Comment worth noting: US State Department, what is going on in Bowling Green?

Update November 18th:  The tangled web that will hinder any investigation of refugee neglect, here.

Update November 17th:  More information on the satellite office of the BGIC that will open Dec. 1 in Owensboro, here.

Update November 14th:  Readers should know that this post is the most visited post for the last few days at RRW.  I don’t know who all is reading it, but I assure you many many people are.  If you didn’t see it yesterday, I posted information on the State Department’s Operational Guidance for Resettlement Agencies, here, and have had several requests for it so far.  This document outlines what is expected of federally contracted agencies when they resettle refugees.

Comments worth noting is a category we set up for comments (usually to older posts)that might be lost to most readers unless we showcased them here.

We just received this shocking information from a friend of a Burmese Karen refugee resettled recently in Bowling Green, KY.  The comment came in response to my post on October 25th about resettlements at Bowling Green, here.    It sounds like a repeat of what happened to the Burmese resettled in Waterbury, CT more than a year ago where some local church people finally were able to get the attention of the US State Department and the negligent resettlement agency was closed there.

US State Department, why does this keep happening?  And, why have you approved another office for this agency in Owensboro, here?

From a reader identified as C. Flores:

Jason [another commnenter at the post], you have to remember these people are refugees. They did not come to Bowling Green by choice! These people need some compassion cas’ they surely aren’t receiving it in Bowling Green!

You need to take action and write Governor Steve Beshear, Congressman Geoff Davis, Senator Mitch McConnell,
Commissioner Brian “Slim” Nash, Major Elaine Walker, Commission Joe Denning, Commissioner Catherin Hamilton, and Commissioner Bruce Wilkerson, US Campaign for Burma, USCRI and many of the Universities in Kentucky… Have the people of Bowling Green to sign and take action. This is coming from your tax $$ and mine!

The International Center (aka Western Kentucky Mutual Assistance Association) needs to be stop!! The filthy living condition they have in BG, they were better off where they came from. I’m totally humiliated that America are doing this to these refugees!!!

This is an email I sent to all of the above November 2, 2009.

“I drove 210 miles down to Bowling Green, Kentucky on Friday, October 30th, from Northern Kentucky to welcome a son of a Karenni/Burmese family I been visiting in the Thailand Refugee Camp outside Mae Hong Son, since 2003.

I stayed in the son’s apartment at Lover’s Lane for 3 days and I was horrified from what I saw and heard from the Karenni refugees in Bowling Green. I didn’t realize there were so many Karenni living in BG. They all had so many questions for me and I didn’t know how to answer any of them. I was totally dumbfounded from what I saw. I never imagined America would do this to these refugees.

The Riviera apartments on 1106 Lovers Lane and the Greenwood Villa Apartments on 1500 Bryant Way, are slum apartments loaded with cockroaches and rodents. They were totally nasty! And these apartments are charging them $500.00 a month after they land a $9.00/hr job at the chicken factory. They are not worthy to even live in. The walls and carpeting in all the apartments I went in, haven’t been cleaned in years by management!!! The owners of the apartments have to be working with the International Center for “PROFIT!!!” They honestly need to be demolished. They are unlivable!!!

On Saturday, I bombed his apartment and took the family out to trick or treat. When we came back, it took the son and I over an hour to clean up the cockroaches. It was totally disgusting!!

I was totally bewildered the whole weekend. I called the Bowling Health Department on Monday, November 2, to report the living conditions the Karenni people are living in. As I write this, I am still baffled; “where are the funds going?” It’s a total disgrace!

These people have only what they brought with them usually one luggage with their whole life in it. They do not have enough winter clothing, eating utensils & dishes, no furniture, basically nothing and winter is around the corner. I had to go out and spend close to $300.00 of my own money to buy the family the necessities and the majority of items I purchased was 2nd hand.

The whole weekend, I kept asking myself, “why would America bring these people over here if they can’t help them?” Knowing the life of a Karreni refugee camp, I feel as they had a better life in the refugee camp than living in Bowling Green, Kentucky! I drove the 3 hours back in disbelief. How can these Karreni people get help! We need to stop bringing refugees in if we cannot help them.

When I arrived home Sunday night, I had to leave my luggage out in my garage and bombed my garage in case I brought home any cockroaches. The apartments are that bad!

I searched in vain regarding the crisis in Bowling Green and this man links (“What’s going on in BG…”) below explains it exactly how life is for these Karenni people. Somebody needs to help them please!!! “

Jason, if I didn’t live 3 hours away, I’d be asking a lot of questions how is your tax $$ being used to help these people! They need help and the are not receiving it in BG!

Ask the people of BG to help them. They desperately need winter clothing. The need rides to the Asian/Thai Supermarket for food. When I walked in the son’s apartment, he had 2 coffee cups, 1 plate and 2 spoons and he has been her for over 3 weeks!! He didn’t have any furniture in his apartment and he has a wife and 2 small children.

Bowling Green needs to be ANGRY at the International Center in BG! I am!! I am driving back the 3 hours one-way again this coming weekend. Why, because no one in BG is helping them! After this family gets all their identifications, I plan on bringing them home with me. I don’t have the $$$ to support them either, though I do have the compassion. I bring them all here in Northern KY if I could.

