Editor: For a month or so there wasn’t much news on the US Refugee Admissions Program as the Biden White House flipped and floppedon the subject of admission numbers for this fiscal year so I was writing a weekly roundup of refugee news. However, now, because there is so much news, I’ll need to go back to daily, or almost daily posting.
Do you remember those “No Fear” T-shirts teens were wearing a few decades ago? I think of those shirts every time I hear from Michelle Malkin. (No longer invited on respectable Ha! Ha! Fox News, but be sure to catch her on Newsmax).
Ready or not, here they come. Thanks to Joe Biden, America the Weary will soon open its doors to another 62,500 low-skilled foreigners from the Third World. The sovereign citizens in neighborhoods across our nation where these newcomers will be dumped will have no say in these decisions. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Open borders judges made sure that the wants and needs of ordinary Americans would be subordinated to those of the refugee resettlement racket. There is no recourse under U.S. law to reestablish local control of the process.
Instead, the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and their globalist partners in the “faith” community (who rake in billions of dollars in tax subsidies off the backs of refugees and at the expense of voiceless citizens) will dictate who gets in and who moves where.
It will be mostly young low-skilled Americans forced to compete with the influx of 22,000 Africans, 6,000 East Asians, 4,000 Europeans and Central Asians, 5,000 Latin Americans and Caribbean nationals, 13,000 Near Easterners and South Asians, and another 12,500 refugees from unspecified countries. (Hint: Look for a “Green New Dealer” to ram a bunch of future Democratic-voting “climate refugees” into the mix.)
The numbers don’t lie. Replacement theory*** isn’t a theory. It’s a grim reality.
Read it, get it distributed widely, and buy Malkin’s book!
Pockets of Resistance!
And, as I said in my post on Winchester, Virginia a week ago, the only recourse you have now is to make political noise locally.
If the federal resettlement contractors become aware of a vocal “unwelcoming” local community they have been known to move to where they will find less resistance.
***And, don’t miss my post at ‘Frauds and Crooks.’
This is Dadaab in Kenya, one of the largest refugee camps in the world. It is where most of our Somali refugees lived before coming to America (including Rep. Ilhan Omar). Kenya wants the camp closed by June 2022. So where do you think thousands of the 430,000 housed there now will go? Anytown, USA? https://www.dw.com/en/kenya-to-close-2-refugee-camps-next-year/a-57382561
***Update***Another Letter writersays he is happy refugees will be placed in his “rural community” where people know and love their neighbors. The point is that when Church World Service does its work, they soon won’t know their neighbors.
Editor: This is a follow-up to my post on Saturday:
A letter writer who lives in Frederick County (Winchester is the county seat) is critical of the plan to begin moving Biden’s refugees into the city.
But as interesting as the letter is, it is the comments that are most informative.
First, hereis the letter from county resident Dale Watten to the Winchester Star:
Letter to the editor: Winchester wrong location for refugee settlement
I think that Winchester is the wrong place and this is the wrong time to place a refugee resettlement office in our community. As Kim Herbstritt pointed out, Winchester does not have any excess housing, much less affordable housing for refugees. Our schools are overflowing as are the English as second language classes. After a year of COVID lockdowns and business closures, I don’t think this area has enough jobs for our own citizens let alone foreign refugees who can’t speak English.
I don’t think rural America should have to bear the burden of the Biden administration’s misguided policies that most of us in rural America did not vote for. Might I point out what has happened to once lovely Minneapolis in large part due to refugee resettlement. Send the refugees to NYC, San Francisco or Biden’s home state of Delaware. Don’t send them to Winchester. I strongly urge Winchester City Council to reject the proposed refugee resettlement office.
Dale Watten
Now, check out the comments.
They have devolved into controversy mostly between two commenters, one arguing that rural people (mostly Trump supporters!) should basically shut up about what the city does, demonstrating the great and growing divide between rural and urban America.
The fact is, and what readers need to know is, that once a resettlement office is established, refugees may be placed up to 100 miles of that office.
And the other area of discussion relates to the illegals flooding our southern border and whether Winchester will end up being the recipient of some of those illegal aliens, demonstrating exactly what supposedly Biden, or at least whoever is Joe’s brain, feared when expanding refugee admissions in the middle of the border crisis.
