That would be in places like Jamestown, New York where a community meeting was held recently floating the idea of the city, about 70 miles from Buffalo, becoming a new hub for refugee placement.
The article at The Post-Journal does not mention Afghans (they are not real refugees anyway), but surely some would be in the mix if the city welcomes a resettlement contractor*** to town.
Remember that Biden is still shooting to admit 125,000 refugees other than Afghan evacuees this fiscal year.
As we have pointed out previously, housing almost everywhere is in short supply and so Small City, USA will be targeted.
Editor: In my previous postI might have left the impression that I had a list of where the Afghans will be going after they are evicted from military bases before February 15th. I don’t know that there is a list, but you need only enter your city or state into a search engine along with the word refugees, or Afghans and you can find the answer yourself if plans are in the works (usually in relative secrecy) for your community.
I’m posting this not because I need to warn Jamestown residents, they should already know about the meeting held last week, but because there are some nuggets in here that I need to warn all of you about.
‘Embracing Diversity’: City Eyed As Potential Location For Refugee Resettlement
The potential benefits of Jamestown becoming a resettlement location for refugees were discussed Thursday evening during a well-attended gathering at St Luke’s Episcopal Church.
The get together included representatives from a host of local and regional nonprofits and organizations and has been several months in the making. The discussion Thursday centered on refugees — people who have fled war, violence or conflict and are seeking safety in another country — and whether Jamestown has the resources available to welcome them.
Democrat Mayor Sundquist virtue-signals about “embracing diversity!”
“When we started to see an increase of refugees across the states, we heard a lot of comments, got a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls about ways our community could help and support those refugees,” Mayor Eddie Sundquist told a crowd of about 50 at St. Lukes. “It’s not often that we would see refugees here in the city, but as you all know we are a city built on immigration, built on a melting pot of different people, different ideas. That’s what made us strong many, many years ago and could make us even stronger as we continue.”
City officials have been in contact with Journey’s End, a refugee resettlement agency in Buffalo. Sundquist said on average, Journey’s End takes in about 500 refugees a year; this year they are also expecting an additional 500 refugees.
An issue arising in the Buffalo area for resettlement, Sundquist said following talks with Journey’s End, is the increase in housing costs. Resettlement agencies receive a set amount of money per refugee to assist them with housing, groceries and travel.
“Since they couldn’t even find housing, many of the refugees are actually being put up in hotels in the Buffalo area until they are able to find suitable housing,” the mayor said.
[….]
The mayor’s administration has been working with resettlement agencies, including Journey’s End, to look into establishing a pilot program in Jamestown. If it’s found the city has the right resources in place — appropriate housing, workforce development, health care and educational partners — as many as 20 refugees could be brought over initially.
Sounds reasonable, right? Here is the problem, pay attention! There is no such thing as a pilot program! Once your community has begun bringing in refugees, you can’t stop the flow!
The contractors will not honor any limit you set! Believe me there are many cities in America where mayors have tried and failed to stop the flow once they realized that their city was in overload.
Indeed once the immigrant seed community arrives, it is the contractor’s job to bring the extended family members, and, if you say no more, then you (the mean citizens) will be called racist and unwelcoming!
Sundquist said the pilot program could help set the framework for the community “embracing diversity.”
[….]
Also raised was the topic of safety for the refugees, with some stating that not everyone in the community may be as open to the idea of refugees settling in the city. Chautauqua County Sheriff James Quattrone, also in attendance, said safety is a legitimate concern that would need to be taken into account.
That is the other major red flag in this story. You see how it is set up, if you voice an objection for legitimate reasons (housing, cost of health care and education etc.), then they have already pegged you as someone who might actually physically hurt a refugee!
Sundquist said his administration would take all the notes and input received Thursday and continue working with state and local partners on establishing a pilot program. Another community meeting could be set in the next couple of weeks.
If you live in Jamestown or anywhere nearby (refugees can be resettled within a hundred mile radius of the primary resettlement office), and have a problem with this you better get to the next meeting!
As I have said till I’m blue in the face, organizing locally is all you have!