“acorcoran” Thank you for all the time you have done with these very informative posts. Please let me know how I can help. I don’t know what more I can do besides emailing the ones above. This is all new to me and I honestly don’t know where to begin!! ~C. Flores

To C. Flores, I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow with some suggestions!

Comment worth noting: Why don’t you tell about the good side of refugee resettlement?

This is a comment from Mr. Ralph Parker writing from the Atlanta area.  He asks a question that we have answered but it’s been a long time ago, so for new readers I’ll answer again.

This is what Mr. Parker said in a comment to my post about Ethnic Community Based Organizations, here.

Why dont you look atthe web site of Refugee Family Services of stone Mountain, Georgia to see thw wondeful work they do for families. One of the grants they have is to organize ethnic comunity groups. i will be working with them to help th ehuge Bhutanese community in Atlanta organize a self help organization.

It might be more fair if you profile the great succeses refugees have had and the good things that EBCOs can do,.

Not everyone who is Muslim is a possible terrorist. I have been visiting refugees weekly for 12 years and while there are issues, you need to be more empathetic with the refugees and agencies. Faith based efforts do not work-there is just not enough to go around Agencies would prefer better and safer housing, but what can you get for the small subsidy. By the way refugee cash assistance in our state is $378. for a family of 5.Agencies are scrambling to come up with rent balances. We have an agency here doing yard sales to raise rent money. Our Indian community has paid over $20,000 to prevent evictions of Bhutanese refugees. The problem is lack of federal funding. I have spend several hundred dollas myself just for food and supplies for families.

Have you gone and visited any families?

How about telling the good side of refugee resettlement?

Mr. Parker, the “good side” of refugee resettlement is told every day across the country in mainstream publications, in pro-immigration websites, in the myriad websites created by every ethnic group, in government websites, in lectures to community groups and on and on.   Someone has to balance that news!  We are the only website I know of specifically criticizing aspects of the refugee resettlement program.

You yourself indicate and have in the past indicated that the program needs to be reformed on many levels.  Will reform ever happen if no one points out the trouble spots?  And, why do virtually none of those media and other groups promoting more refugees ever mention problems (except in passing)—because it is politically incorrect to do so and they are scared of being called names.   We aren’t afraid of people calling us names (and many have!).  

As for Muslim refugees, I think the US is making a huge mistake in resettling large numbers of Muslims, many of whom have no intention of assimilating.

Then on the ECBO (mini-ACORNs) issue.  I am a conservative and I fundamentally disapprove of taxpayer money going to set up any non-profit group.  It is an expansion of government over which taxpayers have no control and in this case is primarily a mechanism to foster separation of ethnic groups, not foster assimilation.  Why on earth does every city need a government-supported Bhutanese group, a Somali group, a Hmong group and so forth?   Each of these groups are and will demand political accommodations and will demand rights for THEIR people.  What happened to becoming Americans!

And, why should the taxpayer be expected to pay for the “charitable” work that you care about?  Should every charitable function in America be government supported?  LOL!  As I write this, I guess that is already happening as we march to socialism. 

Let me give you a ludicrous example.  I know something about animal welfare and rescue and a year or so ago an article appeared, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, that reported on a woman who had gotten in over her head with too many horses.  She was proposing in all seriousness that the government set up a program to financially help such horseowners.  So, when does it stop?  Who is going to decide whose charity is more valuable than anothers.  People who love their horses, love them more than they love refugees—so who will be deciding what is ”fair” when there is only so much taxpayer money to go around?  You might argue that it was silly of her to collect so many horses and she might argue that you have resettled too many refugees.

I won’t even touch the topic here of the fraud in these ECBO’s, I have been doing that elsewhere on these pages.

When all the pro-open borders media and groups are “fair” in their reporting, then our job will be done!

Comment worth noting: Rohingya Muslims are arriving in the US

I’ve been writing about Rohingya Muslims since I first came across an article in Time magazine that said this:

Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese military junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi training camps. And one former Burmese guerrilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them.

I posted on it almost two years ago here.   I was told we didn’t take Rohingya Muslims as part of our refugee resettlement program at that time, but now we do.  Thanks to commenter, “Knowing,” my fears have been confirmed.  Here is his/her comment and my response at this post.

They are included in the Burmese allotment that the US takes. However, it’s no secret to the US or the VOLAGS when they come. In the group of people from Burma we take are Karen (Protestant, Animist and Buddhist), Karenni (mostly Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist), Chin (Catholic, Protestant and Buddhist), Ethnic Burmese (very few right now, generally Buddhist) and Rohingya (Muslim).

So when we say we’re taking Burmese that’s really an umbrella term meaning to resettle several persecuted ethnic groups.

This is my response:

Knowing, It may not be a secret to the State Department and the volags but I know for a fact that resettlement agencies tell local people that the “Burmese are Christians.” One more little deception for the local yokels,eh. I want to scream.

