Lutheran Social Services of Michigan, rebrands, no longer wants to be tagged as Lutheran

04/06/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Very interesting! This is not the first refugee resettlement contractor that has changed its name over the years.
Previously we learned that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society no longer wanted to be known for being Hebrew, see here. They are now HIAS!

LSS of Michigan—gone! Now Samaritas

And, here we see a Lutheran organization dropping the Lutheran and changing its name to reflect a broader image—they will be called Samaritas—-so (LOL!) of course new folks will immediately know what they are all about with that name!
I think the explanations they give are phony-baloney and I can guess two (maybe three) other reasons that the name change is happening:
First, I’m guessing Jews and Lutherans have complained about what those organizations have been doing in the name of their faiths and secondly, I wonder if Muslim refugees are reluctant to be resettled by Jews and Lutherans (fearing perhaps proselytization***). Or maybe they are now just going to make it harder for new critics to find information on them.
I can only dream it was because the ACLU finally began to take notice of the separation of church and state issue with these federal ‘religious’ resettlement contractors being almost exclusively funded by taxpayer dollars.
Remember too, LSS Michigan’s image was a bit tarnished by that housing funny-business we mentioned here recently.
Here is the brief news story with the nonsensical explanation for the name change which took place today:

(NEWSCHANNEL 3) – One of Michigan’s largest social service and refugee resettlement agencies is changing its name to better reflect its mission.

Lutheran Social Services of Michigan has been leading the way for bringing refugees here to escape conflict. Tuesday they are holding a state-wide celebration to usher in their new name.

They will now be known as Samaritas.

Officials say internal research revealed many people didn’t seek the more than 80-year-old organization for work or services because they weren’t Lutheran. [Were Muslims reluctant?—ed]

It has hired and served individuals of all faiths and ethnicities, so they are changing the name to reflect that.

***Illegal by the way according to the US State Department, see here.

Two (more) state legislatures attempting to wrest some control from feds for refugee resettlement

03/26/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

South Carolina moved one step closer recently to advance a bill to try to get some control over who is being resettled in the state, and in Michigan bills were introduced to do the same.
I know it should be my job to explain the ins and outs of the various bills and attempt to predict what will happen with them, but honestly I don’t have the will power (or the legal skills!) to sort through it all. So, instead, I’ll give you a couple of news accounts from this week (AB–After Belgium) for you to read yourself.
South Carolina…

Mark Wineka/Salisbury Post Ted Goins, president and chief executive officer of Lutheran Services Carolinas, headquartered in Salisbury, oversees an organization of more than 1,600 employees and an annual budget of about $115 million. — Ted Goins, CEO of Lutheran Services Carolinas told Think Progress: “South Carolina has a long history of welcoming those seeking refuge…” Well, actually no it doesn’t, it is one of the least refugee-populated states in the US (up until now).

First, check out what Think Progress says about the South Carolina initiative. The closest they come to mentioning that Lutheran Social Services is a government contractor is to say they have been “tasked” with the job of getting refugees established in the state. No mention of the millions of your tax dollars paying them for their ‘task.’
Needless to say, if the South Carolina bill would become law, it will have a chilling effect on resettlement in the state as the Lutheran federal contractor could be held liable for crimes committed by their clients.
It is good to read publications like Think Progress from time to time. You know it is a publication of the Center for American Progress (Soros, Clinton, John Podesta).
There is another article with wailing and moaning about the bill here. For once, the contractors are on the defense.
Then there is the new effort in Michigan.
See Leo Hohmann writing at World Net Daily yesterday for the skinny on that pushback.
After telling us all the troubles Michigan is having with a rapidly expanding Muslim population, he reports that a citizens group (a pocket of resistance) has formed to push back. Here is WND:

Dearborn_Mosque_Michigan — Mosques are mushrooming in Michigan, this one in Dearborn.

That is sparking an organized backlash from Michigan residents.

