Nebraska Republican Governor supports security screening, BUT wants refugee admissions to resume ASAP

02/18/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

My question is, so how much of the governor’s enthusiasm for refugees is because the meat and poultry industry in Nebraska has gotten addicted to cheap LEGAL immigrant labor?

nickerson_nebraska_downtown_1 — Last May we reported on tiny Nickerson, Nebraska where residents objected to a new poultry plant that wanted to locate there partly because they did not want the town changed with a huge influx of migrant labor. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/05/02/tiny-nebraska-town-says-no-to-chicken-plant-migrant-labor-one-important-objection/

There isn’t much different here than in dozens of sobs stories in recent days (that I can’t keep up with) about Refugee Resettlement contracting agencies having to reduce staff as the number of refugees arriving in the US begins to slow.
‘Religious charities,’ helping to supply BIG MEAT with laborers, are paid by the head (from the US Treasury) to seed refugees into your towns, and so obviously their money is drying up.
Nebraska was on my summer tour of states where meatpackers and poultry plants are changing the face of heartland towns with their greedy desire for cheap labor. Humanitarianism is only the cover!
Be sure to see Bloomberg’s ‘Big Meat Braces for a Refugee Shortage.’ I wrote about it here.

By the way, it is a fabulous business model for BIG MEAT (BIG TURKEY! BIG CHICKEN!) because US taxpayers bring the laborers directly to them, they pay wages much lower than they did 20 years ago, ‘religious charities’ get them settled in town, and then the refugee families’ lives are subsidized by taxpayers again in the form of social services (aka welfare).
This is the sob story from the Lincoln Journal Star yesterday:

pete-ricketts — Let’s get moving! “…so we can continue to safely welcome refugees from all parts of the world.”

Two of Nebraska’s three refugee resettlement agencies are cutting back their staffs in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration.

Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, the largest of the three, announced Friday that it will eliminate 15 jobs in anticipation of a significant decline in refugee arrivals. Six of those jobs are in Lincoln.

Omaha’s Refugee Empowerment Center has also experienced cutbacks.

[….]

Trump’s order reduced the overall number of refugees allowed into the U.S. this year from 110,000 to 50,000. [Here we go with the bs again. Obama only wished for 110,000 in the year he would no longer be in office, 50,000 is still higher than 4 of George W. Bush’s years!—-ed]

That will have a significant impact in Nebraska, which led the nation in the number of refugees it accepted per capita last fiscal year.

[….]

The president clamped down on refugee resettlement and other travel into the U.S. following a wave of questions, mostly from Republicans, about the vetting process for refugees from Syria and other war-torn Middle East countries.

Gov. Pete Ricketts has said he supports Trump’s efforts to “strengthen security screening in the refugee process” but urged the White House to “quickly put new vetting processes in place, so we can continue to safely welcome refugees from all parts of the world.”

Continue reading here.
I fear that with everyone focusing on the security screening that most Republicans, who are driven by corporate donations and Chambers of Commerce, will not have any desire to reform this program with its huge economic and cultural costs.
Grassroots investigators should be looking for evidence that your elected officials are being lobbied by, or funded by, the meat and poultry giants in your states.
See our Nebraska archive by clicking here. Note the problems Nebraska has with TB in the migrant population there.

Was Nebraska student diagnosed with TB in November a refugee?

12/11/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is what we would like to know! Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart is on the case. I know most of you are reading Breitbart (right!), but I wanted to be sure we get this latest Tuberculosis news posted to keep our ‘Health Issues’ category up to date.
Also, before you read what Leahy says about this Nebraska case, see our recent post on Nebraska here (3 days ago).
Leahy at Breitbart:

A student enrolled at Benson Magnet High School, one of seven high schools in the Omaha, Nebraska Public Schools system, was diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) in November.

benson-high-school — Health officials said they will now have to test 195 students and 12 faculty members who may have been exposed.

Two hundred thirty seven of Benson Magnet High School’s 1,273 students, or 18.6 percent, are refugees, according to Omaha Public School’s District English Language Learner/Refugee Report, 2015-16.

Officials with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Douglas County Public Health Department are withholding whether the student was foreign-born or American-born.

A number of Omaha’s refugee students were born in countries burdened by TB; Myanmar/Burma (617), Nepal (186), Somalia (140), and Bhutan (84).

As Breitbart News reported previously, foreign-born residents of Nebraska accounted for 82 percent of all cases of TB diagnosed in the state in 2014, much higher than the national average of 66 percent….

Continue reading here. The article is full of links to important related news.

I’m wondering if the problems with the US Refugee Admissions Program will hit home once families in resettlement towns and cities find that their kids have to be tested for TB!

And, I’ve wondered for a long time if volunteers who work with refugees are given instructions on how to stay safe and keep their families safe when interfacing with newly arrived refugees. Does anyone know? (For new readers: Yes we admit refugees with TB.)
Our ‘Health Issues’ category (320 previous posts!) is here.

Nebraska received (per capita) more refugees last year than any other state

12/08/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a story from the Omaha World-Herald which used those Pew numbers we reported yesterday, as the hook for this story about how “welcoming” Nebraska is for refugees.
Nebraska is one of the states I visited over the summer, and I am here to report that even if the Republican governor is thrilled about welcoming refugees, the citizens whose towns are being impacted by refugee labor at meat and chicken processing plants, aren’t too thrilled.