Last night I was telling a reader that my driving force in writing this blog is that I believe in the principle of good government. How dare big brother arrive in local communities and lie to people. Damn it, if refugee resettlement is good for communities then all the facts should be put on the table and let the local people decide what is good for their community!

Visit our Rohingya Reports category for lots more confirmation about why this is a huge mistake.

Update moments later from “Knowing:”

Well I guess someone could be trying to pass them off as Christians but with the exception of the Nepali/Bhutanese the majority of people resettled at the moment are Muslim. So one would truly have to be a yokel to buy in to that.

A word to yokels: the internet is a vast wonderland of information.

Comment worth noting: ‘Mad in Maine’ wants to know what she can do

In response to my post this morning about another immigrant food stamp scam, this one in Utica, NY, here.    Frustrated ‘Mad in Maine,’ a lady we met a few days ago (here), is asking what she can do.

Back again and getting Madder in Maine.

We’ll pay for public defenders and use tax dollars to keep them in jail/prison. Our tax dollars are probably the money they’re going to use to bail out as well. I say send them home. If they can’t follow the rules here, they shouldn’t be here. I have to follow the rules.

This is another thing that’s really grating my cheese today. I have to budget $100 for our weekly shopping trip that will include groceries for the next week (and hopefully a few things I can put in the freezer for upcoming meals), toiletries, paper products (toilet paper, as I refuse to use leaves even in Maine) and cleaning and maintenance products. I’ve heard of some refugees (of all nationalities) using food stamps to buy grocery items that they then turn over to the resturants and shops their families/friends/neighbors own, to ultimately sell back to us!!

Mortgage payment due, car insurance due, electric bill due…I still haven’t turned the furnace on though.
And I’m about to lose another part on my old car…hopefully it will hold out until next payday.

I guess I have a really big question: Is there anything I can do to help put a stop to all of this?

Mad in Maine

First, I don’t think any one person can stop all this, look at ACORN for example, people have been investigating the fraud there for years and finally it took one daring effort by a couple of brave young people to finally push the whole issue into the mainstream.  Few of us are going to become James O’keefes or Hannah Giles, but we can do our  little bit within the framework of our lives.   My first admonition to ‘Mad’ and everyone else, is to find your role and focus like a laser on it.   I don’t know you, ‘Mad in Maine’, or what sort of person you are or how much time you have so these suggestions are for you and all of our other angry and frustrated readers to think about.

1) Write a blog.  Don’t just run your mouth with your opinions, but pick a topic and become an expert on the topic (you can still throw out your opinions!).  Research and provide a service to your readers.  Eventually, if you are patient, what you do will have an impact.  You could for instance write a blog about welfare/food stamp/home health care fraud in Maine, or the whole US.  Or, write a blog about immigration issues in Maine.  There is enough material out there for that for sure!  And, there are very few real investigative reporters anymore, so this is a sorely needed job.

Don’t be deterred by computer technology.  Blogs like this one are really simple and free.  Oh, and one more thing.  To fit blogging into your life, you can write posts as often as your schedule allows.

2)  Get involved in local and state politics.  Goodness knows you have a couple of US Senators in Maine who need their backbones stiffened from time to time.   I don’t know what city you live in, or are near, but you could get involved there too.

3)  Write letters to the editor.  I was at a meeting this past weekend and a few people told me they set google alerts for some topic (like illegal immigration) and then when they see an article, even in another state, they write a letter to the editor in response.

4)  Join a group that is fighting for the same things you are, and become involved enough to run a local chapter.  Maybe a local Tea Party, Beck’s 9/12 Project, Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and so forth.

5)  I know some people who have built e-mail lists and they send out articles daily to their lists on given topics.

6)  Here is a suggestion for the ’skulker’ personality.  Pick a subject that you are personally passionate about.  I’m thinking more about local type issues.   Dig into documents, use the Freedom of Information Act or your states open government laws, attend meetings of groups you oppose or are promoting what you object to, and basically gather information to make a case someday to expose the whole corrupt business–whatever it is.

7)  If you are someone most comfortable in a circle of local people, get together with others who have the same concerns and jointly make a plan for what you can do.

Those are just a few ideas.  But, I need to emphasize again, don’t get frustrated if you can’t work at this every minute of the day. Don’t be a gadfly either.  Pick your project, focus and know that you are doing your little piece to save America.  I hope that helps!

Comment worth noting: Johnny Simpson answers my question

In my post last night on the “Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees” I said I found it annoying that whenever I read about persecuted homosexuals in the Middle East rarely is the source of the persecution linked to Islamic ideology.  Mr. Simpson, the author of the article about Mr. Parsi, reminds me here that one doesn’t always need a shotgun to make one’s point.   I had to laugh, because I do tend to be a shotgun type of person rather than one who might choose a fine stilleto as a weapon.

Read our exchange of comments at the original post.  I appreciate Mr. Simpson’s point but do still maintain that he could work one sentence into his original article to clarify why homosexuals are persecuted (executed even!) in some Muslim countries.   It is unlikely that the audience he reaches with this story are regular readers of Jihad Watch or Atlas Shrugs for instance; and it might serve to illuminate for some why we must guard against radical Islamic thinking entering the US.

