Was there fraud in the huge resettlement of Burmese 'refugees' to the US?

They must have found something at the USCIS or a thousand Burmese living in the US right now wouldn’t have gotten a letter to report to a USCIS office.
Was there fraud in transit country, Malaysia???
(Checking Wrapsnet I see that since FY06 we have admitted a whopping 167,583 Burmese people and they were coming before 2006 and are still coming, see map below.)
Here is a short article at the Des Moines Register about the “summons” Burmese living in Iowa have received:

Dozens of refugees in Iowa received letters from immigration officials asking them to appear for an interview and provide information that validates their status.

The refugees are from the country formerly known as Burma, a group that has grown in the past five years to include more than 8,000 living in Iowa.

[….]

Abigail-150x150
Abigail Sui, program manager of Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resources in Des Moines.   http://www.embarciowa.org/

She [Abigail Sui] said at least 50 refugees in Iowa, all who came from Burma and to the U.S. through Malaysia, got the letter from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department that requested the in-person interview. One letter required travel to Indianapolis, while a refugee from Indiana appeared at the USCIS offices in Des Moines for an interview Monday, according to EMBARC.

[….]

“A current USCIS investigation has raised concerns about identity and biographic information provided to USCIS in a number of cases involving Burmese refugees, including many who have resettled in the U.S.,” said Sharon Rummery, a USCIS public affairs officer based in San Francisco.

She said in an email that the USCIS sent 1,000 requests for interviews nationwide that “will help determine the refugee’s immigration status or eligibility for future immigration benefits.”

The interviews are voluntary, but Sui said that she thinks consequences are possible if the refugees do not go.

Already facing resettlement hardships, the refugees would have to fund a trip to the interviews and take time off work, said Sui. In addition, no interpreters would be made available.

Can you hear the immigration lawyer stampede now—no taxpayer-funded interpreters is a big no-no!  And, how dare the Trump Administration dig more deeply into the US Refugee Admissions Program.
More here.
Here is a map from the US State Department’s Refugee Processing Center showing where the 167,583 Burmese have been placed since FY06.  Obviously there is an error as there is no number on the dark blue Indiana.   Texas takes top honors.
 

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New readers may not know that Wyoming is the only state with no refugee program.

 
My archive on the Burmese may be found by clicking here.
Most of the Burmese are not Muslims but in the last few years, the US has begun admitting larger numbers of the so-called ‘Rohingya,’ Muslims from Burma and Bangladesh.

Dems join CAIR to silence speech in Iowa small town

This didn’t happen in Berkeley, CA or St. Louis, MO but in a small Iowa town’s community center.

I’m just going to give you the opening paragraphs of the story, but everyone of you concerned about the future of  our country should read the jaw-dropping account of a public meeting where Democrat protesters and Council on American Islamic Relations representatives teamed up to disrupt a presentation organized by a former Muslim, a convert to Christianity.

This is America?

From Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily:

While all eyes were on the University of California, Berkeley, Thursday night to see if radical leftists could control their anger over the mere presence of a conservative speaker on campus, it was a gathering in a tiny Iowa town that attracted the attention of one of the left’s key allies – the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

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Hurst, running for local elected office, was the leader (along with CAIR) of the infiltrators who disrupted the meeting requiring police presence so that speakers could continue. “He posted on Facebook suggestions that Guandolo, Christian and Gaubatz did not qualify for free speech rights under the First Amendment.”

CAIR, which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive terror-financing trial held in 2008, crashed a meeting in Oakland, Iowa – population 1,500 in rural Pottawattamie County.

Why such concern for what’s going on in a place so far off the beaten path?

Actually, it’s not unusual, not in post-Trump America.

CAIR has made it a top priority in the wake of President Trump’s surprising election victory to show up, challenge and cause confusion wherever the truth about Islam is being taught, say experts on the organization. CAIR is worried that a nation under the spell of Barack Obama for eight years may start to wake up to some startling facts and discover that Islam has become the government-favored religion, the only religion Americans are not allowed to criticize.

MiriamAmer_400x400
Miriam Amer, CAIR Iowa, was reportedly in attendance. https://twitter.com/mzmea611/

This is all part of CAIR’s nationwide campaign against “Islamophobia” which coincides with the United Nations’ anti-Islamophobia campaign being carried out on a global scale. Cities such as Boston, Minneapolis, San Fransisco and Nashville have all taken up the cause of defending Islam against verbal attacks increasing referred to as “hate crimes.”

The speakers who had CAIR worked up into a tizzy were John Guandolo and Chris Gaubatz, partners in Understanding the Threat…..

Click here and read about what happened in Oakland, Iowa, a bigger deal then Berkeley where we have come to expect massive intimidation efforts to silence speech.

When is the last time you heard about Dems/Muslims holding public meetings crashed by people trying to silence their speech?  That’s right, you haven’t!

And, one more thing, if you have people like Hurst running for public office where you live, you better get out and oppose them!

