I’ve been trying to keep track of which governors are responding to pressure from resettlement contractorsand telling the President that they want more refugees.
So far governors in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington have sent letters to the White House begging the President for MORE refugees.
Never mind that there isn’t yet a formal structure in place to carryout Trump’s Executive Orderthat would supposedly give an opportunity for some local/state say-so when the federal government sends new refugees out to 49 states that have refugee programs in place.
Republican Governor Doug Burgum: We will take refugees if my cities run by the Democrats want refugees.
(Wyoming is the only state in the nation that receives zero refugees year after year.)
North Dakota’s Republican governor has weighed in, sort of, as he “embraces the order” and is leaving it to his local communities to say if they want more or not.
Of course if cities are run by Democrat mayors (this is why you all need to get engaged and run for local offices!), the mayor will beg for refugees he claims they need as low wage worker bees.
North Dakota Gov. Burgum embraces Trump refugee order
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Gov. Doug Burgum announced Tuesday he’s embracing an executive order from President Donald Trump that gives states and cities the authority to refuse to accept refugees.
Burgum said in a statement that North Dakota will continue to receive refugees — as long as local jurisdictions agree to it.
“The governor believes it should be a local decision,” Burgum spokesman Mike Nowatzki said.
Advocates for refugees said they didn’t believe any of the state’s largest cities, where refugees typically settle, would turn them away.
“I can only speculate but we’re hopeful,” said Shirley Dykshoorn, a Lutheran Social Services vice president. “We have unprecedented workforce needs. We have employers who desperately need employees and they are happy to have refugees.”
You know I get alerts each day on a variety of news involving refugees around the world. Honestly I wasn’t planning to post on this news simply because it is frankly ho-hum. But, for some reason the story of the North Dakota legislature’s effort to get to the bottom of the question of what it costs taxpayers to ‘welcome’ refugees, including many Somalis to the state, is being reported all over the place, so I thought I better mention it too!
Lutheran Social Service’s director, Shirley Dykshoorn, testified on Wednesday. Did she turn over important information like how many refugee children entered the school system and how many refugees use Medicaid or public housing?
Here is a report in the Bismark Tribune. If nothing else, the legislature’s effort has an important educational value.
Eight days after a racially fueled confrontation in a Fargo parking lot, North Dakota lawmakers began examining the state’s refugee resettlement program Wednesday.
The interim Human Services Committee’s study was prompted by legislation passed earlier this year that sought an examination of various aspects of resettlement, and the committee was tasked with reviewing the impact on workforce, government services, human services, education and health care.
The study bill received some backlash during the legislative session over concerns it singled out refugees, and didn’t account for the economic and cultural benefit they bring to their new communities. Committee Chairwoman Rep. Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, said the panel should weigh the costs and benefits of resettlement, although some data may be hard to come by.
[….]
The number of refugees resettled in North Dakota every year has roughly tripled over the past decade, according to a Legislative Council memo. Last year, 558 refugees were resettled in the state, down from a recent high of 590 in 2014. In 2006, there were just 182.
Lutheran Social Services runs the show in ND:
The state Department of Human Services moved most refugee-related services to Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota under then-Gov. John Hoeven in July 2010, according to the Legislative Council. LSS is the only federally recognized and approved refugee resettlement organization in the state.
[….]
Wednesday’s meeting came about a week after a confrontation between three Somali-American women and a white woman at a Fargo Walmart parking lot, where a parking dispute descended into an anti-Muslim outburst that went viral. The two sides later made up after Fargo Police Chief David Todd brought them together.
Now, this is what I want to address—the community organizers!
“The state and the city asking for how much it costs to have refugees in the community, while a sensible question from the financial standpoint, it has negatively impacted our image in the community,” Hukun Abdullahi, the head of the Afro American Development Association, said at the Fargo City Commission’s meeting on Monday. “And it also has increased the number of hostile incidents against the refugees.” [Does he have data to back that up?—ed]
I think North Dakota’s Somali community track record with crimes and terrorism might have more to do with the public attitude toward refugees than some financial study!
