Comment worth noting: reader responds in defense of Vermont volag

We’ve had a lot of respondents to a comment by John, here, in which he is highly critical of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program(VRRP).  You can see those other defenders at that post. However, Susan responded to John at this post on unhappy Iraqis in Vermont and I didn’t want her response to go unnoticed.  Here it is:

I am responding to John in an earlier post. Let’s start with the facts about travel loans. The system is far more complex than you even realize. The airfare for refugees is loaned to them not by USCRI, but by the International Office of Migration. IOM is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. USCRI collects loan repayments for IOM and returns those funds to IOM to be re-used for airfare for new refugees – so it is, in essence, a revolving loan fund. There is no cost to the US taxpayer. In the resettlement process refugees are told that the cost of their air travel is loaned to them. Refugees have a grace period of up to 6 months before beginning re-payment on these interest-free loans. If, at that time, a refugee is not employed, he may request a delay of 3 more months.

Now to your other allegations – I wonder where you get your information. VRRP, like most resettlement organizations, is run by a lean but adequate professional staff whose depth and scope is embellished greatly by wonderful networks of trained and supervised volunteers.As the concentric circles widen out, refugees are immediately connected with a variety of organizations and systems that will lend support to them as they begin to lay roots in our communities and slowly integrate into their new society. VRRP provides training and consultation to all of the associated groups and organizations involved and works diligently and cooperatively to do they very best they are able for the refugees who are resettled in our community. In fact, all the community providers meet on a monthly basis with the expressed purpose of sharing information and collaborating more effectively. I would encourage you to contact VRRP and ask if you can have a look at what they are doing, how they do it, and who they collaborate with.

John, we are fortunate in Vermont to have refugees from many nations gracing our communities – going to school with our children, collaborating with us in the workplace, relaxing in our beautiful parks and lake, and adding their experiences and wisdom to the greater store of community assets we all enjoy. We are humbled by the resilience, the bravery, the fortitude, and the hard work of our newest neighbors whose life experiences in countries experiencing extreme political upheaval have forced them to add a new aspect to their personal identity and become refugees. We are equally fortunate in Vermont to have a strong network of professionals and community members who diligently work to ease what is an unfathomably transition for our refugee friends out of war zones, home cultures, family and community ties, livelihoods, worldviews and longstanding homes and into a new chapter of their lives.

The Vermont Refugee Resettlement program is a central and important partner in this process. It sits at the nexus of a much larger supporting group of organizations, professionals and community members who are also dedicated to support the family in its initial transition and across time as they become more deeply integrated into the community. There is no perfect process. Each person who becomes a refugee is a unique individual with a story that began before their lives deteriorated in their home countries and they were forced to become refugees. Each US community that opens their hearts and doors to those living the trauma of the refugee experience has its own unique character and is subject to the changing economic and political winds that buffet us all. Vermont is no different in that sense. Our small size, however, brings us into much closer proximity to all of those around us. We know a bit more about the circumstances of peoples lives in this small state than others in larger settings are likely to. So take the initiative instead of the soapbox. Instead of bashing – build. Understand the strengths and the limitations of this soul deepening enterprise – and please don’t bash the very individuals who work 24/7 to support these families.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees lies!

He says that Sharia law is the reason we have a refugee tradition today!   Thanks to a reader who spotted this story at Gates of Vienna yesterday.   Robert Spencer has more here at Jihad Watch.

How dare the UN perpetuate this myth.  We have pointed out many times how  Muslim countries refuse refugees and abuse, even murder, the ones they have (I’ll remind you below).   And, if you don’t believe me, ask the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) that lists at least four Muslim countries in its 2009 Refugee Survey that presently are among the worst nations on earth for refugees.

From Adnkronos International:

New York, 23 June (AKI) – The 1,400-year-old Islamic custom of welcoming people fleeing persecution has had more influence on modern international refugee law than any other traditional source, according to a new study sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said that more than any other historical source, Islamic law and tradition underpin the modern-day legal framework on which UNHCR bases its global activities on behalf of the tens of millions of people forced from their homes around the world.

This includes the right of everyone to seek asylum as well as prohibitions against sending those needing protection back into danger, Guterres said in the foreword to “The Right to Asylum between Islamic Sharia and International Refugee Law: A Comparative Study.”

In the study, Professor Abu Al-Wafa, Dean of the Law Faculty at Cairo University, describes how Islamic law and tradition respects refugees, including non-Muslims; forbids forcing them to change their beliefs; avoids compromising their rights; seeks to reunite families; and guarantees the protection of their lives and property.

