Tag: Sioux Falls SD

Lutheran refugee contractor sends SD refugee to Washington to lobby on amnesty bill

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I wonder does he fully understand that S.744 (the Senate “comprehensive” bill) will legalize 11 million plus alien workers who will compete with his fellow Bhutanese refugees who are already not finding employment, a situation some say is connected to a high suicide rate among ‘his people’ in America?

I don’t know how the refugee contractors can in good conscience lobby (along with big business interests like the meat packers!) for amnesty when they know that the refugee unemployment rate is through the roof.

Lutherans send Bhutanese refugee to Washington to lobby on the amnesty bill! Photo: Steve Young, Argus Leader

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (all of the top nine federal refugee contractors are surely involved) is lobbying for this bill because it means more money for them to help get the newly legalized immigrants hooked up with ‘services.’  It doesn’t mean more money for the refugees.  The contractors really are despicable—using refugees this way!

The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, SD reports that Bhutanese refugee, Thag Poudyal, went to Washington paid for by the Lutherans (more likely the US taxpayer) to lobby.

Two weeks ago, he was chosen by the national Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service to take his story to Washington, D.C., and lobby South Dakota’s congressional delegation about immigration reform, and for more dollars to protect and assist the more than 15 million refugees worldwide.

[….]

His participation as part of a World Refugee Day delegation to D.C. was significant for several reasons. Only two dozen refugees nationwide, representing many different oppressed groups, were selected to go. Poudyal was the lone representative from South Dakota.

[….]

After a day of training on issues important to the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Poudyal traveled to the offices of South Dakota’s congressional delegation and met with staffs for Sens. Tim Johnson and John Thune and Rep. Kristi Noem.

Poudyal asked that dollars for the State and Health and Human Services departments remain robust to protect and aid refugees. He lobbied for immigration reform, including an end to a one-year filing deadline for asylum claims, and that children of a refugee or the asylum seeker’s spouse be allowed to join their parents in this country.

[….]

To date, 68,000 Bhutanese have been resettled to the United States*, though Schwab [Roland Schwab. Lutheran Social Services director in Sioux Falls] expects that migration to Sioux Falls to slow considerably within the next year as the Nepalese refugee camps empty. Poudyal estimates that as many as 3,000 are here now because of direct resettlement or movement from other U.S. cities.

Many of his countrymen hope to go back to their homeland some day, including a 103-year-old Bhutanese man who has lived here only a short time, Poudyal said.

Readers, what do you think a 103-year-old refugee is living on?  You guessed it—SSI!   This reminds me, if you haven’t visited our newly updated fact sheet on the US refugee program, it is here.

Refugee Program should be stripped from the bill!

In a sidebar, the Argus Leader lists the issues in S.744 (the Gang of Eight plus Grover comprehensive amnesty bill) affecting refugee resettlement.  As we have pointed out on numerous previous occasions, these are significant issues that should be addressed in thorough separate hearings on the Refugee Program that has never been seriously reviewed in three decades!

Refugees’ requests

About two dozen refugees from across the country, including Bhutanese refugee Thad Poudyal of Sioux Falls, went to Washington, D.C., on June 20 for World Refugee Day to lobby Congress. Among other things, they asked federal lawmakers for:

• $2.8 billion for the Department of State for migration and refugee assistance.

• $1.31 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services for refugee and entrant assistance.

• The elimination of a one-year filing deadline for asylum claims

• The enhancement of refugee family unity by allowing the child of a refugee or asylum seeker’s spouse to accompany or join their parents in the United States.

• The ability of the president to designate certain groups of refugees to be resettled in the United States. [This will be a huge deal—a refugee will no longer have to prove that he or she is personally persecuted, just being a member of a certain ethnic, social, or political group will get them in the door.—ed]

• The updating of legislation regarding services involved in the resettlement of refugees.

Readers, you must contact your Representative in Congress and tell him or her that you oppose “comprehensive” immigration reform and that the Refugee Resettlement Program must be reviewed separately and thoroughly by Congress. 

Call on Monday just as American Black leaders rally at the Capitol in opposition to the amnesty legislation:

The Black American Leadership Alliance (BALA) has organized an anti-amnesty march and rally — the DC March for Jobs — in Washington, D.C. on Monday, July 15th. The goal is to “demand that our leaders reject amnesty, enforce immigration laws as written, and support policies that put black U.S. citizens back to work.”

* We have written extensively on Bhutanese refugees (mostly Hindus btw) originally approved for resettlement by the Bush Administration.  We were to bring 60,000 in five years but we are now approaching 70,000.

Sioux Falls, SD story raises the question: Who pays when yours has become a “welcoming” refugee community?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Sioux Falls is a ‘seed community’ (Tuula?*) and by that I mean it somehow was targeted as a “welcoming” community for the resettlement of third-worlders by the US State Department and its resettlement contractors.

Somalis arrive in Sioux Falls. Is there a meatpacking plant nearby?

Before I get to the news about the cost of educating the kids, have a look at the list of states and how many refugees each has received in the last 5 years.   I don’t know why certain places have been chosen.  Was there a plan decades ago to push diversity in certain regions of the country (we are going to shove it down the throats of the rednecks)?  Are there political factors (for instance, Biden helped pass the Refugee Act of 1980, but Delaware takes very few refugees). Or, did it all come about through happenstance?