NYT: How Tyson Foods and its greedy demand for cheap immigrant labor 'saved' an Iowa town

That is pretty much the gist of the New York Times story here about Storm Lake, Iowa.
The opening paragraphs give the message that I, and others before me, have been giving for years.  When big global corporations like Tyson Foods discovered cheap (first illegal) immigrant labor and now legal refugees, the cultural make-up of American heartland towns was changed forever.

We told you here last November that the Obama State Department was making Storm Lake a direct resettlement site. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/22/storm-lake-iowa-filling-americas-dead-spots-with-diversity/

The NYT spins it as a feel-good story as this town that features a PORK (no Muslim laborers) plant would have died.
My question is, why would it have died? If Tyson had kept up the wages over the years, there would be more generations of rural Americans who would consider this work (if they weren’t brainwashed in liberal colleges that is)?
It is especially maddening because immigrant wages stay low and you (taxpayers) help support the families with your welfare dollars. Wow! What a business model!
I’m posting this story for a reason other than the fact that it confirms what I have been yammering about for years—-refugee resettlement is about labor, not first and foremost ‘humanitarianism’ by our government and its resettlement contractors***.  But, I am posting it to give readers an example of what you can do!
Here are the opening paragraphs about how Tyson Foods is ‘saving’ a town:

STORM LAKE, Iowa — When Dan Smith first went to work at the pork processing plant in Storm Lake in 1980, pretty much the only way to nab that kind of union job was to have a father, an uncle or a brother already there. The pay, he recalled, was $16 an hour, with benefits — enough to own a home, a couple of cars, a camper and a boat, while your wife stayed home with the children.

“It was the best-paying job you could get, 100 percent, if you were unskilled,” said Mr. Smith, now 66, who followed his father through the plant gates.

After nearly four decades at the plant, most of them as a forklift driver, Mr. Smith is retiring this month.

The union is long gone, and so are most of the white faces of men who once labored in the broiling heat of the killing floor and the icy chill of the production lines. What hasn’t changed much is Mr. Smith’s hourly wage, which is still about $16 an hour, the same as when he started 37 years ago. Had his wages kept up with inflation, he would be earning about $47 an hour.

Continue reading here to see what meatpackers have done to Storm Lake.
One more thing, you will see if you read it all is that the NYT is out to get Rep. Steve King (no surprise!).

So what can you do?

Readers ask me all the time, what can they do to help get the message out.  I’ll try to write a comprehensive (as comprehensive as I can) post in the coming days about what you can do, but here is what one reader did because every little bit helps! (I’ll make a new category and call it ‘What you can do’ for ideas like this!)

She actually took the time to comment to the NYT. 
The comments are closed now, but please have a look and see what readers of the NYT said, here.  The NYT probably did not appreciate the tone of many of them! (When you open that previous link, the comments should pop-up in the right hand side bar, they do on mine.)
Here is our reader:

D Flinchum
Blacksburg, VA

It should be clear from this article that the influx of cheap foreign labor is for the benefit of the company owners. Pay low wages w/no benefits, but because low wages don’t often pay for a 1st-world life, shift the cost to the community at large by gov social services and higher costs for housing, lower quality schools, and ER health care.

The refugee program has become a recruiting system for Big Meat. It is made out to be some great humanitarian system and anybody who opposes it is called a heartless bigot. This is nothing more than gas-lighting – trying to make people who see the truth believe something that they can see isn’t so by calling them names. It’s just like a philandering husband trying to gas-light his wife into thinking that she is crazy for suggesting he is out partying with Marcia in Marketing instead of working late when he comes home half drunk with lipstick on his shirt.

It is also important to note that most of these new workers and their children qualify for affirmative action. It is likely that these new workers’ children who do go on to college will be able to take advantage of programs not available to the white working class kids who might also be interested in advancing into the professions.

As one man in the article said, it’s hard to have ill feelings for someone just trying for a better life, but the company owners already have a good life and it is they who should be held accountable.

Thus we have Trump in the WH.

See our tag ‘Meatpackers’ for many more stories about BIG MEAT changing America. Don’t miss this one about meatpackers worried about the Trump ‘proposed’ slowdown.
*** US federally-funded refugee resettlement contractors are paid by the head (by you!) to bring migrant laborers to your American towns and cities:

 

Storm Lake, Iowa: Filling America's "dead spots" with diversity!

Storm Lake population 10,600 in 2010.
Looks like we have found another of the 47 new resettlement sites we learned that the US State Department has identified to place some of Obama’s 110,000 refugees for FY2017.  Of course, as we just said for Rutland, VT, some locations are on hold as the contractors try to figure out how far out on the limb (financially) they wish to climb.
Since refugee contractors get most of their federal money on a per head basis, any slowdown in resettlement after Trump is inaugurated cuts in to their budgets.

storm-lake-tyson-plant
Surprise (not)! Tyson Foods has a pork processing plant at Storm Lake and the first refugee from Thailand (Burmese?) went to work there. Wikipedia tells us there is a turkey processing plant there too. More refugee labor on the way? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Lake,_Iowa

This is the second story we have seen lately about Catholic resettlement agencies spreading out their responsibilities to smaller organizations (or churches) presumably to make resettlement cheaper for themselves.  We told you about Hudson, Wisconsin here last week.
The problem of transparency is something I will be pushing the Trump Administration on as soon as we know who will be Secretary of State.  It is maddening that here we are nearly 2 months in to FY17 and we have only identified some of the 47 new sites*** we heard the DOS has chosen.   Citizens have a right to know when their towns have been selected for refugee placement.

