I repeat: all concerned citizens must ask to attend ‘Quarterly Consultations’ held by refugee contractors in your communities….

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

….transparency, transparency, transparency should be your mantra!

The ‘quarterly consultation’ is required by law and the US State Department has confirmed that the general public is permitted to attend.

One of the most important elements of the consultation is the discussion that should be held in public about how many refugees could be placed in your town in the coming year.

As I said here the other day, since the President has flubbed his great opportunity to push reform of the entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program in late September, citizen efforts must necessarily now return to local action.

bartlett with map — Lawrence Bartlett is still running things at the US State Department because Trump has failed to put his people in place to supervise the career bureacrats. Here Bartlett told Senator Jeff Sessions that there are community consultations open to the public. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/02/senate-oversight-hearing-on-refugee-program-very-revealing-senator-sessions-did-a-masterful-job/

Shortly, I will tell you the latest about how citizens in St. Cloud, MN are doing just that, but because others of you are reporting a lack of cooperation from resettlement contractors to your requests to be notified to attend QUARTERLY consultations, we will walk down memory lane.

I wrote this post on October 12, 2015 (this is just a portion of it). Disregard the portion about contacting Trey Gowdy, he is no longer the chairman of the subcommittee responsible.

(LOL! I urge serious students to open the links and read related stories, so that I don’t go nuts having to repeat things!)

It has only been in the last year or so [2015] that we have been made aware that QUARTERLY CONSULTATIONS with community “stakeholders” were being held quietly, out of public view. In fact, I wondered why I hadn’t heard about them and now I know why!

The citizens of St. Cloud, MN, here and here, brought the issue of exclusion of taxpaying citizens from the meetings where the ‘non-profit’ refugee resettlement agency meets with local elected officials, fire/police, education, health departments etc. to assess how things are going with the refugees, and they discuss how many to bring in the upcoming year. [Open both of those links at the beginning of this paragraph, please!—ed]

According to a State Department spokesman (unnamed!) doing a ~~press briefing for reporters~~ on September 11th, we learn that they have only been doing these QUARTERLY CONSULTATIONS since 2013! WTH! [Press briefing is no longer available so its a good thing I copied this bit of it.—ed]

And, they are lying! “Private citizens” have not been welcome.

These agencies (‘non-profit’ resettlement subcontractors) work very hard to hold these meetings secretly and out of the view of local concerned citizens—the ultimate stakeholder, the taxpayer! Yet, we have a State Department official (why no name?) telling the mainstream media that private citizens can attend!

Why is the spokesman unnamed?

We are pleased to have [name and title withheld] with us today. Moving forward, [State Department Official] will be called State Department official for the purposes of this call. Again, this call is on background.

So much for Obama’s much ballyhooed transparency! Now here is what ‘name and title withheld’ told a special group of reporters:

In addition, starting about two years ago, I believe it was FY13, we required that all of our resettlement agencies conduct quarterly consultations with stakeholders in their communities. So that means that not just once a year when they’re preparing a proposal, but every quarter they have to reach out to a wide variety of stakeholders. And that would include other community organizations. That could include the police department, the school, the mayor’s office, the fire department, other agencies that have a stake in refugee resettlement, and private citizens can be invited as well. And they hold those quarterly conversations and that is taken into account when we are making placement plans for the entire year and throughout the year.

You know Larry Bartlett told Senator Sessions this basic untruth here in the Senate hearing the week before last as well.

It gets worse!

We need lawyers on our team! Have they been breaking the law for 33 of 35 years? Or, have the states, which are supposed to prepare a plan every year and hold the meetings, not done their required duty to hold the quarterly meetings with communities?

Here are the federal regulations guiding the program (From CFR 400.5(h))

Provide that the State will, unless exempted from this requirement by the Director, assure that meetings are convened, not less often than quarterly, whereby representatives of local resettlement agencies, local community service agencies, and other agencies that serve refugees meet with representatives of State and local governments to plan and coordinate the appropriate placement of refugees in advance of the refugees’ arrival.

What should you do now?

So, for all of you working in ‘Pockets of Resistance’ (and others too!). Go here, and call the closest refugee resettlement office near you and tell them you want a schedule for the upcoming quarterly consultation! Ask them as well for the FY2016 [now FY18—ed] R & P Abstract which will tell you their plans for your town/city this year.

Continue reading here.