Here is Abdullahi apparently being guided by some white guy community organizers on what to say at that demonstration against a local TV station’s report (May 2016) on TB in the immigrant population in ND. http://www.inforum.com/news/4038410-refugees-elected-leaders-denounce-fargo-tv-station-bad-journalism
Here we have one Somali guy (some media reports put him at 21 years old), Hukun Abdullahi, who runs an organization incorporated in 2014 (basically a one man show it appears) that has virtually no funding and he becomes the spokesman for the “community.”
Most people on the conservative side of the political spectrum don’t do this, something George Soros has promoted—create many ‘groups,’ with a handful of people in each one, making it appear that there is widespread support for whatever it is they are promoting.
And, of course, when it comes to Somalis and Muslims generally, there is always a victim theme to their organizing. Simply wanting more answers about the cost of the US Refugee Admissions Program makes one a racist, xenophobic Islamophobe!
Has anyone in the mainstream media ever looked into ‘groups’ like Abdullahi’s to see who is behind it, who helped him incorporate as a 501(c)3? Someone had to pay for the legal work to set up the ‘non-profit’ group.
When I attempted to search for background and a website (I didn’t find one) all I got was this, from Tax Exempt World.
He has no requirement to file a Form 990 because he takes in less than $25,000 a year.
People ask me all the time what they can do—-spend a few hours at your computer and research community organizing ‘groups’ like this one.
You can find their incorporation papers on line, their board members’ names, figure out who was behind creating the ‘organization.’ Research their finances, are any local businesses contributing? Any government funding? And, most of all expose them as Leftwing community organizing grievance ‘groups,’ just so the average taxpaying citizen knows who is being promoted by the media as the voice of the “community.”
I have written many posts on North Dakota, see here.
It was also on my 2016 summer roadtrip to see refugee controversy hotspots firsthand.
Editor:Everyone is asking me what I think about various bills being introduced in state legislatures that seek to get some control over the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program by states and local governments when the federal government is sending refugees from around the world to unsuspecting communities. Truthfully, I am not a lawyer and the type of bill introduced depends on the present structure of the program in that state. In North Dakota, Lutheran Social Services is pretty much calling the shots with Washington. I can’t give legal advice. I’m a blogger, an opinion journalist!
However, this is what I do know. This program must be ultimately reformed, rewritten or trashed in Congress with a bill signed by the President. The best opportunity to do that is right now, starting tomorrow. Even if Trump temporarily pauses the program, if nothing follows in Congress then there might be a slowdown for a few years, but another president could just begin it again (and make up for lost time with a huge admissions number). Everything you do at the local and state level to generate publicity, to stimulate debate, and to put pressure upward—to your US Senators and Members of Congress, and to Trump of course, is vitally important. Here is the news from North Dakota:
BISMARCK – North Dakota lawmakers have proposed a bill that would create a way for communities to request temporary bans on new refugee resettlement and would grant the governor power to impose such a ban statewide.
Somali community activist, Fowzia Adde, warns that THEIR voting power is growing. See who partners with her group located in Moorhead, MN http://www.idcfm.org/our-partners.html
The proposal was welcomed by Dave Piepkorn, a Fargo city commissioner and resettlement skeptic who has been pushing for more local input on where refugees are placed and more data about their impact.
“Right now, a lot of people are afraid to ask any questions at all because they’re accused of being a racist or xenophobe,” he said. [You all have to get over this, get a backbone, all they have is words!—ed]
If House Bill 1427 passes, local governments could apply to stop refugee resettlement in their communities, either through the governor’s office or Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSSND), the group federally contracted to resettle refugees in the state. A ban could last up to a year and so could an extension of the ban, the bill says.
Before applying for a ban, a local government would have to hold a public hearing and issue a finding that “further resettlement of refugees in the host community would result in an adverse impact to existing residents,” the bill states.
Such a finding would be based on what the bill calls a community’s “refugee absorptive capacity.” This capacity would be determined by various factors, such as local availability of housing, jobs and health care, as well as the ability of social services, schools, police and other government agencies to meet refugees’ needs, according to the bill.
With a similar finding, the governor could issue an executive order for a statewide moratorium on refugee resettlement, the bill says.
