No, not the one of the poor Italians in need of shelter and food, or the one of homeless veterans living on the streets of any major US city, or even the poor souls escaping the crumbling Communist economy in Venezuela?
It is a statue of migrants arriving with an angel in their midst to be welcomed wherever they decide has the best deal to supply their needs.
Migrants arrive with angels. Of course it is a political propaganda stunt!
Although the reporter, Erica Evans, at Deseret News gives her story a slight tilt toward the views of US federal resettlement contractors doing their usual spin about how they are driven entirely by their Christian zeal to help the stranger, she throws in some commentary from others who question the wisdom of hauling the third world (at great expense to taxpayers) to the first world every time there is a conflict somewhere on the globe.
The pope is making a statement about immigration with this new statue at the Vatican
SALT LAKE CITY — Pope Francis has repeatedly warned against exclusivist immigration policies and called for broader options for migrants and refugees to enter destination countries safely and legally at a time in which refugees are fleeing violent and unstable countries around the globe.
On Sunday, the Pope unveiled a new statue at the Vatican depicting 140 migrants and refugees traveling on a boat. He counseled people of faith to respond to displaced people with four words: “welcome, protect, promote and integrate,” The New York Times reported.
The pope’s outspoken views on refugees and immigration policies have raised questions about the role religious leaders play in debates about immigration.
Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, says religious leaders are too narrowly focused on humanitarian needs and fail to consider nations’ rights and interests.
“My critique of them is that sometimes they implicitly conflate the purposes and mandate of the church with the purposes and mandate of the state.” said Tooley. “The church, of course, is called to offer aid and hospitality to all people in need, but the secular state’s primary purpose is to look after the interest of the nation and people over which it has jurisdiction.”
Tooley said there is nothing wrong with the statue if it is meant as a call for concern for people fleeing violence, but “inevitably” some will use it for political reasons to demand higher levels of immigration and refugee resettlement. [Exactly!—-ed]
[….]
The presence of the sculpture in St. Peter’s Square is meant to commemorate the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, according to Vatican News. In his message for the occasion, Pope Francis said that extreme individualism is being reinforced by the media in rich countries and resulting in the “globalization of indifference” towards migrants, refugees and other people in need.
Tooley, however, doesn’t think that prioritizing national interest when it comes to immigration is a sign of “indifference.” He said religious people might think it’s selfish for a government to look after its own citizens first, but that is not the case.
“That’s not selfish,” Tooley said. “That’s similar to parents looking after their own children. Hopefully they treat other people’s children well, but they shouldn’t prioritize other people’s children over their own.”
According to Tooley, the pope and other Christians advocating for more lenient immigration laws should acknowledge that there are limits to the number of people who can be resettled in a given country, in addition to economic and security risks to be considered.
[….]
Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services are among the organizations listed as U.S. resettlement partners by the United Nations.
Here it is! Finally 29 paragraphs into the story (how many uninformed readers got this far)? These phony-baloney non-profit Christian groups get their funds from us—the taxpayers—not from their parishioners and church members!
Soerens [Matthew Soerens, the U.S. director of church mobilization for World Relief], said his organization, World Relief, has closed resettlement offices in seven cities, including in Boise, Idaho, Nashville, Tennessee, and Miami, Florida. He said the closures were a result of fewer refugees and a reduction in government funding.
In case you missed it, see how much payola the US Conference of Catholic BishopsMigration Fund lost in just the first full year of the Trump Administration, here.
It is no wonder they are squawking!
One day I hope to see the mainstream media shut up on the ‘welcome the stranger’ BS and tell the full story about how much of your money is doled out from the US Treasury to these supposed ‘religious charities’ (all hardcore Leftwing political agitation groups!) so they can brag about their compassion.
In case you are wondering how the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors stay afloat through lean times—when the President cuts the flow of new refugees (paying clients!) coming into the country—here is one example.
Check out this listof new federal grant recipients employed by the feds to teach immigrants how to pass the naturalization test!
Over $10 million out the door to the likes of Catholic Charities, HIAS, Lutheran Social Services and others whose federal grants for new refugees had slowed in recent years.
