Former refugee contractor CEO: America needs refugees to teach us how to love one another

10/31/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Stephen Bauman, a former CEO of World Relief, one of nine federal resettlement contractors*** (paid by the head to place refugees in towns that are kept in the dark about the resettlement process) was speaking to an interfaith gathering in North Carolina recently when he said some annoying things.

Bauman justice conf — We love refugees, but regular ol’ Americans obviously not so much!

The one that really got me is the one about needing refugees to teach us how to love.

What the heck, what’s wrong with loving the neighbors in your own town, the low income Americans of all colors who are suffering. In fact the first question I get when someone first learns about refugee resettlement is:

We have our own poor people why aren’t we taking care of them first?

Here is the story from Baptist News Global:

America needs refugees as much as refugees need places like America, says Stephan Bauman, former president and CEO of World Relief, which has helped to resettle thousands of desperate wanderers.

Bauman addressed refugees and volunteers who have helped to make them at home during a “refugee welcome” event attended by more than 350 at Knollwood Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., Oct. 21. [Can we conclude that Winston-Salem has no American poor people remaining, that these good Baptists have taken care of them all?—ed]

In the past two years, Knollwood has helped to settle four refugee families — three of them in partnership with Temple Emanuel, a Jewish community in the city. Their resettled families have been Muslim.

[….]

Diane-Lipsett-feature-image — Baptist minister Lipsett

While other such relationship building events are not unique, organizer Diane Lipsett said this event paid special attention to why helping refugees “matters to our faith.” She led panel discussions with volunteers from three faiths, and had the entire discussion translated into both Arabic and Swahili so refugees primarily from Syria and the Congo would be fully integrated.

Bauman, who this year became executive director of Cornerstone Trust, a grant management firm in Grand Rapids, Mich., said America needs refugees “so we can love one another, because we don’t naturally love each other.” The common task of service for others induces us to drop our regard for differences.

Resettling refugees, sometimes those from countries not friendly to the United States, shows us “how to love our enemies,” Bauman said.

[….]

For Bob Schwartz, it is the Jewish tradition of “Tikkun olam,” the mandate to repair the world, “to make the world a better place.”

What! It isn’t sufficient to love those around you and repair your own neighborhood? And, why isn’t Bauman still heading World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals) if resettling refugees is such a wonderful thing?

Continue reading here. This article is better than a cup of coffee to wake you up!

Feel the love!

All this phony-baloney love-talk reminds me how much Bauman and World Relief don’t love you—people who ask questions and want to know how the refugee program is working in your home towns (what it costs and the potential cultural/social upheaval that could follow)!

In 2015 I traveled to Minnesota and was interviewed on a local radio station. (BTW, World Relief was one of three federal contractors originally responsible for the placement of Somali refugees in the state).

I told listeners that they needed to get a copy of the R & P (Reception & Placement) Abstract, that is the plan each contractor operating in a city prepares for the federal government. It tells how many refugees the contractor wants to bring and what amenities your town/city has to offer the refugees. (See the recent one from St. Cloud here).

Not only should this document be available to you after it is prepared, but frankly taxpaying citizens should see it and be able to comment on its drafting. For most areas of the country this document is still SECRET! (Feel the love!)

And, shame on any mayor and council that is not even aware there is such a planning document!

So if Bauman loved YOU, why would he have been running such a secretive program?

Or, is his love limited to only those who agree with him politically (and for the “strangers” he places in your towns)?

See below in this internal memo sent from World Relief headquarters (while Bauman was still CEO) to their subcontractors (they call them affiliates) around the country and shared with me.

Feel the love!

(I’ve removed the names of recipients and highlighted the portions of most interest to me.)

Screenshot (1030) — Stand for the foreign-born vulnerable should be their motto!

From: Casey Leyva
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 5:07 PM
Subject: Potential Anti-Refugee Contacts

Dear Office Directors,

We’ve heard recently from other members of RCUSA (Refugee Council USA) that local affiliates have been contacted by individuals questioning the U.S. refugee program. This is a result of an interview Ann Corcoran, a blogger who runs Refugee Resettlement Watch, with a local news station in Minnesota. She has told her followers to to ask you for your R&P abstract – please do not send it. And please let us know if you are contacted.