Once again from a local paper, we learn (inadvertently)   some nuggets that should help all of us.
From the Storm Lake Pilot-Tribune last week:

The Bridge of Storm Lake’s mission has grown in an unexpected direction. The neighborhood ministry has become a refugee resettlement agency along with its other programs.

The first two refugees from Thailand have been successfully settled in Storm Lake, and a mother and small child will be arriving before the end of the year, freed from the desperate conditions of refugee camps.

The role was not one the program expected to play.

Catholic Charities, one of the national agencies charged with resettling refugees accepted to enter the United States, had reached out to The Bridge to see if could help.

There are placement agencies in larger cities like Omaha and Minneapolis, but Storm Lake sits in a “dead spot” in the midst of a vast rural region, unserved by any existing resettlement office.

jay-dahlhauser
Jay Dahlhauser founder and CEO of The Bridge. http://www.thebridgeofstormlake.com/

Jay Dahlhauser of The Bridge explained that the national resettlement agencies [The Contractors—ed] meet each Wednesday to see what refugees are arriving, from where, and figure out which refugees each will handle.

We should demand that the Trump State Department not hold these meetings in secret.  Imagine this! Non-profit groups are sitting around a table in DC every Wednesday making decisions that will effect your community for decades/generations!
Pilot-Tribune:

With the country beginning to reach out to more rural regions for resettlements, The Bridge accepted the challenge from Catholic Charities, but not before wrestling over the decision. [What do they mean the “country” is reaching out to place refugees in rural areas! The Obama State Department and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops may be reaching out, but they are not the “country!”—ed]

So here (below) we learn something completely new—the feds can send up to 30 refugees to a town before making a formal agreement with the agency! BTW, none of this is in the law, this is all decided within the Department of State without any legal underpinning (so it could easily be undecided by a Trump Secretary of State).

Pilot-Tribune:

Storm Lake and The Bridge are currently capped at a maximum of 30 resettled individuals. If the number reaches that level, a more permanent agreement would be necessary, or possibly a formal resettlement office to be located in the community.

Continue reading here.
I would love to know if the contractors get any little rewards from the meatpackers when they supply them with cheap refugee laborers.
***To see if your town is an existing resettlement site check out the US Department of State database.
But when you look at that data base know three things.  1) the data base is out of date, 2) we are told there are 47 new sites not listed and, 3) see if you live within 100 miles of one of these offices because that means your town is fair game to receive refugees.
Here are some of the new sites being chosen by the US State Department (that we know of!).  We are adding Storm Lake, Iowa. If anyone there is interested in learning more, check out our ‘Ten Things Your Town Needs to Know‘ by clicking here.
Asheville, NC
Rutland, VT
Reno, NV
Ithaca, NY
Missoula, MT
Aberdeen, SD (may have been thwarted as a primary resettlement site!)
Charleston, WV
Fayetteville, AR
Blacksburg, VA
Pittsfield, MA
Northhampton, MA
Flint, MI
Bloomington, IN
Traverse City, MI
Poughkeepsie, NY
Wilmington, DE
Watertown, NY (maybe)
Youngstown, OH (maybe)
Storm Lake, Iowa

First Syrians arrive in Iowa, will get "services"

Just a quickie post to make a couple of points.
The federal resettlement contractor (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants) bringing refugees to Des Moines is the same one bringing refugees to Idaho (in that still festering controversy about the sexual abuse of a little girl by migrants from Sudan and Iraq).

Joshua Barr
Is Joshua Barr saying any immigrant (including illegals) can get welfare in Des Moines? Hmmm! Photo here: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/09/17/column-new-human-rights-director-looks-dms-underbelly/72370936/

And, for very new readers, who maybe don’t know, refugees are eligible for all forms of welfare available to Americans including SSI for the elderly and disabled.
From KCCI Des Moines:

DES MOINES, Iowa —The first Syrian refugee family to arrive in Iowa is getting help to start a new life here.

Gov. Terry Branstad ordered the state to do nothing to help those fleeing Syria, but a federal agency works with refugees here.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants has a field office in Des Moines, and is treating the Syrian refugees like any other refugees, by setting up an apartment and helping them settle in.

The Tameem family from Syria sat through a class with 60 immigrants from Thailand, Nepal, Malysia, Kenya and Somalia to learn the ropes in Iowa. [Have they all been tested for TB, just wondering—ed]

“When you come to the city seeking services, they cannot treat you differently based on your immigrant status,” said Joshua Barr, of the Des Moines Civil & Human Rights Commission.

Of course “services” is code for welfare of all sorts—food stamps, housing, education, medicaid etc….
Go here to see if USCRI is working in your town.   By the way, it is the same contractor planning to bring refugees to Rutland, VT and Reno, NV—got services?