Somali activist confirms what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said during his enhanced interrogation by the CIA. They want to defeat us through immigration and out-breeding us, or otherwise why would Fowzia Adde be so interested inTHEIR voting power? What is it they want that is different from what any good and patriotic American would want?
The Grand Forks Herald story continues:
Fowzia Adde, a Somali leader in the Fargo area, said it would be North Dakota’s loss if refugee resettlement is banned. “They’re going to be shooting themselves in their own leg,” she said. “It’s actually improved the economy to have the new Americans.”
Adde said refugees work hard, pay their taxes and succeed quickly. “We are doing all the work that nobody else wants to do,” she said.
She cautioned that the bill could come back to bite lawmakers, given the state’s increasing number of refugees. “Our voting power is growing,” she said.
Sounds like it is definitely time to stop the flow to ND before voting power for their people gets too great! Continue reading here.
Immigrant Development Center
Fowzia Adde is the Director of the Immigrant Development Center and they are one of those federally supported immigrant-focused ‘non-profits’ involved with microloans. The IDC’s non-profit status was approved in August 2006 and 2 years later they hit the jackpot according to USASpending.gov.
In fiscal year 2008 they received $687,000 from the Dept. of Health and Human Services. In 2012, the Dept. of the Treasury granted them $99,999 and in 2015 they got $50,000 as a federal sub-grant from some agency that is not recorded at USA Spending. Ms. Adde is effectively being paid by you to do her community organizing!
In addition to working on legislation, citizen activists need to begin to expose the federal money that is flowing in to non-profit groups that then work against the interests of your communities by, as Ms. Adde says herself, growing their voting power.
See our North Dakota archive here. I visited North Dakota on my 6,000 mile tour of refugee hot spots last summer.
Editor: It has been another frustrating day with computer problems, so won’t get everything posted in between internet outages that I hoped for today, and if you don’t hear from me, you know why!
I did want to get this very fishy story up as quickly as I can, so am hustling before I lose internet again. Before you read on, know that Ghana is a relatively prosperous majority Christian country in Africa. According to wikipedia it is about 17% Muslim. We take only a tiny number as regular refugees from Ghana (and that would be because it is a functioning country!). That said, if a Muslim claims he is gay (as this guy does), he is a shoe-in for asylum in the US, yet he says he was turned down.
So if he was in detention and denied asylum in America how was he loose to cross the US/Canadian border? Maybe Donald Trump needs to be thinking about our northern border with Canada. We might not care who leaves, but those coming in that way should be stopped and returned to ‘welcoming’ Canada! (A reader tells us that this map we used is missing part of Michigan, sorry about that!) And, where did he get the money for his extensive travel odyssey?
Here is the story at the Grand Forks Herald(Hat tip: Joanne). BTW, the headline says he crossed from Minnesota, but the story text says North Dakota.
WINNIPEG—We’ve seen the desperation of refugees risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe, but we haven’t seen any risking their lives crossing the frozen prairie to get to Canada—until now.
On Dec. 24, Seidu Mohammad nearly froze to death walking from North Dakota toward the Canadian border at Emerson, Man.
The man from Ghana spent more than seven hours walking outside and expects to lose most of his fingers.
[….]
Mohammad said a fellow refugee claimant from Ghana with him was taken to hospital in Morris, Man., with less severe injuries.
They walked through deep snow to avoid alerting U.S. officials and reach the Canada Border Services Agency at Emerson, he said. “It was up to my hips.”
What kept them going was knowing that if they gave up before getting to Canada, they would be taken to a detention facility in the United States, then be deported to Ghana.
Refugee admissions ticket par excellence!
“I can’t go back,” Mohammad said. He had to flee Ghana because of his sexual orientation, he said.
They knew that if they managed to get to the Canadian border, they could file a refugee claim and make their case before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. Canada’s immigration system is seen by human rights advocates and lawyers as more fair and thorough than that in the U.S. [So are human rights activists advising people like Mohammad, and coaching them on stories about being gay?—ed]
The US supposedly denied his claims. What? They didn’t believe he was gay?
Their refugee claims were dismissed, as most are.