Finally, please don’t go searching for this woman’s blog. I give you her information so you know if and when someone calls that this is the same topic. Here are Scott’s tips on interacting with these types of blogs:

Here is an important remember of how blog analytics work. Remember that what feeds the beast essentially are clicks. Ever hear the term “click-bait”? Seeing something in your Facebook feed that says “Velociraptor eats Skittles and your mind will be blown at what happens next!”, would be a dramatized example of that. In other words, while we all don’t really like anything this blogger has to say, every time we share the link, she gets a click. Bloggers have some very useful tools. They are able to tell when people read articles, what they are interested in, and what they search for on the blog. The more times this article is shared, the more the blogger will think they are onto something here and post more about it. Just as a news organization may hammer on a specific story, not because it is a great story, but because it builds up ratings and viewership. What can be done about this?

The best thing I recommend is if a blog such as this is posted by ForRefugees (Chris C.) or Refugee Resettlement Watch (Ann C.) and we believe it is worth sharing for FYI, that the person who locates it simply copy and paste the text from the blog into the e-mail. This will ensure that the clicks are limited. It will get 1 or 2 clicks from WR, versus 20 clicks. Those add up.

Casey Leyva
R&P Program Manager

7 E. Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
T 443.451.1916
E cleyva@wr.org
www.worldrelief.org

Fascinating isn’t it how hard they tried to keep my posts from being widely read. And, I love it that they didn’t want any conflicting information reaching the sensitive ears of their staffers.

The Refugee Council USA mentioned in the first paragraph is the lobbying arm of the refugee industry and we have mentioned them many times here. Most recently they (including World Relief) were involved in joining CAIR to march at the #NoMuslimBanEver rally against the President here.

***These are the nine federal refugee contractors that are responsible for placing all refugees in your towns. These nine get the refugee cases from the US State Department and distribute them to over 300 subcontractors operating in your towns. They all keep the R & P Abstracts under wraps because they don’t want you to know their plans.

No such thing as ‘Minnesota nice’ as St. Cloud mayor and council play dirty

10/25/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you that a St. Cloud, Minnesota councilman was planning to introduce a resolution on November 6th asking for a moratorium on refugee resettlement in order to understand better the economic impact of thousands of mostly Somali refugees being placed in the town over recent years by a Lutheran resettlement agency.

(Don’t miss yesterday’s post about Lutherans being paid directly by meatpacking companies to find and retain labor, here.)

So what happens the week before the planned debate on the moratorium resolution?

On Monday night (on the 23rd):

The Mayor and most of the council sprung a “welcoming” resolution, with no advanced warning, and allowed only a few minutes of discussion before voting in support in front of a large audience that was out of control.

Here Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily tells us what happened. Embedded in the story is a video of the meeting that was described by many as total chaos.

What happened at the St. Cloud, Minnesota, City Council on Monday night is being described as a well-organized “ambush” designed to shut down a citizen uprising or “pocket of resistance” against runaway refugee resettlement in the small city.

Screenshot (1005) — Councilman Jeff Goerger, who introduced the “Welcoming and Just City” resolution before his colleague’s resolution could be introduced and voted on.

College-age students filled the council chambers. Only five people were allowed to approach the podium and speak, all of them in favor of unlimited refugee resettlement with no accountability to the taxpayer.

A resolution was hastily introduced, read and voted on.

Mission accomplished.

The ambush was successful.

And the local Somali community is now celebrating.

It all started when several of the council members who support unlimited refugee resettlement with no financial accountability to the taxpayer were informed that one of their colleagues, Councilman Jeff Johnson, planned to introduce a resolution at their Nov. 6 meeting calling for a moratorium on all resettlements in St. Cloud until an economic impact study could be completed.

Johnson’s resolution would also require the city to verify that it is in full compliance with all facets of the federal Refugee Act of 1980 as signed by then-president Jimmy Carter.

But Johnson’s opponents, clearly having collaborated among themselves beforehand, sprung a new resolution on the public at the Monday, Oct. 23, meeting and passed it 5-1 after begrudgingly allowing only a few minutes of debate.

The efforts by Johnson to support financial accountability were undercut before they were even heard in a public forum.

Councilman Jeff Goerger made sure of it.

[….]

Councilman Jeff Goerger, who introduced the “Welcoming and Just City” resolution before his colleague’s resolution could be introduced and voted on.

Goerger stated, to a resounding applause, that the city has absorbed the thousands of Somalis “without an impact on the city budget or our quality of life.”

The families of the 10 people stabbed at the mall by Dahir Adan last year might disagree with that “quality of life” remark.

There is much, much more, continue reading here.