A citizens’ group called Secure Michigan has formed as a watchdog over the refugee resettlement program in the state. Secure Michigan issued a statement Tuesday after the jihadist attack on Brussels, Belgium, that killed 34 people and injured 200. The statement urged Michigan GOP Gov. Rick Snyder to renew his opposition to President Obama’s Syrian refugee program.

Obama wants to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S., about half of them in Michigan.

All of this has put pressure on state lawmakers to do something to slow down the flow of Third World refugees into Michigan.

State Rep. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, has answered the call. He introduced legislation to make refugee placements in Michigan both safe and more transparent, while also giving local government a voice in the process as required by federal immigration law.

“House Bills 5528 and 5529 will protect both our communities and refugees entering our communities.

Continue reading here. Then see our complete archive going back to 2007 on Michigan, here. For more on South Carolina over the years, go here.

Michigan: Housing funny-business involving Lutheran Social Services

03/25/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Over the years we have gotten whiffs of ‘strange doings’ going on between landlords and federal refugee resettlement contractors and this story from Battlecreek, MI gives us a tantalizing peek into how the ‘humanitarian’ Lutheran Social Services of Michigan operates.
All I know is that, please watch for housing problems in refugee overloaded cities.
You will see refugees placed in slums, apartments with more residents than local zoning allows, conflicts with neighbors, landlords waking up to what they got into and trying now to get out, cozy relations between refugee contractors and certain landlords, competition between American poor and disabled and refugees for limited housing, and the list goes on. In fact, you will see even more competition this year as the contractors are expected to find places for the 85,000 refugees Obama has promised America.

Sam Beals LSSM — Sam Beals is the CEO of Lutheran Social Services Michigan. Since the article never names who the spokesperson is for LSSM in the housing dispute, the next best thing is to identify the head honcho. https://www.lssm.org/lssm/about-us/leadership

Here is the news from WWMT.com. This is the kind of story some local Michigan activist, concerned with too many refugees coming to the state, should dig into. I bet there is a lot more than is being said here! Emphasis below is mine:

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – Refugees and community organizers say more than 60 refugee families received notices that their apartment leases would not be renewed.

[….]

“At the time the letter was sent, the apartment complexes had received information which caused the complexes to believe that the families/residents who received the latter had too many residents occupying the apartment units,” wrote Campbell’s lawyer, David Zebell.

The article reports that the landlord changed his mind and refugees can stay, but here is more:

Ginger Dowdle, a Battle Creek community organizer said she first became aware of the notices when an middle-eastern refugee approached her with concerns.

She said Lutheran Social Services of Michigan, which helps organize and place the refugees, did not challenge the notices, but instead, told the refugees about an option to buy homes recently acquired by the landlord of River and River Oaks Apartments. [That is the same landlord with whom they are having problems now.—ed]

“I tried to make them [refugees] aware, that if this is happening to them now and there’s no reason for them to be evicted, I would be very careful getting involved with this land contract for a home,” she said. [By the way, one of the things resettlement contractors brag about is that refugees are buying homes, do they get special government funded deals?—ed]

Dowdle said that a representative from Lutheran Social Services of Michigan indicated that LSS told refugees they would have to move out in one year, something refugees say never happened.

A spokesperson for LSSM defended the organization’s response to the notices.

[….]

As for community organizer Ginger Dowdle, she is in the process of making sure all the refugees know about the reversal in policy, and their rights.

“I feel like this has been going on for quite some time,” she said, expressing disappointment with both apartment management and LSSM.

There is more here.
I wondered if LSSM was running out of housing and thus trying to move some previous ‘clients’ into homes so that they could be sure to have apartments in order to keep the flow of new paying clients coming into the city.
Has anyone asked LSSM for its FY2016 R & P Abstracts? Go to the handy list of resettlement contractor offices around the country, find the one closest to you and ask for their FY2016 R & P Abstract. The Abstract will tell you how many the refugee contractor thinks they can handle this year (from what countries) and what amenities your town is offering (which might be a surprise to you!).