If you get a runaround, find a local lawyer willing to send the resettlement agency a letter on behalf of you—taxpaying citizens (stakeholders!). And, also make all the noise you can through whatever media you have available—tell the public that the program is being run secretively between a refugee contractor and Washington.

To all of you who have gotten this far, please send this to your fellow citizen activists. I don’t want to sound too cranky, but, if year after year, we reinvent the wheel, we will get nowhere!

This post is filed in my ‘what you can do’ category.

From Amazon to agriculture, Minnesota looking for more migrant workers

09/15/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They say their economy will flounder as they are having a hard time attracting American workers and apparently few Americans are willing to move to Minnesota.

At least this is all out in the open now—-immigration is not about humanitarianism and “American values,” but it is about importing laborers (including Somalis) that big companies don’t have to pay very well.

gov-mark-dayton — This story gives me the opportunity to tell new readers that the gov will be remembered for his 2015 admonition that if you don’t like the new (refugee-infused) Minnesota, get out! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/16/mn-governor-dayton-dont-like-immigrants-get-out-of-minnesota/

Seems to me that as more immigrants and refugees pour into Minnesota it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as Americans leave the state due to the tension and cultural upheaval evident in Minneapolis, Rochester, St. Cloud and other smaller burgs.

One more story….

From Minnesota Public Radio:

Minnesota’s increasing reliance on immigrants to fuel its work force can be seen at a unique neighborhood bus stop in Minneapolis.

A stream of workers, many of them Somali refugees, boards a private coach that will take them to the Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee.

Amazon also arranges for the bus to shuttle workers back to their Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

This scene plays out every day just outside the Shaqodoon job center. Last month, about 20 people a day — including those who speak little English — were being hired on the spot for packaging jobs and other tasks. They’re earning about $15 an hour or more, said Mohamud Noor, who runs the center.

“This is real,” said Noor, director of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota and a candidate for the Minneapolis City Council. “It’s full-time employment with benefits, and it pays well.”

The state’s industry leaders say immigrants are needed to grow Minnesota’s economy and address a labor shortage. But calls for welcoming more immigrants come as the White House and others offer proposals for more restrictive immigrant policies.

[….]

Kevin Paap, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, said half of the state’s cows are milked by immigrants, including many who aren’t authorized to be in the United States.

“The consumer will have to recognize that the choice is very simple: You’re going to have to allow us to import our labor in agriculture, or you’re going to have to accept importing our food from other countries,” Paap said. [What a scare tactic—importing food!—ed]

I’m no economist, but there might be some other options: first, stop encouraging every kid to go to college with expectations of a 6-figure salary in a white collar job (and by doing so, keep them away from political indoctrination). And, why not a campaign throughout our school system to enhance the image of those working in blue collar fields (heck, have you tried to get a plumber recently!).

Next, pay wages that Americans will find attractive even if it means higher food prices. The reality is we are supplementing those migrant workers’ wages already through welfare. We pay one way or another!

Slow the flow of immigrants who have no intention of assimilating to Minnesota. Those refugees are causing tension and thus further depleting the available MN work force as Americans escape the state. (Gov. Dayton told native Minnesotans to get out!)

donald-trump

Or, consider this, maybe economies in some locations do not need to keep growing especially if growing means more migrants who need housing, food, schools, roads and Walmarts to accommodate them.

Donald’s test could come today!

You can bet that if Donald Trump comes in with a Fiscal Year 18 determination of more than say 10,000-15,000 truly needy persecuted refugees (announcement today?) then you know Paul Ryan, the Chamber of Commerce and some huge global corporations got to him!

See my huge archive on Minnesota by clicking here.

St. Cloud, MN residents concerned with refugee resettlement told it is a federal issue

08/10/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No it isn’t. Local governments want to pretend they have no role so as to get the monkeys off their backs!

St. Cloud on Monday evening. http://knsiradio.com/news/local/residents-sound-refugee-resettlement#.WYvzdZCv3y8.twitter

First, here is the news about citizens appealing to the city council for a study about the costs of resettlement. The council voted the proposal down by one vote and said this isn’t a local government issue.

Memory lane! In 2015 we learned that the US State Department had only begun holding so-called “stakeholder meetings” with local government agencies in 2013!

This is what I said:

It has only been in the last year or so that we have been made aware that QUARTERLY CONSULTATIONS with community “stakeholders” were being held quietly, out of public view. In fact, I wondered why I hadn’t heard about them and now I know why!