Here then is Mr. Simpson’s excellent and informative comment:

Ann, Thank you for your thoughtful response. I do share your concerns. To give you a much clearer idea of the monumental stands I have taken against radical Islam and other extremist ideologies, allow me to provide links to two of the more powerful and popular stories I have written for Digital Journal and Breitbart’s Big Hollywood blogs. I’ll start with one you may appreciate most of all:
From Digital Journal, March 29th, 2008:
RIOTING IN KARACHI, DEATH THREATS AT LIVELEAK, FITNA PULLED
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/252351

A preface on the next one. Andy Breitbart recruited me from Digital Journal in March after I went nuclear over Team Hollywood’s Tea With Ahmadinejad soiree to Iran, especially given all that was going on there. I spent most of March and April ripping AMPAS new ones at Big Hollywood and Digital Journal, and I’m an optioned screenwriter, okay? I could have just shut up and let it ride like everyone else in Hollywood, but I couldn’t keep silent in good conscience. Here is a piece that addresses President Obama’s lame handling of our nation’s worst enemies. Lotsa links to my previous pieces, FYI:
HOLLYWOOD DIPLOMACY ALL AROUND (April 11, 2009)
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/04/11/hollywood-diplomacy-all-around/

You tell me I’m not speaking out as I should. Many times with shotgun blasts as with these two, but in many other cases like my Arsham Parsi/IRQR interview, I focus like a laser on the human stories and tragedies, if you’ll pardon the Bill Clinton paraphrase.

Lastly, I wish to be crystal clear here. You may note from the FITNA piece above, and even since 9/11, that my perceptions of Muslims were not happy ones. Yet as I have been reporting all this time, I have met many fine and sane Muslims, mostly Iranian emigres, who are as sick of the terror, bloodletting and murder by the psycho Islamists as we are. Don’t forget that it is mostly innocent Muslims being mowed down in the streets of Tehran by the basiji, or suffering the worst of terror attacks all over the Middle East.

In WWII, many brave Germans risked their lives to fight the Nazis. They weren’t all SS. Decorated German war hero Field Marshall Erwin Rommel risked and lost his life to try to rid the world of Hitler. We have to be careful not to paint all Muslims with the same bloody brush. If all the one billion-plus Muslims on this earth were megalomaniacs like Osama bin Laden, this world would be a wasteland from top to bottom. They don’t want to see their children blown up by terrorists any more than we do.

Is the Middle Eastern Islamic world f*ed? You bet! Millions, as in Iran and Saudi Arabia, are basically living in the 7th Century. But I can guarantee you most would choose freedom over theocratic slavery and persecution. That said, we have to keep the Islamist killers in our sights and wipe them off the face of the earth if there is ever to be any peace on this planet.

If, for whatever reason, you may think I’m being soft on the subject, read my pieces first. I do not equivocate. I condemn the hateful as surely as I defend the innocent, be it in Iran or right here in the US. The problem with any belief system, religious or political, is extremism. Stalin was an atheist. So was Hitler. When the bodies start piling up, the belief system behind it is irrelevant, be it Atheistic Communism or radical theocratic Islam. The end results are always the same. Don’t make the same mistake they do in seeing all of us as the enemy.

’nuff said. I hope this all answers your questions and concerns. A bit winded perhaps, but you made some very thoughtful points, and I tried to respond in kind. I believe we are mostly in agreement. If radical Islamist extremists move here and kick up sh*t in the West, send ‘em back I say. And isn’t it the extremism of the Left I rant about in my FITNA piece right where you are?

Best, Johnny Simpson.

P.S. Pajamas Media CEO and founder Roger Simon requested a PJTV interview with me and Arsham Parsi by email last night after reading the IRQR post you linked here. We can knock ‘em down one at a time too, you know

Comment worth noting: Mad in Maine!

Update October 5th:  Mad in Maine is back with a good comment and some questions, here.

I don’t know ‘Mad in Maine,’ but I’m glad she took time to write to us today.  We set up the category—comments worth noting— some time ago so that comments like this one wouldn’t get lost tacked onto the end of a post most readers wouldn’t see in a few days.  ‘Mad’ is commenting to my post this morning questioning why “immigrant concerns” are on a higher moral plane then concerns for our own people.  My contention is that the political Leftwing is using the immigrants/refugees as pawns for a larger political agenda and they have studied Alinsky well and know that their agenda (to destabilize communities and bring socialism) cannot succeed unless they wrap it in morally superior badgering of the rest of us to keep us silent.

“Mad’ tells us something about the growing sentiment in states with large and ever-expanding immigrant populations.   And, it isn’t just the immigrants, the government at all levels seems to have been taken over by Radicals!

This whole thing is making me crazy. I’ve been reading the posts on this site for months and my anger and frustration continues to grow.

I’m seeing more and more refugees coming into Maine, accessing state funded services, having more and more children and I’m paying for it all. I won’t even start on the home care fraud issue.

I like to think I’m educated. I’m a licensed professional and have first hand knowledge of how the refugees effect the financial stability of any community.