I found this tiny segment of aPolitico storyfrom Monday of interest.
The story is about the flip-flop-flipping the White House has been doing for the last couple of months on the issue of setting the refugee cap at a level 4 times higher than Trump had left it.
Near the end of Politico‘s report is this bit of information.
Biden, or his other brain, feared conflation of the two issues—expanded refugee resettlement and the border invasion would be one and the same in the minds of the increasingly angry general public:
Several sources have said that Biden himself has expressed distress over immigration issues overall and raised concern about lifting the cap before the system could catch up. The White House has also been sensitive to thesteady stream of bad press coming from conservative media about the border and predicted that if Biden announced a large number of refugees would be allowed in on top of it, critics would purposely conflate the two issues to accelerate a “open borders” false narrative.
There is nothing false about it, the Biden administration has gone full-on Open Borders and they know their time is limited to flood America as the 2022 Midterm elections loom!
The vast majority of Americans will see this for exactly what it is—an invasion run by Democrats to relocate poverty from every corner of the world and thereby putting Americans Last!
You have been told what they fear, and so it is incumbent on you to make sure the “steady stream of bad press” keeps coming!
Get some pockets of resistance going!
As I said yesterday, call your local government officials and find out if your community is being fingered as a new home to the third world, and if so, make your views known just as Frederick County, Virginia resident Dale Watten did yesterday.
But, be prepared for the vile verbal attacks that will come from the Socialist Leftwing pressing Harris/Biden for double 62,500 for admission to the US in FY22 which begins in less than five months.
A presentation in Bonner County on Wednesday ended earlier than planned because local opponents of refugee resettlement dominated the near capacity audience.
I suspect the citizens of Sandpoint and the surrounding rural region of Idaho had heard enough about refugee turmoil over 600 miles south in Twin Falls and didn’t see a need to bring the same trouble to their neighborhoods.
SANDPOINT — A sustained lack of basic civility brought an abrupt end Wednesday to a presentation aimed at informing the public how refugee resettlement works in Idaho and the United States.
From the moment the meeting at Community Hall commenced, Nick and Laura Armstrong of Boise faced a tough room.
“I am advocating understanding,” Laura Armstrong tried to explain at one point.
A good portion of the capacity crowd, however, was having none of it.
Refugee resettlement foes groaned, scoffed, talked over, shouted and laughed derisively at the Armstrongs. When audience members who were genuinely curious about resettlement programs tried to get opponents to quiet down so the presentation could go on, they, too, were shouted down.
Nevertheless, the Armstrongs pressed ahead. They pointed out that the Bible is replete with people who were refugees, including Jesus. There are also cited repeated passages referring to God’s faithfulness and concern for “aliens” and “strangers.” [The usual use of the Bible to suit their purposes!—ed]
Photo: Caroline Lobsinger
[….]
Many of the foes of refugee resettlement viewed the presentation as a foot in the door to bring displaced people into Bonner County.
“We don’t want ‘em!” a woman shouted angrily.
The Armstrongs and the meeting’s hosts — the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force and a group called “follow ~ a community” — emphasized that there was no plan to bring refugees here, but opponents were dubious of those declarations.
The Armstrongs and the meeting’s hosts attempted to conduct a question-and-answer session on resettlement after the presentation, but only made it several questions in when it became clear productive discussion remained elusive.
Continue reading here. And, don’t miss the comments. Some are better than the story.
For background, new readers might want to see our Twin Falls archive by clicking here.
This post is also filed in a categoryI call ‘Pockets of Resistance,’ a phrase I first heard in 2013 when an Office of Refugee Resettlement spokesman referred to communities where citizens were questioning refugee resettlement as ‘pockets of resistance,’ explained here.
“I don’t think they should be brought here, period!”
(citizen activist Brenda Arthur)
As Itold you a few days ago a Charleston ‘Interfaith’ group was planning a rally to push for the resettlement of Syrian refugees to the state capitol. And, as I mentioned then, I am struck by the fact that the rally for refugees was so specific about Syrians when we bring refugees from all over the world (and resettlement contracting agencies don’t get to pick only those ethnic groups they prefer).
Why are they so concerned about Syrians? Why is the Charleston, West Virginia group so discriminatory against other ethnic groups?