And, if you aren’t in Jamestown, you need to search the web for media reports (or even reports directly on contractors’ websites) for plans for your community as the political Leftists are working as fast as they can (as Biden’s popularity plummets) to change America by changing the people.
I love the chance to post my favorite Church World Service pic!
*** For new readers, these are the nine major resettlement contractors. Whenever you read about some local resettlement agency, it is helpful to figure out which of the nine the local contractor subcontracts for.
In this case Journey’s End is a subcontractor of Church World Service.
Here is a post I wrote just now at ‘Frauds and Crooks’with this note from me:
Editor: I am posting this story here and at RRW today because it supports my recent harangue that you must get to work locally! There is no one coming to your rescue as the Open Borders agitators expand their reach into towns large and small across the country.
They are working day and night to change America by changing the people!
The only hope you have now is to fight against the Progressive Left where you live! Local elected officials can still be moved through public pressure. There really is no hope at the state or federal level right now.
At the end of the Obama Administration (anticipating Hillary in the White House!), the federal refugee contractors were working their butts off to get more offices open in more American towns and cities so that more of you could pay for refugee care while industries (like the hotel industry or BIG Meat) could hire some cheap labor.
Your reward: experiencing the the joys of diversity!
One such target site was Asheville, NC.
The plan for Asheville fizzled due to citizen blow-back (partially led by former Republican Rep. Mark Meadows) and then Donald Trump won the White House resulting in a hiatus in the big push for new resettlement sites.
I had to laugh because they are so clever to use an appealing and grateful couple—Eastern Europeans—as the face of their refugee propaganda media push. It is a bait and switch! Wait until they get some Africans and Middle Easterners!
In case you are wondering, a town does not get to choose its refugees!
Asheville area refugee program expanding; Eastern Europeans fleeing religious persecution
On May 18, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to have County Manager, Avril Pinder, write a letter of support for the opening of a local Refugee Resettlement Reception and Placement sub-office.The office has no cost to the county, though some social services are offered to refugees.
That could mean an increase from an average of about 75 refugees a year to 150. And Buncombe has about 1,775 Ukrainians, according to the census, or 0.7% of the population.
The move follows a decision by President Joe Biden to increase the refugee goal, something set annually by the president. [Biden has said he wants 125,000 refugees admitted in FY22 which begins in less than 3 months—ed]
Bidding war?
Looks like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops snagged this one.
The IRC was after Asheville back in 2016. The contractors are furiously searching for ‘welcoming’ sites now because they want to get their proposals in to the US State Department before September.
More refugee clients=more federal money in their coffers.
Nine voluntary agencies operating in the U.S.*** take portions of that target number and divide it among their affiliate offices throughout the country. Catholic Charities is an affiliate of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which resettles about 30% of the refugees arriving yearly.
[….]
…. each refugee participates in an extensive interview and screening process before arriving in the U.S., said Susan Phillips, former interim director of refugee resettlement for the Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte.
“The refugees coming from Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine are eligible for resettlement through the Lautenberg Program, which was created in 1990 and later expanded to provide for the resettlement of persecuted religious minorities living in a specific list of countries, to include these three,” Phillips said.
The Lautenberg Amendmentwas “first enacted in 1990 to facilitate resettlement of Jews from the former Soviet Union.”
Continue reading. You will see that although the idea of a subcontractor office in Asheville was killed five years ago, refugees have nevertheless been placed there! Refugees are permitted to be placed within 100 miles of a resettlement office.
New resettlement site shopping is happening throughout America as I predicted here when I saw this story about Winchester, VA in May.
***For new readers these are the nine major resettlement contractors who decide (with oversight by the US State Department) where refugees are to be placed in America. Your state has no say in the matter!
And, so does Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott who has (according to the AP) asked Harris/Biden for more refugees!
It is surprising isn’t it that Vermont, the homeland of Bernie Socialist Sanders really hasn’t ‘welcomed’ very many refugees compared even to other states of a similar size, but all of that might change starting in October.
What is happening in October?
The Harris/Biden team says they will increase refugee admissions for FY2022 which begins October first to 125,000. That would be the highest annual refugee cap in decades—more than Obama ever dreamed of! And, now the hunt is on for their new homes.