Gotta get all those new voters signed up pronto! (Hat tip: Steven)
USCIS Awards FY 2019 Citizenship and Assimilation Grants
Nearly $10 Million Will Expand Citizenship Preparation Services in 24 States
On September 26, 2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the award of nearly $10 million in grants to 41 organizations that prepare lawful permanent residents (LPRs) for naturalization. The grants also aim to promote prospective citizens’ assimilation into American civic life by funding educational programs designed to increase their knowledge of English, U.S. history, and civics. Located in 24 states, these organizations will receive federal funding to support citizenship preparation services for LPRs through September 2021.
I can see giving grants to community colleges, school systems, libraries, but refugee agencies, SEIU and something called Progreso Latino and Women for Afghan Women?
Could their students be getting a little indoctrination by progressive Dems along with their English language and civic lessons?
And, why don’t we see any politically conservative non-profits getting some of this grant money?
(Groups highlighted in red are involved in refugee resettlement)
1199SEIU League Training and Upgrading Fund New York, NY $250,000
Access California Services Anaheim, CA $250,000
Asian Counseling and Referral Service Seattle, WA $250,000
Baker Ripley Houston, TX $250,000
BPSOS Center for Community Advancement Westminster,CA $250,000
Burmese American Community Institute, Inc. Indianapolis, IN $225,000
Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans New Orleans, LA $225,000
Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, Inc.Overland Park, KS $250,000
Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada Reno, NV $250,000
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa Santa Rosa, CA $237,500
Catholic Charities, Diocese of Fort Worth, Inc.Fort Worth, TX $250,000
Church World Service, Inc.Durham, NC $237,500
Emerald Isle Immigration Center Woodside, NY $250,000
English Skills Learning Center Salt Lake City, UT $250,000
Fresno Unified School District Fresno, CA $250,000
Hartford Public Library Hartford, CT $225,000
HIAS and Council Migration Services of Philadelphia, Inc.Philadelphia, PA $250,000
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota Saint Paul, MN $250,000
Instituto del Progreso Latino Chicago, IL $225,000
International Institute of New England, Inc.Boston, MA $250,000
International Rescue Committee, Inc.San Diego, CA $250,000
International Rescue Committee, Inc.Baltimore, MD $250,000
International Rescue Committee, Inc.Turlock, CA $237,500
International Rescue Committee, Inc.Seattle, WA $250,000
Jewish Family & Vocational Service of Middlesex County, Inc. Milltown, NJ $250,000
Jewish Family Service of San Diego San Diego, CA $225,000
Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts, Inc.Springfield, MA $250,000
Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Inc.Louisville, KY $250,000
Literacy New Jersey Edison, NJ $250,000
Lutheran Community Services Northwest Portland, OR $250,000
Lutheran Social Services of Colorado Denver, CO $250,000
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid Minneapolis, MN $237,500
Montgomery College Rockville, MD $250,000
Pars Equality Center Sherman Oaks, CA $225,000
Progreso Latino, Inc.Central Falls, RI $250,000
School Board of Miami-Dade, FLMiami, FL $225,000
Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton-Manhattan Beach, Inc.Brooklyn, NY $250,000
Skyline Literacy Harrisonburg, VA $250,000
The International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis St. Louis, MO $225,000
United Methodist Cooperative Ministries/Suncoast, Inc.Largo, FL $237,500
Women for Afghan Women, Inc.Fresh Meadows, NY $250,000
I’ve done it over the years, but maybe it is time to revisit all of the grants available to ‘non-profit’ groups that are very much involved in political organizing particularly against this President.
The refugee industry is everywhere these days claiming that one of the most important reasons to import hundreds of thousands of refugees is that they revitalize crumbling cities.
We need refugees to save dying cities!
In fact,. as I write this US refugee resettlement contractors, hoping topressure Donald Trumpto set a high ceiling for refugee admissions for FY2020 (which begins October 1 of this year), are hammering the big lie—refugees save dying cities.
Bashing Trump….
Here is just one example, the Washington Post recently published an opinion piece by two leaders of World Relief(one of nine federally-funded refugee contractors) claiming just that and saying the Trump is hurting cities by reducing the numbers of impoverished refugees being admitted to the US.