We have 25% of our income taken out for required deductions that help fund programs that I will NEVER GET TO ACCESS!!! I can’t afford medical insurance. My husband is a diabetic and it’s cheaper for me to pay out of pocket for his medical expenses than to pay for the insurance benefits; which, by the way, only seem to “benefit” the insurance company. I haven’t seen a doctor myself in 5 years. I can’t even begin to discuss dental needs.

We’re barely making ends meet, but I do have a house that I can say is mine (actually the bank still owns it for another 10 years, so I shouldn’t shake the cage). We have to use CASH to buy groceries and pay the utilities. We drive older cars because we can’t afford new ones, and do most of any necessary repairs ourselves. I won’t run the furnace until the very last minute because I have to pay CASH for heating fuel.

Our children are now all over 18, but because they’re not homeless, not pregnant, but are trying to find work or go to college, they can’t even access Mainecare as a Maine resident. I’m told that they are my responsibility until they’re at least 23 years old.

But the refugees keep coming. They have Mainecare, they get food stamps, they get subsidized housing and I’ve heard, only second hand information, don’t bite my head off, that many of them are getting full funding to attend college. They continue to have more and more children, although we stopped with 3 because that’s all we could support. Now our tax dollars are supporting their children, not ours. If you can’t find a job here, go to another state where you might find one. If you can’t find one there, move on. I’ll have to if the time comes.

I’m paying taxes on everything in this state. I’m sure they’re even going to find a way to tax the air that I breath.

Unfortunately, I’ll keep paying and paying and paying and when the time comes for me to “retire”, probably at age 104 the way the economy is going, there will be none of MY contributed money left and I’ll be living in a card board box under a bridge in Bangor.

I’m not racist. I don’t care what color you are or where you come from. I love that the world is made up of many different types of people. I don’t care what religion a person is, but when my own children can’t hang a Christmas decoration at school while some of the refugees are getting access to seperate boy/girl gyms and special prayer rooms and the school children are being asked to limit what they bring for lunch…enough. Assimilate. Have your religion in your home or church, not in the school my taxes pay for.

I’m tired. I’m frustrated. The government seems to be going to hell and there doesn’t seem to be anything that can make it right.

This current administration is acting like a teenage girl who got daddy’s credit card. Enough. Enough. Enough.
Let’s start helping ourselves before we reach out to help others.

Mad In Maine

I had just now finished watching Glenn Beck.  He had on “Moms” who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore and I came to the computer to check out a new website Asamom.org when I saw ‘Mad’s’ comment.  If you are feeling like ‘Mad’ check it out and know that you are not alone.  These women are connecting on-line nationally and in their communities too—-that will be the first step in taking our towns and cities back from the Radicals.

Comment worth noting: Muslim countries need to take care of their own refugees

Below is a comment from a reader in Denmark with further clarification on the issue of Iraqi asylum seekers being deported to Iraq, an issue we posted on here two days ago.

From Universalgeni:

I live in Denmark and have followed the cases about these Iraqis very closely. The fact of the matter is that the Iraqis in issue here have had their applications for official refugee status reviewed over and over and over again by the authorities. And none of them are in any danger what so ever. No one is persecuting them and they were and still will be perfectly safe in Iraq.

That’s basically the case: they want to immigrate and are trying to use fraud, lies and false refugee applications to get into our country.

The leftish Danish press continue to name these illegal immigrants refugees or asylum seekers. And claim that the occasional bomb explosions in Iraq should be grounds for asylum.

But the Danish laws says no. And I agree. We can’t continue to let so many foreigners in. Here’s a choker: 20 percent of what we pay in tax is used to cover expenses directly connected to immigration. One in every five Danish tax krone’s is spent on primarily immigrant muslims. People can’t afford children of their own because we have to pay for theirs via taxes. Most of the muslim immigrants are impossible to get off public welfare payments and into the labor market.

It’s enough. The muslim world should start handling the refugee situation themselves. They should go to other muslim countries. Not Europe. Period!

We have made this same point repeatedly, Muslim countries must begin to take care of Muslim refugees and asylum seekers.

Comment worth noting: How the Sierra Club became an advocate for open borders

It’s only in the last couple of weeks, thanks to Glenn Beck’s research, that I have come to understand what happened to the environmental movement that I left in the late 1970’s.  I knew then that many of the leaders of the movement were changing and that concern for the environment and a love of the outdoors and nature’s beauty was no longer the driving concern—the movement had become a radical leftwing movement that was using people’s genuine concern for open space and clean air and water as a club to gather more control at the federal government level and taking away property rights as well.  Power and money seemed to be the twin engines that drove the movement.

(I wrote about the connection between immigration and environmentalists here earlier in the summer.  Note the Tides Foundation involvement.)

Now, we see in coalitions like the Apollo Alliance the melding of radical leftists and assorted socialist and communist political activists including union leaders with mainstream environmental groups, most notably the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) . See the Apollo Alliance board here (and listed below*) 

You are judged by the friends you keep.

By joining forces with the likes of the American Center for Progress (which wants to airlift over 100,000 Iraqis to the US this year) and SEIU (looking for immigrant dues-paying members and organizing Somalis),the Sierra Club cannot claim a neutral position on immigration. 