And here are my bigger questions: Where is Alex? Where is Shelley? Where is Joe?
Come on Joe! Even if the Republicans are too squishy to speak up, surely you get it!
Considering that the controversy about the resettlement of Syrian refugees in American towns is one of the major issues that pushed Donald Trump over the finish line last week, shouldn’t we expect elected officials like Rep. Alex Mooney (R) in whose district this rally occurred and US Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R) and Joe Manchin (D) to have the guts to say where they stand on the issue!
Are they for or against this plan from Washington?
One story about the rally is here. There was a counter-rally, so no one can say any longer that there is no opposition to the plan to expand the resettlement of Syrian Muslims (99% of all Syrians entering the US are Muslims) in to West Virginia.
See some of the opposition’s arguments reported at the Charleston Gazette-Mail:
During last year’s rally supporting Syrian refugees, Brenda Arthur stood across the street in protest. She learned of the rally only hours before it was scheduled to begin. She was then one of only two people protesting against it.
This time, she brought a few friends. To them, the reasons to not bring refugees seem endless.
“We had the June flooding disaster, we’ve lost jobs, there have been cuts in school funding and then there’s the drug epidemic,” Arthur said. “We’ve got all of these major problems to deal with. How does it even make sense to bring people here from halfway around the world that are going to need every form of government assistance?”
Arthur, 65, gathered with about a dozen other people in protest of the rally. Their main complaints about settling refugees in Charleston is the fear that they might be sent by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and that tax money would be used to resettle them.
But even if it didn’t cost taxpayers anything to bring refugees to West Virginia, and even if officials could be completely sure that the refugees weren’t sent by ISIS, Arthur still doesn’t want them here.
“I don’t think they should be brought here, period. We should take care of them in their homeland,” Arthur said. “A lot of these people, you know, they’ve been in their tribal land for thousands of years, and now they’re uprooted, brought to a new culture — in many cases a culture that has nothing to do with them. Our values are antithetical to a lot of things that they believe.”
See our complete archive on the West Virginia controversy by clicking here.
Editor: As regular readers know, Rutland, VT citizens are not taking kindly to a plan to resettle 100 Syrians in their town—a plan the mayor made in secrecy with a federal resettlement contractor. For background, please click here for our Rutland archive. And, for future reference, this post is filed in our ‘Comments worth noting/Guest posts‘ category.
With grateful appreciation to Ann Corcoran and Refugee Resettlement Watch, it is with pride and pleasure that I attempt, here, to provide you all with the saga of RUTLAND VERMONT, a struggling, proud community facing the importation of even more needy refugees when our welfare overload is choking us even now.
STRAIGHT TALK—–with Don Chioffi
VERMONT’S AREA 51—THE SECRET RESETTLEMENT PROJECT
The proud, struggling city of Rutland, Vermont has been fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds to even get public information about the secret Refugee Resettlement Program since late April. Here it is now in late August and we have no more information than in April, despite numerous FOIA requests. The arrogance, impudence, and outright defiance by the USCRI, the secular agency responsible for this Refugee resettlement Program, with the compliant secret help of Mayor Chris Louras and his crony President of the Board of Aldermen, William Notte, would be more appropriately associated with some third world country, in fact it is headed by a woman that is, in fact, from one of those countries. Amila Merdzandovic, one of Lavinia Limon’s dutiful henchman, has stonewalled, lied outright, and threatened even those in our own state government for releasing even the most pitiful of information to the citizens of our state and of Rutland, and our mayor vowed to reject a lawful petition submitted by his own citizens requesting a moratorium on this program until facts were forthcoming.
Our three state senators from Rutland county, Peg Flory, Kevin Mullin, and Brian Collamore (all Republicans) have even tried to gain information from the State Health and Human Services department and were met with the response that even HHS was not provided with the complete Application and Abstract, a document that is supposed to have the coordination and cooperation of state and local government bodies and the public prior to even being sent to the US State Department. Our state senators were not even informed that this program was being instituted at the state level by our ultra liberal governor, Peter (lame duck) Shumlin. They were also rebuffed by US Sen. Patrick Leahy, who, to date, has also refused to produce the documents. It sure looks like all the Democrats at every level are closing ranks to protect the secrecy of these documents.