But, get this, the New York Times ,in an extensive expose in August, tells us that yes, Bill Clinton’s Bosniansdid bring some economic revitalization to St. Louis, but it didn’t last. The primary reason for the unfolding failure—Democrat-run cities are crime infested. (There has been no Republican mayor in St. Louis since 1949.)
‘It’s Not the Same’: Why War Refugees Who Helped Revive St. Louis Are Leaving
[Article opens with some economic success stories. BTW, a large number of Bosnians are Muslims.]
For St. Louis, a city that had bled population for decades — it had about 400,000 residents in 1990, down from more than 800,000 in the 1950s — the influx of what was estimated to be the largest population of Bosnians outside Bosnia seemed to work magic. For the first time in generations, the urban narrative of abandoned houses, stagnant business and vanishing people appeared to be changing.
But it didn’t last.
Today, St. Louis, like some other Midwestern cities, is battling a new round of contraction, with a stagnant economy, challenged schools and one of the highest murder rates in the country. And over the past few years, the people who fled brutal violence and concentration camps in their homeland and created Little Bosnia have been fleeing again, to the suburbs.
The beginning of the end for the Bosnian community of St. Louis and the melting pot myth was the murder of a Bosnian young man by a gang of thugs. See my 2014 post about the murder.
Black and Hispanic teens sentenced to long prison terms for Begic’s murder. The NYT never mentions who the killers were.
A deadly hammer attack in Bevo Mill — in which Zemir Begic, a young Bosnian man out with his fiancée, was killed by four teenagers — shook the community in 2014. Bosnians marched in the streets, arguing that the police had not done enough to keep the neighborhood safe.
[….]
Similar stories have been playing out in American cities since the Baby Boom decades of the 20th century, and have proven hard to reverse. After mass flights to the suburbs, even heavy investment in urban centers, with shiny new business districts and rapidly changing downtowns, have often failed to help cities, particularly in the Midwest, replace the residents they had lost.
In St. Louis the process has been particularly painful, because the people who were fleeing were the very ones who had been seen as saviors.
[….]
At its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Bosnian population, including American-born Bosnians, reached about 70,000 in the city of St. Louis and the surrounding county, according to the International Institute of St. Louis, a charitable agency that sponsors many of the region’s refugees. Now, with some Bosnians having left the state entirely, the agency estimates that the figure is less than 50,000.
The International Institute of St. Louis is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), but you can bet USCRI is still peddling the myth that refugees will save dying cities—maybe for a few years in the case of industrious Bosnians, but it won’t happen at all with extremely impoverished Africans.
“I feel hurt by the fact that a specific demographic at Wellstone has been taken away from us.”
(Aimee Fearing, former Wellstone principal)
When I read this storyat Minnesota Public Radio I couldn’t help but think about buggy whips. You know the expression about how as times change, so too do industries when the demand for certain commodities disappears.
But, the big difference is that with government programs, those benefiting certain people personally (with jobs etc.), instead of dying a natural death, taxpayer dollars are found to keep the government equivalent of the buggy whip industry alive.
At one time Wellstone High School, a special school for immigrants, was 65% Somali, today it is 30%, and those benefiting from the refugee industry generally in Minnesota are crying the blues.
As refugee admissions hit record low, one Minneapolis school fights to adapt
[Big opening section featuring a Somali success story to appeal to readers’ emotions before launching into the difficulties ahead for a special school for special people.]
For nearly two decades now, Wellstone has served as a training ground for hundreds of young refugee and immigrant students, many of whom grew up to be economists, health professionals and engineers — even as its population has fluctuated with each stroke of a presidential pen that expanded or reduced refugee admissions to the United States.
In recent years, though, not many people like Mah are entering the country because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and the sharp reduction in refugee admissions. As a result, Wellstone is bracing for one of the lowest student enrollment years in its history.
But it’s not just Wellstone that’s witnessing the ripple effect of the dwindling number of refugees entering the country. Refugee-serving agencies in Minnesota have also seen a dramatic decline in the number of refugees coming to their doorsteps for resettlement services.