This article from the Associated Presswould have you believe small cities were never the lucky recipients of third world diversity, but that just isn’t so.
And, by the way, know also that the AP reporter has transposed the words in the name of the organization. It should be the Ethiopian Community Development Council known widely in the refugee industry as ECDC, a long time member of the big nine contractors*** that monopolize all resettlement and have done so for decades.
Targeted Brattleboro, VT, population 11,000
Readers may remember that an effort to make Rutland, Vermont, another small city in the white state, a home for impoverished refugees exploded into a huge controversy in 2016 that ultimately saw the pro-refugee mayor ousted.
Know that this hunt for fresh territory is going on everywhere (except maybe Wyoming, but folks there need to be on the look-out) as the contractors must submit their plans to the US State Department by late summer so they can be competitive with other refugee contractors and get their allotment of paying clients (aka refugees) starting October first.
Wausau, Wisconsin is also on the target list according to this report.
Refugee Resettlement Nonprofit Plans New Programs in Vermont
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — A refugee resettlement nonprofit has plans to start a new program in Vermont to relocate refugees in smaller, more rural communities across the United States.
The Ethiopian Development Community Council, a nonprofit agency that partners with the State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S., wants to launch its program in Brattleboro because of the city’s support. The first families should arrive in the city before the end of the year if the program is approved by the federal government, Vermont Public Radio reported Monday.
The nonprofit has also chosen Wausau [Wisconsin–ed] to test out the program, pending federal approval.
The nonprofit is preparing for an influx of refugees since the Biden Administration has promised to increase the number of refugees allowed in the country and reopen the refugee resettlement program that the previous Trump Administration imposed restrictions on, the radio station reported.
Tsehaye Teferra
“If we want to create integration of refugees, having them only in big cities where they would be congregating among themselves, only, is not going to help long-term integration,” said Tsehaye Tefera, the founder of the Ethiopian Development Community Council.
That may sound like a nice sentiment but in reality refugees resettled in smaller cities generally migrate after a few months to larger cities because they want to live in enclaves with their own kind of people!
The most visible of the ethnic groups, partaking of what the industry calls secondary migration, are the Somalis loading up Minnesota.
Back to AP at US News….
Social and economic organizations in Windham County have been supportive, but efforts to resettle refugees in Vermont have been controversial in the past, Vermont Public Radio reported.
Elwell was formerly the manager in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Brattleboro town manager Peter Elwell said he knows there could be opposition to the resettlement program, but regardless, the plan is in line with the town’s priority to improve equity in one of the whitest states in the country.
Earlier this year, Gov. Phil Scott asked the State Department to increase the refugee cap in Vermont.
Scott called refugee resettlement “an integral part of our efforts to grow Vermont’s economy.”
However, see this report from FAIR which examined the ten smallest immigrant population states and determined that increasing the percentage of migrants going to the state would have an outsized negative impact on the economy and on the social fabric of the state.
You might be interested to know that ECDC is likely the smallest of the big nine resettlement contractors and generally over the years has kept a low political profile as others of the contractors, most notably HIAS, LIRS and Church World Service, were out making political noise and suing the Trump Administration.
However, much to my surprise Teferra took a public swipe at Trump here in July of 2020.
You will see in that post that the ‘non-profit’ organization is effectively a government agency as almost the entirety of its $13 million budget comes from you, the US taxpayers.
***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the nine contractors that have monopolized all refugee distribution in the US for decades.
They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris andlobby for open borders. As taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.
Two of the contractors, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are also paid to find locations for the Unaccompanied Alien Children.
At this very moment they are all out scouting for new, fresh territory in which to place their refugee clients. See Winchester, VA.
Of course Church World Service will give them rosy responses to their request for more information, but at least they can make a more informed decision before changing Winchester forever.
As I said at the time, this is likely happening in many locations around America as the nine federal refugee contractors*** scour the country for new fresh territory in which to place the tidal wave of 125,000 refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East that Biden says he is welcoming in Fiscal Year 2022 which begins on October first.
Winchester City Council wants more info before voting on refugees
WINCHESTER — City officials say they need more information before deciding whether to welcome international refugees to Winchester.