‘Minnesota nice’ is dead and gone!

Actions like this (playing dirty) are all the more reason for citizens to organize in towns with mayors and councils like this one in St. Cloud and campaign to elect your own people to local office. See what I said here.

You might not win the first time, or even the second time, but nothing beats the publicity you can get for your greatest concerns than having your own candidates voice them. What do you have to lose?

The other option is to move.

See my huge archive on St. Cloud that extends back to 2008 when I first reported on the beleaguered city forever changed by Lutheran Social Services of MN.

St. Cloud controversy over refugees draws CAIR’s attention; CAIR draws media attention

10/19/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, of course, as I look around this morning I see that CAIR’s arrival on the scene draws the national media! A local Fox affiliate is reporting on the controversy surrounding one city councilman’s proposed moratorium on refugee resettlement and even the Washington Post is now reporting. I expect to see the spinners and liars from the New York Times arriving soon! LOL! the new ambulance chasing—CAIR chasing!

It looks like the showdown will be Monday, October 23rd when Councilman Jeff Johnson will propose that the mayor and council ask the federal government and its agent in Minnesota—Lutheran Social Services of MN—to give them a break until more is known about the economic impact of resettlement on the city and until there can be some assurances that the process going forward is transparent. Federal law does give a role to local governments to weigh in with their suggestions.

If this is the first time you are learning about the latest uprising in St. Cloud, see my posts here, here and here recently.

The moral of this story is if you can draw out CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) you can get some national attention for your efforts!

As I said in my previous post, CAIR must fight to keep Muslim refugees coming in to the US in order to continue to build their political power base. It is that simple!

Here is CAIR!

Screenshot (995)

How did St. Cloud get here?

Rather than go back over the resolution and what it could possibly do (or what might happen on Monday night at city hall), I think my best contribution to this story is to supply readers with background on how a small Minnesota city became ground zero for a battle, the results of which, will in fact help determine the future of literally every town and city in America in the decades ahead.

It’s the Lutherans in the case of St. Cloud.

We know that Somali refugees have been placed in Minnesota by the US State Department since the late 1980’s. By the early 1990’s the flood gates were opening as three major federal contractors: Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services of MN (whose ‘mothership’ is Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service where, by the way, rumor has it that some scandal is brewing), and World Relief saw Minnesota’s generous welfare as a real plus for the destitute Somalis. See my 2011 post here.

Not only was the generous welfare a draw, but big companies needed cheap labor (a window company in Owatona for example, or meat packing plants all over the state, including in St. Cloud!).

LSS as employment agency?

jodi harpstead — CEO Harpstead pulls down a salary and benefits package of over $300,000 annually to head the $91 million a year operation

Initially there was no direct resettlement of refugees in St. Cloud, that didn’t come until 2011. But, the so-called secondary migrants were moving to the city helped by an EMPLOYMENT OFFICE run by none other than Lutheran Social Services of MN. WTH!

Why was a non-profit ‘religious’ charity running an employment office to benefit large corporations? Was someone paying them to find refugee laborers for St. Cloud area businesses? Who? Taxpayers?

Here is an August 2010 story from Minnesota Public Radio announcing that in the coming year LSS of MN would be bringing 300 refugees directly to St. Cloud over the next 3 years.

But, we learn that since 2002 (right after 9/11), LSS was running an “employment office” there:

Kim Dettmer, Director of Refugee Services at Lutheran Social Services, said no one has an exact figure for the total number of refugees living in the St. Cloud area. Many community and nonprofit leaders estimate that the African population in St. Cloud is between 8,000 and 10,000–this figure includes people who came to the United States as refugees and who have since become naturalized citizen and no longer have refugee status. Lutheran Social Services learned that St. Cloud had a large and growing Somali population, so it opened an employment office in St. Cloud in 2002 to provide extra support.

Continue reading here.

One of those companies looking for cheap (Lutheran-supplied) labor was apparently Gold n’ Plump a St. Cloud-based chicken processing plant which found out that maybe cheap Somali Muslim labor isn’t cheap after all. It had to pay out an undisclosed cash settlement to Somali workers in a legal dispute discussed here in the Star Tribune.

In a landmark settlement that could change the way Muslims are treated in the workplace, St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump Inc. has agreed to allow Somali workers short prayer breaks and the right to refuse handling pork at its poultry processing facilities.

The federally mediated agreement is among the first in the nation that requires employers to accommodate the Islamic prayer schedule and the belief, held by many strict Muslims, that the Qur’an prohibits the touching and eating of pork products.