Here it is—they must keep the infrastructure alive—another way of saying that they must keep the taxpayer dollars flowing their way!
Former Principal Aimee Fearing
To keep the infrastructure alive, Wellstone and service agencies are finding new ways to adapt to the changing refugee-services landscape — by shifting resources and tapping into new demographics.
Donald Trump is to blame….
After he took office in 2017, the president followed through with many of his promises. For example, he barred people from certain predominantly Muslim nations, including Somalia, from entering the U.S. and reduced refugee admissions to the lowest level since the program was created in 1980.
Those restrictions have affected the refugee stream to Minnesota, which for years has been one of the top states for refugee resettlement. More than 3,000 primary refugees arrived in Minnesota in 2016, but only 1,000 came in 2017, and 660 last year, according to figures from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
The dramatic reduction in refugee admissions will be felt this school year at Wellstone, where the student population has dropped from 400 four years ago to 180 now, according to school counselor Ali Kofiro.
[….]
Though the students at the school have come from all over the world, including East Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America and Mexico, Somalis typically were the majority. In 2015 and 2016, for instance, 65 percent of the students were Somalis. Today, that number is less than 30 percent.
“I feel hurt by the fact that a specific demographic at Wellstone has been taken away from us,” said Aimee Fearing, former Wellstone principal who now serves as the executive director of K-12 academic programming at Minneapolis Public Schools.
For Deqa Muhidin, an ESL teacher at Wellstone, the shrinking number of refugee arrivals hangs as a question mark over the future of the school. “Our school’s future will definitely be up in the air,” said Muhidin. “And my role will definitely be up in the air.”
[….]
The reduction in refugee admissions is also affecting nonprofit organizations and resettlement agencies that often rely on serving refugees to get funding.
Continue reading here. It is a long article, but useful especially for Minnesotans as it goes on to discuss the refugee contractors operating in the state and how they are adjusting (or not!) to the loss of much federal funding.
Endnote: One wonders about assimilation if the immigrant kids are kept separate and treated as special people in their own special school.
The new RefugeeCorps will be patterned after AmeriCorps and and in partnership with AmeriCorps’ parent government agency.
It makes me laugh, they are very clever—very good at working all the angles!
Eskinder Negash is the outgoing Director of ORR. I wonder if they have picked his replacement yet, does anyone know?
The former refugees will be working for the refugee agencies (the federal contractors!) that operate in 180 plus cities across America. So, rather than the resettlement agencies using some of their government money to employ people they will be getting access to another pot of government money to hire refugees who can’t find work otherwise.
So tell me why we don’t just open federal refugee offices in those 180 cities and quit this charade where non-profits pretend to be non-governmental (charitable!) agencies.
They still spend our tax dollars, but as non-profits they are unaccountable to those of us paying their freight!
This is more news from the ORR outgoing Director Eskinder Negash’s annual review. We posted previous information from that document—58,000 unaccompanied minors entered the US in 2014 and were distributed to 124 locations around the country.
Here is the information on the RefugeeCorps (emphasis is mine):
ORR is pleased to announce the establishment of a new partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)—the agency that supports the AmeriCorps program, the RefugeeCorps. An entirely new initiative, this program places former refugees in positions at resettlement agencies to work directly with new arrivals. The goal is to improve the self-sufficiency and well-being of refugee populations and promote successful local integration.
Programs will focus on three key areas:
Economic Opportunity: improved economic well-being and security; improved access to financial literacy-focused services; safe, affordable housing; and, improved employability;
Education: improved educational outcomes for economically disadvantaged children; improved school readiness and educational outcomes for children; and, post-secondary education, and
Healthy Futures: improved access to primary and preventative health care; increased physical activity; and, improved nutrition in youth and reduction in childhood obesity.
This new RefugeeCorps will begin in late Summer/Fall 2015 with nine agencies, with a plan to expand the program to every refugee resettlement site in the U.S. over the next few years.Participating RefugeeCorps members receive the same benefits as a traditional AmeriCorps member, including a stipend, post-service educational benefit, health insurance and other benefits. ORR will provide the funding for this program to national voluntary agencies through the Preferred Communities grant.