I’ve written previously about these world traveling phony refugees who seem to have the funds to travel for months across the world, but don’t stop in the first safe country and apply for asylum which is how asylum is supposed to work if one is a legitimate refugee!
For Mohammad—who left his home in Ghana in 2015 and spent six months on planes, boats and buses to get to the U.S. before hoofing it into Canada—the perilous journey was worth life and limb.
More here.
When I was in North Dakota this past summer, I learned that locals do report Somalis coming in from Canada over the ND/Canadian border.
For all of you in ‘welcoming’ towns, do not believe the numbers you are being told! Because the feds are short of locations and they are on a tear to bring in as many refugees as they can (at least up until Trump takes office or their federal money runs out) your state is likely to get more refugees than they initially ‘promised.’
This news from Inforum in Fargo, ND makes it even more clear that Donald Trump must slow the flow in to the country across the board as soon as he is inaugurated.
FARGO — More refugees were resettled here in the last fiscal year than Lutheran Social Services North Dakota had expected, the agency reported Thursday, Dec. 8.
Cass County Commissioner Mary Scherling suggests that Lutheran Social Services send some of the refugees destined for the state to Minot (270 miles from Fargo). What? since they aren’t getting the joys of diversity yet! Photo and bio: https://www.casscountynd.gov/county/Boards/Commission/Commissioners/District5/Pages/MaryScherling.aspx
A total of 558 refugees came to the state by way of LSS in fiscal year 2016, which is 22 percent more than the agency was told to expect by agencies farther up the pipeline. The bulk of the refugees were settled in Fargo-Moorhead: 372 in Fargo, eight in West Fargo and 22 in Moorhead.
Some local government officials have expressed concern over the large number of the newcomers, fearing they would be a strain on resources.
Cass County Commissioner Mary Scherling, who attended the meeting, said Thursday she just wants to be sure local governments can help give refugees a good start in America. She and Commission Chairman Chad Peterson said they’d like LSS to add Minot as a fourth resettlement site in North Dakota. Refugees are now settled in Fargo, Grand Forks and Bismarck.
LSS officials said Thursday they, too, are concerned about their resources, but saying “no” is not easy.
Readers, please pay attention to this next paragraph. Once your town is set up as a resettlement site, not only will the numbers continue to grow, but others of the same ethnic group as your primary refugees will come to live there too. Our use of the word ‘seeding’ about this program is not an exaggeration.
That’s because some of the funding the agency gets for resettling refugees is based on the number it agrees settle in North Dakota, said Saurav Dahal, an LSS refugee coordinator. It has a much harder time with funding if those refugees move here on their own after resettling in other states.
Whining about funding! LSS could end up out on a limb with not enough funding because federal ORR funds are drying up (or more accurately being diverted to the Unaccompanied Alien Children crisis) and so is private charitable giving (in fact there was never much private charity to begin with!).
Here is my question: if most refugees are “self-sufficient” in a matter of months, as we are constantly told, then why do they need more “services” paid for by taxpayer “resources?”
For each primary refugee that LSS resettles, the U.S. State Department provides enough funding to give them three months of assistance, Dahal said. That funding is not available for secondary refugees.
For assistance beyond three months, LSS relies on funding from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and charitable organizations; its aim is to cover as many as eight months. But funding from ORR is not directly tied to the number of refugees resettled, and funding from charities are not assured from year to year.
Dykshoorn and Dahal said the latter two sources of funding aren’t keeping up with the numbers.
Continue reading here.
See our complete archive on North Dakota here (this is one of the states I visited on my fact-finding tour last summer). ND has had some spectacular criminal cases involving refugees. Don’t miss this: Somali sentenced to life in prison for killing native American family. And the Somali who went on a knife attack in St. Cloud, MN last September was originally resettled in North Dakota.
North Dakotans who think you are getting too many refugees must continue to put pressure on your governor, your state legislature, your local elected officials, but do not forget to pound Senator John Hoeven who sits on the all powerful Senate Appropriations Committee which could dry up resettlement dollars for North Dakota if he had a will to do it! See here.
I see an important part of my job going forward is to educate you and me on the Appropriations process in Washington. Funding is policy!