Are refugee seed communities built around certain employers (meatpackers)?  Or, are they developed in a hit or miss fashion dependent on the level of resistance the community puts up—I once called it the “squawk” factor.  If resettlement begins and no real complaints are leveled at the politicians in the community and the local media doesn’t report any negative news about the program, the community is deemed “welcoming.”

How is it that Wyoming got zero refugees in the last five years while neighboring South Dakota got nearly 3,000?   And, do states have a Constitutional right to say—NO! or no more!  Or, at least demand that the federal government pay for the full cost to the seed communities?

Do American citizens have any right to say, we don’t want change?  We like our community just as it is (sans diversity!).

Questions remain, but back to the news this week about the costs and problems associated with educating the children from dozens and dozens of nationalities in heartland America.

From the Argus Leader  (hat tip: Joanne):

Except for Huron, there is no more diverse public school district in all of South Dakota than Sioux Falls.

At last count in October, officials here reported that 29.5 percent of the district’s roughly 22,000 students were minorities.

In Huron, where 41 percent of all its students are children of color, the majority are Karen refugees from Myanmar, or Hispanics. But refugee, immigrant and racial groups in Sioux Falls represent 51 different languages from across the globe that are spoken in homes here.

[…..]

In the past year, Hispanics, blacks, Asians and multiracial students all saw their numbers grow in Sioux Falls, while there were fewer whites and Native Americans. As a percentage of total enrollment, there are twice as many students of color in the district now than there were a decade ago.

Teaching those students English so they learn in the classroom is a big enough challenge, Smith said. But turning understanding of the language into the ability to successfully advance from grade level to grade level can be equally daunting.

The article mentions that refugees who enter the US as teenaged students have a very high drop-out rate.  What is going to happen to those young adults?

The taxpayers of South Dakota must now ‘pony-up’ for more of the cost of educating the immigrant kids of Sioux Falls, but shouldn’t this be the federal government’s cost to bare?  After all, the taxpayers of South Dakota were not consulted when the seed community of Sioux Falls was established?

Like all school districts across the state who work with ELL students, Sioux Falls caught a break during the past legislative session when lawmakers decided to contribute more money to the education of those children.

Districts will assess their ELL students on language proficiency each February on a scale of 0 to 6. For every student who scores below 4.0 on the assessment, the district will receive an additional 25 percent in state support on top of the regular funding formula.

For Sioux Falls, that means an additional $1.8 million to $1.9 million, Smith said. So this coming school year, Sioux Falls will have $2.2 million in state and district money to use for ELL instruction, and another $1.7 million in federal assistance.

“We won’t be adding additional ELL services with that money,” Smith said. “This roughly pays back what we’ve been putting into the program out of our general fund dollars.

By the way, it looks like Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota pretty much calls the shots and acts as the pass-through non-profit agency for some federal money.

Wow! We have written a lot on South Dakota.  See our archive here.  Just now as I looked through the list, here is one story that jumped out at me—woman’s home vandalized after she complained that Sioux Falls had FOUR mosques (thanks to the work of Lutheran Social Services)!  Be sure to scroll down that post to the discussion of Tuulas.

South Dakota rape suspect still on the lam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A reader sent me this story the other day and I’ve been looking for more information on the case and the latest news since then.   I would like to know how alleged rapist Obadiah Loyira came to be in Sioux Falls in the first place and where in Africa he is from, but of course the media never tells us that.

Why this conspiracy of silence about how immigrants charged with crimes got here—through which LEGAL program they entered the US?  Or are they illegal aliens?

The only hint we have that he is a refugee is from the citizen comments on this news story which run along the lines of—“when are people going to realize lutheran social services is ruining this town.”

Lutheran Social Services is a federal refugee contractor resettling refugees to South Dakota, here.  Do they know where he is?

Here is the latest story (I could find)—-a second arrest has been made—but still no Obadiah Loyira (although the authorities interviewed him earlier and let him go!):

Authorities arrested a second suspect in connection with the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl and possesion of child pornography in Lincoln County.

A 16-year-old male from Council Bluffs, Iowa was arrested in Council Bluffs Friday on charges of first-degree rape and sexual contact with a child under 16, according to Lincoln County Sheriff Dennis Johnson.

A 20-year-old Sioux Falls man has already been charged, and police are still looking for a Harrisburg man, Obadiah Loyira, 19.

Detective Matt Kopecky said Loyira, who uses aliases of Jay or J.J., has ties to Sioux Falls and is thought to be in the Sioux Falls area.

Elizeo Kalimba, 20, was charged with first-degree rape and two counts of child pornography in his initial court appearance Tuesday. A $25,000 cash bond was set for Kalimba with conditions including house arrest — except for work and school — and that he has no contact with anyone under age 18, court documents say.

Loyira is wanted on the same charges. He is described as black, 6-foot and 180 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

[…..]

On Saturday, a search warrant was served at Loyira’s home and Loyira admitted to having “sexual intercourse” with the victim and taking graphic pictures of her with his cellphone, according to court documents.

Johnson said a decision was made not to take Loyira into custody to help further the investigation. An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday, and Loyira was not found at his home, Johnson said.

Readers, if you have anything more on this story, please send it my way!  I do want to get the whole story!