Michigan to get walloped with refugees this fiscal year

03/20/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It wasn’t too many years ago that the US State Department made a point of not sending new refugees to Michigan because of the poor job prospects for everyone there. But, all that has changed and now Michigan is regularly in the top five resettlement states in the nation. See here. These numbers would move Michigan to the #3 spot behind Texas and California in national ranking.
Michigan will get over 5,000!!! Lutherans are lead agency. Security concerns to be ignored!
From the Detroit News:

Michigan is expected to take in more than 5,000 refugees this year, the highest number since 2002, amid renewed concerns about security and the latest effort in Congress to overhaul the U.S. Resettlement Program.

Since 2002, the earliest year for which U.S. officials say they have reliable state-by-state data,*** Michigan has resettled between about 500 and 4,500 refugees annually. State social service agencies say they plan to take in about 5,100 this year.

The expected influx comes as intelligence officials warn Islamic State members posing as refugees will likely launch an attack on U.S. soil this year. A bill seeking to cap the number of refugees and strengthen security measures was approved Wednesday by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

[….]

Dick Manasseri of Rochester Hills questioned the decision to bring in more immigrants after U.S. intelligence officials said they expect a terrorist attack this year by extremists posing as refugees.

“The entire country is watching Michigan officials being criticized for not protecting its people from toxic water,” he said. “Could the runaway refuge resettlement program be another case of government officials failing to protect citizens?”

Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, warned Congress last month Islamic State extremists posing as refugees “will probably attempt to … direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016.”

In testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee last week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said accepting Syrian refugees escaping their country’s civil war could pose a security threat, adding that security has been stepped up.

More here….
And, by the way, it isn’t just security that concerns local resettlement restrictionists. The Refugee Admissions Program is costly to state and local taxpayers as well—think schools, medical care, subsidized housing.
See our entire Michigan archive by clicking here. Our post of just last week on the testimony by Jeh Johnson is here.
And, one last thing, if your city or state has been a “welcoming” one, expect a jump in your numbers. The resettlement contractors had a hard time finding places to seed 70,000 refugees in the 2015 fiscal year and this year Obama has instructed them to find locations for 85,000 third worlders. That means there will be very aggressive campaigns ongoing to expand existing sites and find new ones (like Montana).
***For diligent researchers: They have the data going back to the early 1980s. You can find it by laboriously looking through ORR annual reports to Congress. They just didn’t transfer the data to the new data base.

Arabs in Dearborn support governor's decision to curtail Syrian refugee resettlement

11/22/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday we reported that many Christian Syrian immigrants in Allentown, PA oppose resettlement of the mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians in the pipeline to America, and now look at this! The mostly Shiite Muslims in the Dearborn area don’t want the Sunni Syrians there either!

Muslims against ISIS — Dearborn Muslims protest ISIS in 2014. ISIS is Sunni, many Dearborn Muslims are Shiite. Obama doesn’t seem to care that we are admitting to the US both sides of the centuries’ old conflict in the refugee stream. Photo: http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2014/09/muslims-in-dearborn-michigan-and-britain-condemn-isis-illinois-muslims-silent.html

Before you read this latest news, be sure to check our recent post—98% of Syrians admitted so far are Sunni Muslims (ISIS is Sunni as is al-Qaeda).
From NBC News (what is happening to the MSM, are they starting to get-it?):

They’re not rolling out the welcome wagon for the Syrian refugees in the Arab immigrant enclave of Dearborn, Michigan.

And some longtime residents told NBC News they even agree with Gov. Rick Snyder’s decision to suspend efforts to bring the long-suffering Syrians to his state after last week’s deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

“We don’t need no more troubles, you know?” said Hicham Dawil, who immigrated to the U.S. three decades ago. “I feel bad for the people. On the other hand, look what’s happening in France. This is crazy, you know. It’s just evil.”

Dawil, a father of five college-aged kids all born here who runs his own heating and cooling business, said the ISIS attacks turned his stomach and the fallout affects him as an Arab immigrant.

“We just cannot afford being looked at like, ‘Oh, well, you are one of them,'” he said. “Let’s say I walk into a lounge … I can see people look at me.”

So Dawil supports Snyder’s move “100 percent.”

There is much more here.