Community organizers form Red-Green axis:

One of those involved in the settlement was community activist Mahmoud Mohamed. I told you about him and his ‘ethnic community based organization’ here in early 2010 and here again in December of that year where he claims to be part of the “we” who brought the first refugees directly from camps to St. Cloud. I don’t know if he is still active, or if SASSO is still calling shots in St. Cloud. And I don’t know if Mohamed is still working with the hard Left community organizer Luke Tripp. Someone needs to do a little research.

The controversy surrounding the resolution vote on Monday (and hopefully there will be a vote so that citizens there can see exactly how each council person votes) did not happen in a vacuum or come out of the blue. In addition to those events I just mentioned, a lot has gone down in St. Cloud over the years, including but not limited to:

A controversy about Somalis harassing an assistance dog, here. (my first introduction to St. Cloud)

Controversies in the high school, one of many posts here.

A huge zoning battle over the construction of a mosque in the middle of a neighborhood, here.

The knife attack by a Somali at the local mall, here.

Somali teen murders African American, here.

Muslim arrested for mosque vandalism blamed on citizens (Islamophobes!) originally, here.

Local paper did not like me visiting St. Cloud, here.

Go here for many more stories in my archive about St. Cloud.

Update! How could I forget this! MN Governor Dayton said in St. Cloud 2015: anyone who doesn’t like immigrants can get out of Minnesota, here.

Bottomline, Lutheran Social Services of MN is responsible for the exploding Somali population in St. Cloud and the chaos and controversy that has followed.

Not in my name!

What you can do: If you are of the Lutheran denomination, you need to let your ministers know exactly how you feel about changing America by changing the people in the name of your faith group (and for Caesar’s money)!

Guest column: Unlikely that today’s refugees will be like yesterday’s self-reliant immigrants to America

10/15/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Bob Enos sent us his thoughts after reading Ms. Wolfe’s paean (in Foreign Policy) to grandpa (in which the author takes the opportunity to, like all good Leftists, use hot button words to describe RRW). See my post here with a link to “journalist” Lauren Wolfe’s opposition to the idea of “assimilation.” (You may be able to get the Foreign Policy article the first time without registering.)

Enos tells us this:

The article penned by Ms. Lauren Wolf – a New York liberal presumably of Russian Ashkenazi Jewish extraction – for Foreign Policy magazine was yet another piece of revisionist history designed to obscure a 27 year-old change to immigration policy that the American public neither understood nor asked for.

In her fantasy depicting Russian Jewish immigrants as ethnic culturists fiercely holding on to cultural identity in contrast to the American “melting pot,” she conveniently omits the major difference between then and now: the concept of the “public charge.” Her ancestors entered the United States, as did mine, with three pre-conditions in place. One, they were represented by American citizens acting as sponsors – often a rabbi or parish priest. Two, private, unsubsidized housing had been arranged ahead of time. Three, the new immigrants had jobs arranged for them ahead of time. The concept was a simple one: entrance to the United States is a privilege, not a right. Freedom of opportunity provides the means to support oneself, to “sing for your supper,” and to pose no burden to your new home country.

Screenshot (981).png — In 2015, Enos spoke about refugees. Last time I checked this video had over 61,000 views. Read about it and watch it here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/07/14/minnesota-concerned-citizen-speaks-to-county-government-leaders-about-refugee-resettlement/

The Immigration Act of 1980 abandoned the 100+ year-old standard of the public charge – at least for refugees.

This is the story of my paternal grandparents, Manuel and Maria Ignacia, from the island of St. Michael, in the remote chain of archipelago islands called the Azores, 1,000 miles off the coasts of both Europe and America in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese language was spoken in the home. My grandfather worked full-time in the Glenwood Stove factory, and part-time for a local Jewish merchant and landlord, Mr. Steinberg, who rented apartment and sold home furnishings to “green horns” fresh off the boat. My grandparents were Roman Catholic, but Mr. Steinberg’s religion meant nothing to my grandparents. “Mr. Steinberg is like a god to us!”, my grandmother exclaimed, more than once.

Once my grandparents learned the ropes from Mr. Steinberg, they began investing their savings in their own tenement houses and became landlords. During World War II, they bought a meat market, selling what my “vo-vo” (Nana) called “midnight meat” – black-market meat sold out the back door, in the middle of the night, to circumvent rationing restrictions during the war. I’d often thought that, had my grandmother been born in the US about 50 years later, she would have been running General Motors.