This makes me spitting mad!  Let’ s see how decent Muslim countries are to refugees.

*  Muslim Saudi Arabia takes none, not a single Iraqi even, and is busy building a state of the art border fence.   The Saudis won’t take Rohingya either.

*  No Muslim country is willing to take in the Palestinians from Gaza.

*  No Muslim country is willing to take the Iraqi Palestinians trapped at the border of Iraq and Syria.  Those Palestinians have noted the hypocrisy of their so-called Arab brothers.

* In Muslim Egypt refugees trying to cross the border are shot.

* In Muslim Turkey refugees are immediately expelled and some, forced by Turkish authorities to swim across a river to leave Turkey, died in the process.

* Bangladesh, a Muslim country, is sending Rohingya Muslims back to Burma.  Likewise, Indonesia is returning Rohingya boat men back to persecution in Burma.

* Muslim Malaysia has been cited for its abuse of refugees as well.

The countries welcoming refugees are the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most European countries and a few in South America.  What do they all have in common? They have a Judeo-Christian historical tradition — not an Islamic Sharia history.

Note:  I have more links to add to this post but wordpress is misbehaving this morning and I’ll add them later.

State of Maine attempting to silence Christian group

Maine, the state with a rapidly expanding Muslim population, is threatening Christian Action Network with a fine over what the bureaucrats are calling an inflammatory anti-Muslim message.

Hat tip Jerry Gordon writing in the Iconoclast, here.   See the full article by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media which begins:

An organization in the national spotlight recently for producing a documentary identifying several dozen potential terrorist training compounds in the U.S. has offended the sensibilities of Maine bureaucrats, who have fined the organization $4,000, alleging among other things that the group sent out mailings containing an “inflammatory anti-Muslim message.”

The group in question, the Christian Action Network (CAN), received notice of the fines and the fundraising ban in a May 6 letter from Elaine Thibodeau of the State of Maine’s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Enclosed in the letter was a prepared consent agreement for CAN to sign agreeing to all of the state’s allegations, waiving all rights to appeal, and agreeing to pay the $4,000 fine. As part of the consent agreement, CAN is required to agree to all of the state’s allegations, including their assertion that their mailing amounted to hate speech.

“These bogus charges and fines the State of Maine has imposed are nothing but an attempt to stifle our free speech and silence our organization from speaking out about the steady creep of radical Islam in America,” CAN president Martin Mawyer told Pajamas Media. “We fully intend to appeal the state’s penalties because if they successfully silence us here, we will quickly find that we won’t be able to speak out anywhere.”

Read on!

We told you about the Christian Action Network’s film here and here.  And use our search function and look for “Lewiston” or simply “Maine” to see how heated things have become in Maine as Muslim refugees flock to the state with its extensive welfare system.

This is how the stealth jihad progresses.  The Muslim population expands, and free speech is threatened.  We need only look to Europe to see the strategy.

Minnesota wants to count every single person in the 2010 census….

Your tax dollars: 

….to be sure not to lose a Congressional seat or to lose a penny from its federal dole.  From the Bemidji Pioneer (sorry if they are making you log in):

“The Census is so critical to the state of Minnesota,” Dolan said. “About $300 billion is tied to the Census numbers every single year in federal money to the states. With the new administration, it’s nearly $400 billion.”

It means that for every person missed in Minnesota’s Census county, $1,000 to $1,200 per person in lost federal aid, he said.

“If we miss one person in the Census, we lose $10,000 to $12,000 over a 10-year period,” he said, with the Census done every 10 years. That sum pales unallotments or the loss of Local Government Aid, he said.

“We can’t afford to lose anything as a result of the Census over the next 10 years,” Dolan said. “If we miss 100 people in the Census, which I’m sure we will, that could mean over a 10-year period $1 million to $1.2 million in lost revenue to the state from the federal government.”

Count those illegal aliens too!  Makes me wonder if  the illegal alien population will enhance a state’s chances of getting (or keeping) seats in the House of Representatives and getting federal money.  Does anyone know, do illegals count for those purposes?

Other problems a reason for an accurate count include getting handle on the state’s immigration population, especially undocumented foreigners and refugees…

Last night on Fox, a Congressman (didn’t get his name) was promoting what I thought was a great idea.  Don’t hire all these tens of thousands of workers to do the census, just have the postal service do it—they need the money and they wouldn’t be as untrustworthy as we know ACORN will be.

Update and an answer:  Congresswoman Bachman was just on FOX this evening and reported there is no question on the Census form that asks for one’s immigration status.  So it appears they will count the illegal aliens as well but there will be no way of knowing which immigrants are legal and which are not.