To “change” America into the kind of country Alinskyite Obama wants, one must import millions of poor immigrants to fuel the crisis which in turn brings “change.”  The Sierra Club and NRDC have joined forces with groups advocating open borders, the redistribution of wealth and one-world governance.   Do their nature-loving members really want that?  I doubt it.

Any thoughtful person knows that the greatest threat to the quality of life we have experienced in America is uncontrolled immigration.  See the NumbersUSA clip here and read the CIS report here, if you don’t believe me.   The majority of population growth in the US will be from immigrants between now and 2050 and they will need homes, schools, roads, cars and water among other things—all will strain an already overloaded environmental carrying capacity.

The other day I wrote about how the Sierra Club is part of the Open Borders movement and reader Paul Nachman tells us how that came about in a comment to that post.

From Mr. Nachman:

Inspired by this RRW entry, on 8/30/09 I left Mr. Green the following questions, mentioning that I’ve been a Sierra Club member continuously from 1975:

“In March, 2009 you wrote: ‘The simplest answer to your question about the Sierra Club’s immigration policy is that the Club’s members voted overwhelmingly some time ago to remain neutral on this issue.’ So how about a disquisition by you on how the Club violated its own bylaws in conducting that 1998 election? Then segue over to a review about the implications and consequences of Gelbaum’s $100-million donation.”

 

Of course, I could supply the answers myself. I just want to see how Mr. Green responds, if he responds at all.

Here are my answers:

1. The Club violated its own bylaws in 1998 by refusing to give our ballot question, which said something like “Should the Club return to its prior-to-1996 policy position that the U.S. should reduce both immigration and natural fertility?” a straight up or down vote.  According to the bylaws, every such question should be presented to the membership in the form of a “Yes” or “No” vote. Instead, the Club paired our question with one of the “leadership’s” own devising to the effect, “Let’s keep the post-1996 policy, which forbids anyone in the Club even talking (while speaking for the Club) about immigration as an environmental issue.” And the ballot simply gave members a choice between those two questions. So, for example, if you disliked **both** approaches, you couldn’t indicate that by voting “No” on each one. This violation of the bylaws wasn’t a close call, either. It’s black and white.

Endorsers for the position that the Club should resume talking about immigration as an environmental problem included world-class luminaries with great enviro credentials, such as David Brower, Brock Evans, Galen Rowell, Gaylord Nelson, and George F. Kennan. Endorsers for the “leadership’s” position included, besides the nonentities on the Club’s national board of directors, anonymities like the head of the Club’s Nebraska chapter, etc.

In the vote, we “insurgents” lost 40% to 60%, a margin narrow enough that it apparently terrified the Club’s “leadership.” So they pulled out all stops in several following Club national elections between 1999 and 2004 to absolutely smear the insurgent candidates who ran for the board. People like Dick Lamm (former Colorado governor, founding member of the NAACP chapter at Berkeley, …) and Prof. Frank Morris (one-time director of the Congressional Black Caucus) were mercilessly smeared as racists, nativists, xenophobes … probably mother- and father-rapers in some circles, too.

2. During the 2004 campaign wherein he ran for the Club’s national board, Dick Lamm (who’d served several terms in the Colorado state senate and three as governor) said that he’d never experienced such a dirty campaign, and he wondered what was behind it — like a lot of money? Turns out, his intuition was dead on. Investor David Gelbaum had promised, around 1995, to donate about $100 million to the Sierra Club, but only if they stopped talking about immigration: “I did tell Carl Pope [Club executive director] in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me.” If you want to read more about this, start here.   The “funny” thing [ha ha] was that the Club capitulated to a demand made for reasons that had nothing to do with the environment. Gelbaum just said that restricting immigration would dishonor the memory of his immigrant grandfather. How could environmental concerns stand up against a bedrock principle like that?

In fact, with $100 million on the line, the Club can certainly be persuaded to ignore environmental concerns! After all, the organization’s primary mission obviously takes a back seat to the organization’s indefinite perpetuation (the first law of bureaucracies).

Sierra Club motto: “Think globally, and do nothing.”

More on Gelbaum

David Gelbaum gave $33,100 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 here.  No surprise!

Then here is a link to an article about Carl Pope stepping down as Executive Director of the Sierra Club but becoming its chairman. It’s the comments to this article that are so interesting– many about the Club being more concerned about raking in the dough then taking care of the environment, with good links for further study.

Learn more about David Gelbaum and his “secretive” Quercus Trust, here.  You will see why someone like Gelbaum would benefit greatly from the Obama Administration and its “green” tecnology.  Gelbaum likely supports the work of the Apollo Alliance—it’s all about money and power afterall.

* Apollo Alliance Board of Directors as of September 1st.  Please note that Van Jones was on this Board until March of this year, here.  So, Sierra Club and NRDC head honchos hang with avowed communist revolutionaries—interesting isn’t it?