The Application has all the back-up information concerning Rutland’s ability to sustain the number of refugees intended for resettlement during 2016 and forward. Information on housing availability, law enforcement, medical capacity, social service capacity, the burgeoning drug problem in our community, the availability or lack of jobs in our community, and the severe drop in population over the last 15 years are all supposed to be in that document—-yet no one, I repeat, no one, has been able to see what has been put into that document as justification for hundreds and hundreds of refugees from a war torn country infested with terrorists being planted like seeds in our community.
Rutland City Treasurer, Wendy Wilton, shocks Rutland with a 35% tax increase prediction in 5 years if USCRI gets its way.
Indeed, USCRI (US Committee for Refugees and immigrants) AND VRRP (Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program) have treated the refugees like a commodity, at around $4,000 each, that will sustain their own taxpayer funded VOLAG (90% government funding), while adamantly refusing to release Rutland’s own application data, which we the people cannot even therefore verify as being accurate and appropriate as justification for the settlement of hundreds of needy individuals into an already impoverished region with a staggering welfare load and severe unemployment or under employment problem.
We, the people, constituted as RUTLAND FIRST, have been struggling on our own to do the research necessary to answer questions and develop information relative to this invasion of our community in the guise of “welcoming humanitarianism”. We have been battling for four months now against the “welcome wagon” which has literally shut its eyes to the costs, the security challenges, and the lack of quality jobs in our region, while at the same time labeling us as racists, islamophobes, or any other vile descriptive adjective in their lexicon of “Global Worldspeak” that they can conjure up, including un-American. This, in spite of the fact that our group boasts several retired and active service personnel who have fought for their country, professional leaders in the community, and active government personnel in both elective and appointed office in our community.
So, yesterday, August 29th, RUTLAND FIRST conducted a forum to attempt to inform our local legislators, state senators, candidates for higher office, and also the general public. Attended by well over a hundred people, the dynamic presentation was riveting in its focus on facts. That alone put it in great contrast to the so called forums presented by the Mayor and the settlement agencies, which characteristically were devoid of anything but emotional statements of support. Today the Rutland Herald had not one word on the dramatic presentation—but managed yet another full column welcoming editorial.
Rutland City Treasurer, Wendy Wilton presented some pretty startling financial impact data, including the most shocking prediction based on present and future costs associated with these programs. When she told the crowd there that based on her calculations, within five years City property taxpayers would be facing an increase of 35%, there were visible signs of multiple jaw dropping in the audience. With a steadily declining population base in the City, the remaining property taxpayers have been facing the high tax burden with no signs of a break and an ever increasing unmet Pension Benefit obligation. Recent comparative studies done by the city have shown that based on its population the number of city employees far exceeds other cities in Vermont. The very dramatic decrease in population has not, however, been met with anywhere near such a proportional drop in personnel.
Gary Shattuck, a local lawyer and a former prosecutor and investigator who worked for the US Department of Justice in Kosovo and Iraq as a legal advisor, presented a pretty bleak picture of any prospect that Syrian Refugees could be properly vetted, citing many qualified opinions by high level US officials specifically stating that there is no empirical data base left in Syria with which to compare any biometric, historical, or verifiable sociometric information. In other words, no matter what name they give the fact checkers, there is no data left in Syria to even check that name, let alone relatives, friends, operatives, or terrorists who may or may not have been associated with the applicant. Shattuck spent substantial time and expertise setting up a system for vetting Iraq’s 850 judges and prosecutors following the breakdown of order in that country to determine if they were, in fact, friend or foe.
David O’Brien, former VT Public Service Commissioner former director of the Rutland Economic Development Corporation (REDC) and presently a consultant in the Energy industry, presented some economic data relevant to the job prospects for refugees, and it was not a pretty picture. Dave cited the dramatic loss of manufacturing jobs in the entire Rutland Region and the tremendous shift from quality long term employment to a model featuring under-employment and service oriented jobs exclusively.
There were letters at the event to be signed by citizens and presented to the State Department, and a local attorney, Judy Barone, Esq. and Don Chioffi, as Rutland First committee members, presented a stinging letter*** to the local and state legislators demanding that they get answers to all the questions posed at the forum. Those present left with plenty of finally answered questions and the clear impression, if not a mandate, that this program should be stopped right now, in its tracks, until and as when the cloak of secrecy is removed and Rutland’s ability to assimilate hundreds of refugees is fully justified.
