (so far)

08/17/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: This WND story made it to Drudge today and it went through the roof!
Leo Hohmann, writing at World Net Daily last evening has another detailed article on the Refugee Admissions Program of the UN/US State Department and a report from at least three important ‘Pockets of Resistance.‘

AnneRichard and UNHCR — That is Anne Richard, Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration on the right. She does the bidding of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, the former Socialist President of Portugal (on the left). Together these two are changing (colonizing!) American towns one by one. Richard was formerly a Vice President at the International Rescue Committee, one of nine federal resettlement contractors. Bio: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/188212.htm

The WND article begins:

The pushback started earlier this year in South Carolina, then spread to Minnesota, Idaho, and now North Dakota.

Michigan and Ohio are also organizing against what local residents say is a sinister and sneaky federal program that almost never gets serious coverage from local media. It’s the U.S. State Department’s refugee resettlement program, which has been humming along on autopilot since Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, signed by President Jimmy Carter.

No longer satisfied with pat answers, residents in several states are starting to ask the hard questions. They are showing up at meetings, starting blogs and email lists, digging up information and bypassing local media to inform their friends and neighbors of what’s really going on with the refugee movement.

[….]

In conservative Twin Falls, Idaho, for instance, a group of 100 activists are going door to door informing their neighbors about how the refugee program works. Organizer Rick Martin says most people are surprised to find out that the United Nations picks most of the refugees destined for America, and that the Catholic Church, the Lutheran and Episcopal churches, along with evangelical and Jewish groups get paid by the federal government to resettle refugees in the U.S.

“When we mention that the U.N. is involved most of the time they won’t believe it, so we have to show them the articles,” Martin said.

Since, I have BIG MEAT on my mind these days and the role it plays in lobbying for cheap, legal, immigrant labor, comments by Minnesota’s Bob Enos jumped out at me:

The nine private resettlement agencies, including “charities” within the Lutheran, Catholic, Episcopalian, and evangelical churches, get federal grants to resettle the refugees, essentially acting as front groups for the government, but without the transparency and accountability that would be expected if the government did the work itself, said Bob Enos, spokesman for T-3 (Truth and Transparency in Taxation) in St. Cloud. His group is pushing for more openness in the way refugees are resettled in Minnesota.

“I think the meat packers had a lot to do with this,” Enos, a former businessman, told WND. “These are people in business whose raw materials won’t allow them to outsource overseas, so if you can’t bring the factory overseas you bring overseas to the factory.”

Read it all! It is, as usual, very thorough, and it might give you some ideas on what you can do in your ‘Pocket of Resistance (POR)’.

Idaho: At townhalls, Senator Mike Crapo gets an earful about refugee program

08/15/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I meant to post this news earlier, but there is so much happening I can’t keep up! See two other posts on Idaho yesterday, here and here.
Citizens in that growing Idaho ‘Pocket of Resistance (POR)‘ have been dogging Republican Senator Mike Crapo during the August recess. We have two stories about the intense level of questioning he is receiving.
Idaho citizens are doing exactly what everyone across the country should be doing now—dogging their elected officials—including pressing Senators and Members of Congress to have a look at Rep. Brian Babin’s bill! House Members should be urged to sign on to the bill! It is going to be very telling to see who signs on and who doesn’t. We will be watching and reporting come September!

Talking out of both sides of his mouth, Crapo appears cagey on the issue!

Sen Mike Crapo — Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). http://www.crapo.senate.gov/

From MagicValley.com (emphasis is mine):

The 300 refugees, some of them Syrian, who are expected to come to the Magic Valley in October were a much-discussed topic at Crapo’s town halls on Tuesday in Filer, Hollister, and Hagerman, his spokesman Lindsay Nothern said. A few people brought the issue up in Castleford, too.

Crapo told the crowd he hadn’t yet read, but would read, a bill that was introduced by Texas Rep. Brian Babin on July 29 to end all admission of refugees into the United States until a study can be done of how much they cost in federal benefits. The bill has no co-sponsors. Nothern said that Crapo plans to study the topic more and reach out to Babin and the relevant federal agencies, and he didn’t know yet whether Crapo would back the legislation.

Crapo told the Times-News in July that he understands the need for a refugee program. When responding to someone at Tuesday’s town hall who brought up terrorist attacks that have been carried out by refugees, Crapo said that, while he doesn’t disagree about the dangers, there are people who should be allowed in as refugees, such as human trafficking victims. Crapo did say he wants to know more about the State Department’s vetting process. After the town hall, Crapo said he still has questions he’s trying to get answered.

Then here is another report, an excellent one, from Vicky Davis at The Voice of Idaho News. (Hat tip: Rick) Almost everyone in attendance was there to talk about refugees:

The Filer City Council Chamber has a capacity of 43 people and there were a few people standing in doorways. All but about five people in the room stood up. Two notable exceptions that remained seated were the two state legislators in the room, Rep. Maxine Bell, from Jerome and Rep. Clark Kauffman of Filer.

One lady in the audience who was concerned about her taxes, complained rightfully about the amount of money the government is spending on refugees and that money includes her tax dollars. Why are they spending so much money on refugees when we have needs of our own? She said she doesn’t make enough money to solve the problems of the world.

[….]

In general Senator Crapo is supportive of the refugee resettlement program but he was open to the idea of a moratorium. However, to talk about the budget deficit and the need to fix it and then to support the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars to import people who are not even culturally compatible makes no sense and is demonstrative of the compartmentalization of politicians and issues.

[….]

One of the members of the audience was an elderly gentleman who said he was in the Post Office in Filer when two Somali men of military age come in and they were talking about how much they hate the United States. He expressed his concern about the CSI refugee resettlement program bringing in military age men from Syria. He didn’t think military age men should be included in the refugee program.

Senator Crapo assured the audience that the refugees coming in are vetted before they are allowed into the country. This however, is not true…..

You gotta laugh, didn’t Crapo know about the terror trial for an Uzbek refugee that just wrapped up in his state?
Continue reading here.
Recommendation to the Idaho POR: Find out who funds Crapo’s campaigns. Is he getting cashola from BIG MEAT, or LOL! BIG YOGURT (Chobani) or any other big business or the Chamber of Commerce in Idaho. Be sure to check campaign finance records for all of your elected officials.
Go here to support the Twin Falls POR.