Chairman
Phil Angelides, Chairman, Canyon Johnson Urban Communities Fund
Members
Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council (see Discover the Networks on the Prospect Hill Foundation, here)
Robert Borosage, President, Institute for America’s Future
Leo Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers Union
Gerald Hudson, International Executive Vice President, Service Employees International Union
Mindy Lubber, President, CERES
Nancy McFadden, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for PG&E Corporation
Kathleen McGinty, former Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
Terence M. O’Sullivan, General President, Laborers’ International Union of North America
Ellen Pao, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Michael Peck, Principal, MAPA Incorporated
John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress
Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club
Dan W. Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google
Joel Rogers, Director, Center on Wisconsin Strategy

Comment worth noting: Peter Huston responds

If you are just arriving at RRW and don’t know what this is all about, please read last night’s post first, here.   Mr. Huston whose blog I quoted has sent this very thoughtful and interesting reponse to my post and our ‘comments worth noting’ category is especially appropriate for a comment such as this one that shouldn’t be lost in the bowels of this blog where readers might never see it. 

If I were to have a conversation in person with Mr. Huston it would be a long one because he says so many things that interest me, but I will have a few brief comments at the end.  Here is Mr. Huston:

Ann, 

First let me say that although I disagree with much of what you say, I think it’s good that you say it. As you said recently in your post where you introduced people to my blog, “Let the debate begin.” And the more debate, the more discussion there is, the more likely it is that a complete range of views and a full set of facts is likely to emerge. You write about important issues and you bring to light important problems, problems that I hope will be corrected in part through your efforts.

Secondly, let me say that although I disagree with many of Una Hardester’s opinions, and at times I do think she makes the mistake of presenting her opinions as facts and seeing them as such, I hope we will all agree that the world needs people who are willing to work and work hard to make things better. And, I think we will all agree that Una is such a person, just as you are.

Therefore let me just clarify that I am not an expert on the program or what happened with Artan Serjanej. I believe what I wrote is correct but my real interest in this case is how to prevent domestic violence against refugee women, as well as other domestic violence victims, male, female, foreign and domestic. Should people consider it important to find out what really happened with Mr. Serjanej and this program I expect that he should be easy to contact as he is an attorney and therefore should be licensed with the American Bar Association. I do not plan to do so, but suggest that anyone who actually wishes to judge this situation and evaluate it completely should make an attempt to get both sides of the story. I have never met Mr. Serjanej. I have never attended the program under discussion. I based my comments only the newspaper reports and Una’s responses and not on any particular insider knowledge.

My impression is that it would have been better to try to work with him, as a 43 year old former refugee turned attorney willing to volunteer does sound like a very valuable addition to a refugee center, particularly one with a high turnover rate among volunteers as this one does. But never having met the man, I cannot really say if that is the case or not. 

What I will say is that idealism is a double edged sword. Through idealism you get people like Una who are willing to work, work hard, and work for free to help refugees and make the world a better place. On the other hand, as someone who feels very strongly that the prevalence and form of domestic violence, like any other human activity, can and is shaped in part by culture, a statement that from what I understand Una disagrees with (Una correct me please if I mis-state your views here, as if I have to tell you . . . ), I also think that the very idealism that causes people to work with refugees sometimes gets in the way of them arriving at an accurate assessment of what is needed to help them. Which is why we need a constructive discussion as part of the debate on these issues and I thank you, Ann, for helping to foster one.

As I allude to briefly on my blog, when I was 23, and was an idealistic young peace activist, I went off to Taiwan to see the world and teach English. I found it an eye-openingly unpleasant experience in some ways. For instance, it forced me to realize that my political views were often naive and unrealistic. For instance, I actually remember having a mild argument with a young Costa Rican policeman who was in Taiwan for counter-insurgency warfare training to resist Sandinista incursions on his border. (Costa Rica is an unusual nation in that it has no army and therefore uses the police for this task.) I began by asserting that he could not possibly understand the political situation in Central America, a place I had never and still have not visited but where he lived, as he disagreed with my views which were the ones most intelligent people I knew home in the USA held and, furthermore, asserted that the Sandinistas could not be crossing his border and killing his people and they did not do such things. Make a long story short, he won by claiming to have seen the bodies, and we wound up getting drunk together and watching bootleg porno tapes that he had borrowed from a friend as a Costa Rican leftist woman insisted that these tapes were a sign of the corruption that America brought to the world but she got shouted down to as they were her tapes and she had brought them.

Which probably has nothing to do with anything at all but I hope you will agree makes an interesting story.

On the other hand, this experience also opened my eyes to other things too. For instance at the time, should one wish, in Taiwan you could actually visit an area of Taipei where prostitution was legal and one could see the girls standing outside the brothels put on view for customers. And I choose the word girls consciously as they were often about 14 and, being Asian, looked even younger, and in some cases were. (When the brothel owners purchased a pre-pubescent girl, they would actually forcibly inject her with hormones to speed up the onset of menarche and the development of breasts.) Although this sort of thing is much less common in Taiwan today, and forced underground instead of being done openly, this is also among the actual fates and hazards that women refugees in southeast Asia face today.

And when I think that for each Burmese woman newly arrived in the United States who I’ve laughed, joked with and tutored in English there’s another one somewhere in the world who is in forced sexual slavery somewhere in a dark room in Southeast Asia, it makes me feel ill until I stop that thought and move on to something else.