Now, to the assimilation part of the story. As in many Portuguese homes in the area, there were four portraits adorning the living room walls. First, a portrait of Jesus Christ. Second, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The church is at the center of family life in traditional Portuguese households. Third, a picture of Cardinal Umberto Medieros, the Archbishop of the Boston Diocese, the first Archbishop of an American Catholic diocese of Portuguese extraction. And last, a portrait of President John F. Kennedy.

One running quip was that Portuguese men preferred smoking Winston cigarettes and drinking Carling-Black Label beer, because the packaging contained the colors of the American flag.

Once, as a teenager, I asked vo-vo if she and voo-voo (grandpa) ever thought about returning home for a visit. She laughed at me; “Ai, cuzao (don’t ask)! Go where? Sao Miguel? Whadda you talkin’ about? I know what it looks like! THIS is our home!”

Enough said.

My grandparents never became citizens. I don’t know why. They were proud of the United States and grateful to be here. It could be that, Portugal having been ruled by a repressive military dictatorship for many years, my grandparents simply distrusted government. They never had a bank account. My grandmother accepted public assistance only once. A bureaucrat from city hall called her at home. Vo-vo was a widow by now. Vo-vo was asked if she would like 100 gallons of home heating oil for free. “Sure,” she replied. When my parents learned of this, they were mortified. They asked her, “why did you take that?” She laughed, “I didn’t ask for nothing. I didn’t call them, they called me!” Of city hall, she said they were idiots.

Both of my grandparents died in nursing homes, one at a time. They financed their nursing home stays with their own money. They came to the US with no money. They died in the US with no money. They left no money to bequeath; only mementos of sentimental value and memories. What they did leave, the really important stuff: opportunities for their progeny to thrive in the greatest land of opportunity the world has ever known.

Our family has been, and continues to be, grateful for the opportunities this wonderful social experiment called the United States has provided us. Today, my grandparents have one grandchild who is a retired Wall Street executive, one grandchild who is chief financial officer and treasurer for one of the most important technology companies in America, and a great-grandchild who graduated with honors from Yale University, and is an associate at the investment bank Goldman Sachs.

This story, my friends, is one that, sadly, is largely lost on the current crop of refugees, in my opinion.

And for those of my fellow Americans who insist that the current crop of refugees will blend in and thrive, no different than previous immigrant waves, I refer you to the caveat of every legitimate stock broker and investment advisor: “past performance is no guarantee of future returns.”

This post is filed in my Comments worth noting/guest posts category.

See another guest column by Mr. Enos about the issue of refugees and the public charge, here.

A refugee designation is the most desired form of entry to the US for wannabe immigrants because it is the only category where the immigrant is legally (there may be migrants receiving illegally) allowed to receive welfare within weeks of arrival. In fact, the major job of the resettlement contractors is to get their assigned refugees enrolled at local welfare offices ASAP.

Comment worth noting from St. Cloud, MN

10/14/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor: From time to time I post comments more prominently that I think are important but would get little notice otherwise. This is a comment I received about my post two days ago, here.

Update October 19th: Don’t miss all the breaking news on St. Cloud today, here.

From St. Cloud Guy:

I have lived in St Cloud for a long time and I can’t believe how fast the city is going down. The housing market in St. Cloud is falling way behind all the surrounding cities because of the excessive refugee population. Also the schools have become some of the worst ones in the entire state of Minnesota. The Star Tribune estimated over 30% of St Cloud Apollo High School is Somalian now and the other high school St. Cloud Tech has a larger refugee population in its area. They have only been coming to St. Cloud in large numbers the last decade and a half. What will happen in another 10 years? Plus all the extra kids they have? 80%?

St_Cloud_Somalis

It’s very upsetting and frustrating that St. Cloud was a nice normal town that we could raise families here and go to decent schools. Now that is all gone and we have to take huge losses to sell our houses to get out of here. I really wish we would have a say in this since tax money is used for it. We almost have to move out of state, because any decent size city in Minnesota has or is starting to have problems with excessive refugees and poverty.

I don’t care if people want to migrate here but we need to stop paying for it with our tax money and let them get over here on their own and take care of themselves. That’s what all our ancestors did and that’s what made America so strong. At least that way the people that do migrate here on their own will be hard working and motivated to live the American dream not just sit at home collecting welfare checks and having babies.

See more comments worth noting and guest posts, here.