Here Lawrence Bartlett, US State Department Refugee Program, told Senator Sessions that of course they consult communities and elected officials about numbers and impacts! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/02/senate-oversight-hearing-on-refugee-program-very-revealing-senator-sessions-did-a-masterful-job/

According to a State Department spokesman (unnamed!) doing a press briefing for reporters on September 11th [sorry, the briefing has been removed!—ed] we learn that they have only been doing these QUARTERLY CONSULTATIONS since 2013! WTH!

And, they are lying! “Private citizens” have not been welcome.

More here.

Such meetings are required under the Refugee Act of 1980 as succinctly outlined here at Let Freedom Ring blog (hat tip: Katherine). This is a must-read. No time to pull quotes from it because I’m going away for a few days and dashing around this morning.

There is a local government role whether the city council of St. Cloud likes it (admits it!) or not!

Minnesota Governor calls mosque bombing act of terror

08/07/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Never mind that no one really knows what it was about yet.

Update August 8th: Don’t miss Leo Hohmann’s detailed account of the story (so far), here. And, here, another story about the mosque and questionable activities there.

From AP at Bloomberg:

Minneapolis (AP) — The Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in suburban Minneapolis, like other U.S. mosques, occasionally receives threatening calls and emails. But leaders say they’re more frightened after a weekend attack in which an explosive shattered windows and damaged a room as worshippers prepared for morning prayers.

Gov. Dayton visited the Somali mosque yesterday. The story gives me the opportunity to tell new readers that the gov will be remembered for his 2015 admonition that if you don’t like the new (refugee-infused) Minnesota, get out! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/10/16/mn-governor-dayton-dont-like-immigrants-get-out-of-minnesota/

“We feel like it’s much deeper and scarier than like something random,” Mohamed Omar, the center’s executive director, said Sunday. “It’s so scary.”

No one was hurt in the blast, which happened around 5 a.m. Saturday. Windows of the imam’s office were shattered, either by the blast or by an object thrown through them. The FBI is seeking suspects and trying to determine whether the incident was a hate crime.

Not Minnesota? Or, maybe the new Minnesota?

Gov. Mark Dayton, who joined other public officials and community leaders for a meeting inside the building Sunday, described the bombing as “so wretched” and “not Minnesota.”

“This is an act of terrorism. This is against the law in America,” Dayton said at a news conference afterward, the Star Tribune reported .

In a story about the bombing in the Africa Times we are reminded by the reporter that there is a large Oromo population there too. I wonder why they brought that up?

Minneapolis-St. Paul is home to the greatest concentration of Somali immigrants in the United States. It also has a large Oromo population, among significant communities coming from Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia and Sudan.

As soon as the feds catch the perp, we will let you know. Or, if you see the news before I do, let me know!

And, that reminds me, the story about the Somali police officer shooting the Australian woman in Minneapolis seems to have completely fallen in to a black hole!

Another violent Somali in Minnesota….

07/29/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Another knife-wielding Somali arrested in Minnesota. I missed this news and so I thought you might have as well.

It occurred to me when reading this latest Somali news from Little Mogadishu at World Net Daily, that besides a possible proclivity toward violence, maybe a lot of these young Somalis are enjoying their drug of choice—khat.

I wonder if the Justice Department is going after khat dealers as they are the heroin dealers? Does anyone know?

From Leo Hohmann at WND:

Another Somali “refugee” has managed to strike fear into the hearts of Minnesotans by threatening to kill townspeople with a knife. [Were there calls for more laws restricting knife ownership?—ed]

This time, it was the small town of Faribault, population 23,000 about 50 miles south of Minneapolis, that was terrorized.

Faribault is a direct resettlement site in MN—is there a poultry processor there? A window company? A meatpacker?

Farah was charged with two counts of second-degree assault and threatening violence, all felonies, and fourth-degree damage to property.

Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services resettle the majority of Somalis in Minnesota, working as contractors for the U.S. State Department.

Minneapolis is home to the nation’s largest enclave of Somali refugees, with estimates putting their numbers at between 40,000 and 50,000. They control the city’s sixth ward politics and have a member of their community on the city council, with the possibility of a second council seat going to a Somali in this fall’s elections.

Almost all refugees to the United States are hand-selected by the United Nations, which has been picking U.S.-bound refugees since the 1980s.

Continue here because Hohmann has done us a great service by listing many other Somali refugee crime and terror cases.