Councilor Bell
Councilor Richard Bell, chairman of City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, told the full council on Tuesday night the proposal to allow refugees to live in Winchester needs more vetting at the committee level before a final vote is taken.
“We have requested that it be placed on a future Planning and Economic Development Committee agenda for a more in-depth presentation by the organization and for further consideration,” Bell told the nine-member council.
The organization Bell referred to is Church World Service (CWS), a global nonprofit that hopes to open an office in Winchester to serve people who have been forced from their homelands due to political, social or religious persecution.
Susannah Lepley, Virginia’s director of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement for CWS, told the Planning and Economic Development Committee at its meeting on April 29 the bulk of the refugees, at least initially, would come from Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
They will be invited to settle in the United States by the U.S. State Department after proving they have a credible fear of persecution, or have already been persecuted, because of their heritage, social status or religious beliefs.
CWS, Lepley said, would find housing in Winchester for the refugees, help them learn English and pursue U.S. citizenship, assist them with applying for public assistance until they find employment, enroll their children in school and so on.
The committee recommended council approve the request, even though member Kim Herbstritt said at the time that Winchester has a severe shortage of affordable housing so it may be difficult to find homes for the 100 or so refugees per year that want to resettle within city limits.
Bell did not say when Lepley would be invited to make a second presentation to the committee, which is next scheduled to meet on May 19. An agenda for that session has not yet been published.
What to ask…..
When, and if, Church World Service’s Lepley is invited back, it is vitally important that concerned members of the public, not just those in the city, but county residents as well, be present to hear what she has to say.
First, we must assume, that since the city government is even contemplating saying yes, that Winchester doesn’t have any homeless or needy Americans to care for and that the city is flush with funds for educating children who don’t speak English, has ample affordable housing, is prepared to deal with health issues and is in need of low-skilled workers.
Questions I would ask in no particular order are these:
How long does Church World Service take care of the newcomers they place in the city or county (yes, they can spread refugees out for a hundred miles of Winchester once the office is established)?
Since CWS supports an open southern border, will CWS also facilitate any movement of illegal aliens/unaccompanied children into the area?
Are the refugees screened in advance for diseases such as TB, HIV, and Covid-19? Who will pay for medical needs and for how long?
Does CWS have employers lined up?
Who pays for additional ESL teachers going forward?
What religions will be represented in the group of refugees? And, what other nationalities might be added later?
Who pays for translators when the refugees have a problem with the legal system or educational system? Or, if they have a medical issue? Local taxpayers?
In what neighborhoods will the refugees be placed? If Winchester has a minority neighborhood already, care must be taken not to place third worlders into those established areas especially African American neighborhoods. Cultural conflicts have been known to occur. Back in 2008 there was just such a rough period in Roanoke.
If, for instance, Winchester welcomes a hundred this year and another hundred the next year and finds it is straining local resources or causing tensions, can Winchester shut down the flow?
There are probably plenty more, but a beautiful day outside beckons….
One last thing!
R & P Abstracts
The Winchester council, in advance of another meeting with Lepley, must ask if an R & P Abstract has already been prepared for the city by CWS.
These documents, prepared at the level of your local resettlement contractor with the help and guidance of one of the major nine federal contractors, are the blueprints for what is being planned for your town for the upcoming fiscal year.
The R & P Abstracts must be submitted to the US State Department in Washington in advance of placing refugees in any target location.
***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the nine contractors that have monopolized all refugee distribution in the US for decades.
They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris andlobby for open borders. As taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.
Two of the contractors, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are also paid to find locations for the Unaccompanied Alien Children.
At the end of the Obama Administration (anticipating Hillary in the White House!), the federal refugee contractors were working their butts off to get more offices open in more American towns and cities so that more of you could pay for refugee care while industries (like the hotel industry or BIG Meat) could hire some cheap labor.
It is surprising isn’t it that Vermont, the homeland of Bernie Socialist Sanders really hasn’t ‘welcomed’ very many refugees compared even to other states of a similar size, but all of that might change starting in October.
When, and if, Church World Service’s Lepley is invited back, it is vitally important that concerned members of the public, not just those in the city, but county residents as well, be present to hear what she has to say.