RUTLAND FIRST—-is—-RUTLAND STRONG!
For those of you in ‘pockets of resistance,’ Rutland citizens’ work should serve as a model for you to use to craft strategies where you live. If you have questions, you can reach Mr. Chioffi at this e-mail address: donsreelsports@comcast.net
***Here is the letter sent today to local and state lawmakers demanding they get answers and express their opposition to a plan created in secrecy! Your local and state elected officials may be telling you they can’t stop the federal government and its NGO contractor, but they sure can add their voices in demanding their constituents be given all the facts and that the federal government follows the law!
Mr. Don Chioffi of Rutland Town has worked with me to compose this letter and address you as our State Legislators, understanding your responsibility for representing the people of Rutland City and surrounding communities on matters affecting State Government.
We herein seek your attention and ask for your help to ensure that the Application for Resettlement of Refugees in Rutland is opposed by the State of Vermont for the reason that the Application is flawed.
Mayor Louras’ ‘letter of support’ submitted with the Application was without legal authority from the Rutland Board of Alderman, the governing entity. The Mayor misrepresented himself as having authority to act for the City as the City’s governing entity when nothing was further from the truth. The planning, information about Rutland and ‘letter of support’ signed by the Mayor alone, was done behind the backs of the City’s governing entity (the Board of Aldermen), secretively. The Mayor was not authorized to provide his ‘letter of support’ misrepresenting that the ‘City’ had a cooperative relationship with the Resettlement applicants, which relationship did not exist.
It is important that each of you act quickly on your oath to uphold the law and insure the Mayor’s unauthorized misrepresentations are not relied upon by the State due to lack of your complaint.
A collaborative effort between federal, state and local authorities is required for successful refugee resettlement and the governing entity’s cooperation is required to insure ongoing support. It is the responsibility of the Vermont Agency of Human Services (AHS) (Ms. Lamoureux), to ensure coordination of public and private resources in refugee resettlement in the State of Vermont. (See; U.S. Code, Title 8 and State Plan forVermont Refugee Resettlement, AHS Refugee Office, AHS Refugee Office, AUGUST 12, 2017). You may not be aware, but access to Ms. Lamoureax has not been possible on this issue and it needs to be made clear that the State of Vermont will not support the flawed application, and the secretive process under which it was orchestrated, planned and submitted.
We ask that each of you make clear to the Governor and Ms. Lamoureax and the State’s Agency of Human Services (AHS) AND our U.S. Senators that no resettlement can or should be approved for Rutland on the pending flawed Application being there is no support or cooperation of the Rutland City’s governing entity. The Board of Aldermen has been denied information it has sought including a copy of the FULL Application to examine and vet the facts represented about Rutland (apparently provided by some people in Dorset Vermont) upon which the Application will be judged.
Failing your intervention under the power of your offices, the Application, as flawed as it is, could be funded anytime in September even where it fundamentally fails to meet the requirements of Federal law and the Vermont Plan for Refugee Resettlement. Your surveillance and intervention is urgent and important to assure nothing is funded and the State is not called upon if the Application has not met the required standards in the law.
Failure on your part to intervene could well be interpreted as your support for the flawed Application and the secretive process that has left Rutland City and the City’s government in disorder and confusion. There is division, fear and mistrust in the City’s government and in our community concerning how government has acted.
Should you have information different than we herein represent, we ask that each of you please contact me or Don Chioffi and explain. On behalf of the people we write soliciting each of you to help us protect our government under the rule of law and afford the cities in our state the process instrumental to good governance .
Kindly copy me with any correspondence you have with AHS and the Governor, U.S. Senators, and others on this request made of you.
Thank you for your anticipated quick attention to this matter as it is urgent before the Application is decided on facts not vetted for accuracy about Rutland. If you can obtain the full Application, we ask that you send that to us, too.
We anxiously await your work, your questions and your replies.
Ready or not, here they come. Thanks to Joe Biden, America the Weary will soon open its doors to another 62,500 low-skilled foreigners from the Third World. The sovereign citizens in neighborhoods across our nation where these newcomers will be dumped will have no say in these decisions. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