No mention in this heartwarming report about Nickerson, Nebraska that actually fought and kept out a new chicken plant here last May.
Cut the humanitarian guilt-trip mumbo-jumbo and be truthful!
I live for the day when resettlement contractors like Lutheran Family Services here are completely out in the open about the work they do providing laborers for BIG MEAT and BIG POULTRY and also tell the public that their salaries and offices are paid for by the US taxpayer (this is not a Christian charity! this is not about passing the collection plate on Sunday morning!).*** Then we can have the debate about why it is in the interests of the American taxpayer to supply foreign labor to giant corporations some of which are not even US-owned!
From the Omaha World-Herald:

todd-reckling — Todd Reckling of Lutheran Family Services at least hints here that LFS works with BIG MEAT which wants refugee workers.

LINCOLN — Nebraska led the nation in resettling the most refugees per capita during the last year, according to newly released federal government data.

The state welcomed 1,441 refugees, or 76 per 100,000 Nebraskans, between October 2015 and September 2016, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Processing Center and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nebraska is a strong draw for refugees because of its strong economy with accessibility to jobs in hospitality and meatpacking, said Todd Reckling, a vice president of Lutheran Family Services, the state’s largest of three placement agencies. About 90 percent of refugees come to the state to reunite with family already living in Nebraska, he said.

“I’d say Nebraska has a reputation for being a welcoming state,” he said, “a place to provide safety and hope for the families that are coming together.”

Continue reading here, especially if you live in Nebraska!
You will notice at the end of the story that some who are not thrilled about the security concerns with refugees are hanging their hat on Donald Trump to take care of that problem.
For any of you in states (especially with Republican governors who are squishy on the refugee program) do some research on who is donating to their campaigns.
***Lutheran Family Services in Omaha is a subcontractor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service headquartered in Baltimore which is 95% funded by taxpayers, go here.

Refugees boosting the TB rate in Nebraska

08/25/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I recently traveled through Nebraska to meet citizens and see some of the meatpacking towns under stress from large numbers of refugees who have been placed there mostly by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the Ethiopian Community Development Council to supply multinational meat giants with a steady supply of cheap immigrant labor.

Nebraska capitol 2 — I loved this engraving above the door of the Nebraska state capitol building in Lincoln.

In addition to the economic, social and cultural strains on the communities there it seems that now worries about the increased rate of active Tuberculosis will be concerning residents.
Here is Michael Patrick Leahy today at Breitbart with another of his investigative reports on Tuberculosis in American towns. Add the cost of treating sick people to the burgeoning cost of refugee resettlement.

Eighty-two percent of the active tuberculosis (TB) cases diagnosed in Nebraska in 2014, that’s 31 out of 38, were foreign-born, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

Only six percent of the 1.9 million residents of the Cornhusker State are foreign-born.

2014’s 38 active TB cases represented an 80 percent increase in active TB cases in the state in one year, up from 21 in 2013.

[….]

The Tuberculosis Program Report 2014, published by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, explains the role the state’s foreign-born population played in this increase in active TB in the state and the difficulties involved in dealing with that population when it comes to TB control:

Although Nebraska has an overall low incidence of TB, the cases continue to be difficult to treat because of the high percentage of foreign-born population that comprise Nebraska’s TB morbidity and also because of the complexity of the cases. The language and cultural barriers of the foreign-born population require a tremendous amount of public health resources to ensure a successful TB treatment outcome.

[….]

As many as 10,000 of the foreign-born residents of the state originally came as part of the refugee resettlement program and work primarily in low wage jobs in the burgeoning local meat-packing industry. Recently, the countries of origin for those refugees, the number of which increased from 764 in FY 2012 to 997 in FY 2013 to 1,076 in FY 2014, have had high rates of TB.

The vast majority of these new arrivals came from countries with high burdens of TB. Six hundred and sixty-two refugees in FY 2012 and 785 refugees in FY 2013 came from two such countries, Burma and Bhutan. Nine hundred and forty-eight refugees in FY 2014 came three countries–Burma, Bhutan, and Iraq.

Earlier refugees arrived from Somalia and Sudan.

Continue reading here.
And then go to our ‘health issues category’ here for much more on TB and other diseases and mental health problems associated with refugees.

Syrians arriving in Nebraska, governor notified

07/17/2016 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m dashing off this post as I run out the door to make it to the next city this morning on my RRW road trip…

pete-ricketts-governor-320 — Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts is being notified about refugees arriving in the state. This is new news….

This is your usual fluffy puffy piece about happy, grateful refugees.
However there is a little nugget in here that I didn’t know. Apparently governors are being notified by the feds about who is coming and how many. It is not clear if they are being notified where they will be placed.
If they are being notified, this is new news and a demonstration that our complaints about the secrecy of this program are changing how the US State Department and its contractors have operated for decades.
From the Omaha World-Herald:

During June alone, 2,406 Syrian refugees arrived — more than the previous six months combined. Such numbers appear to have the Obama administration on track to meet its stated budget year goal of resettling 10,000 refugees in the United States by the end of September.

Nebraska’s Syrian refugees arrived without fanfare, which was by design.

Local agencies settling the families on behalf of the U.S. government said they didn’t treat these arrivals any differently from the hundreds of other refugees they help relocate each year.

[….]

The Ricketts administration — which despite its protestations last November has acknowledged being powerless to stop the federal government’s resettlements — was aware that Nebraska had received its first Syrians. The governor receives a monthly report from the federal government with general information on refugees settled in the state, including nationality, gender and age.

In a statement to The World-Herald last week, Ricketts called on President Barack Obama to answer his and other governors’ calls to tighten security checks on new refugees.

More here.
Gotta run. We have lots of previous posts on Nebraska especially interesting is one where a town rejected a meat packing plant because they didn’t want the disruption of immigrant/refugee labor. Type the word Nebraska in our search window to learn more.