Ann, I know we agree that the refugee resettlement system in the USA needs a closer examination and discussion, and I know you believe that the less money spent on resettling refugees the better, and I know you and I disagree over the numbers to bring here, but I hope we can focus our energies on how best to focus and guide the energies of young, idealistic volunteers to best give real assistance to the refugees who are here now instead of merely mocking them, a practice that I foolishly started on my blog because I was distracted by concern for someone who is in a bad situation.

Anyway, morals of the story (or stories):

1) I am not an authority on the problem between Serjanej and this program although I described events as I understood them.

2) I was very upset when I wrote that as someone I care about, a refugee, is still enmeshed in a domestic violence situation and I am concerned about her emotional and physical well-being and therefore was low on patience. I feel as though with you and Una Hardester and others focusing much energy on words that I wrote, many of which were poorly chosen and poorly typed, you are forgetting that there is an actual, living, breathing person out there who is in trouble and in a very ugly situation and that she is not alone and that there are many refugees who are in similar situations who are not aware of where to turn for help, and these things are difficult even when the people involved know where to turn for help. I hope you will join me in praying that all turns out well for her.

3) Yes, young idealists sometimes do foolish things but what would the world be like without them? Of course, they need guidance, but their drive and energy is unparalleled.

4) Don’t listen to Costa Rican leftist women when they insult your country for watching the bootleg American porno tapes which they owned, brought to the gathering and then personally placed in the V.C.R.

5) Please remember that although the issue is complex, and we must care for our own needs too, the refugees who come here come here because their previous situation was often worse that most Americans can imagine.

I hope we can assist each other in coming up with positive solutions and proposals for real complex problems. 

Peter Huston

Ann’s response:

I could write a book in response, but because I don’t have all week or even all morning, Mr. Huston’s comment gives me an opportunity to repeat some of my core beliefs on the refugee program.  It would be better if I could relate them to Mr. Huston’s points in his comment but since I am short on time, here they are:

First, culture matters, not everyone in the world wants to come to the US and be like us, many want to come and bring some very bad aspects of their culture here.   The problem is then compounded when many in the refugee industry have adopted this idea of cultural relativism.  A prime example of that in recent times has been the discussion on female genital mutilation.  Believe it or not, there are some supposed women intellectuals in the US who believe that the heinous practice is none of our business.  And beyond even the tolerance issue on our part is the issue that some cultures will simply refuse to accept our values.  Muslims, for the most part, are here to change America.

I bet the decision to shut down Mr. Serjanej’s program came from the top of USCRI because what he is saying doesn’t fit their political agenda—to hell with whether it might save some women from abuse.  And, by the way, this is the sort of thing that has puzzled me from day one—-refugee welfare is not the first concern of the big volags.

I also believe strongly that local American citizens have rights too—they have a right to say that they like the culture they grew up with and want to preserve it without being told they are “racists” or “xenophobes.”  They should be given a say about the direction some federal program is taking their community.

Then there is the question of sheer numbers, we simply cannot absorb the millions who wish to come here without destroying what we have, so those few we do invite should be people eager to take advantage (advantage in the best sense of the word) the many opportunities a free society offers.  Please watch the NumbersUSA link at the top of this page to see what I mean.

The third core point I want to make is that the Refugee Resettlement Program is seriously flawed.   It is not good government policy to hand out millions of tax dollars each year to unaccountable non-profit groups.  We plan at RRW to continue to show examples of the fraud and corruption that I believe is woven throughout the program to the detriment of the refugees and the taxpayer.

And, finally, there is some bigger motive afoot here.  This isn’t just a bunch of do-gooders at the highest levels of government pushing for more immigrants to get into the US because they themselves love America and want to share it with the world.  Those true humanitarians working in the refugee community are being duped and the refugees are the pawns.  This is about doing away with borders and creating a world government—ostensibly a socialist one where ‘brilliant’ elitists will tell all of the rest of us riffraff how to live our lives. And, they, the elitists, are happy to keep us busy talking about who is being a good person to whom.   Ask Una’s big boss at USCRI, she knows what I’m talking about.

Mr. Huston, heartfelt thanks for your comment!

Comment worth noting: Need temporary stop to resettlement

This is a comment from Ralph Parker who apparently works with refugees in the Atlanta area.  This is what he says about the robbery of a Bhutanese refugee girl which I reported yesterday here.

Wanted to update your readers. I have been a volunteer with the family whose daughter was robbed at gunpoint.

Finally the resettlement agency is going to move the 4 families in the unsafe apartment and area they are in. There are 2 other families whose agency has not responded to a request to move their clients to a safer place.

All the Bhutanese families in this complex want to move. There was no excuse for 3 refugee agencies placing people in an apartment complex with almost a one mile walk to public transportation. The facts are that in urban America there are no safe areas, when apartments are concerned for low income folks. Even the place where they are moving has had problems but is better and there will be 30+ Bhutanese families there. We estimate a Bhutanese population of 1200-1500 in Atlanta and we will have the largest Bhutanese population in America. There is still about 50% unemployment and there have been evictions.

I agree the program is seriously flawed and we need to have a temporary stop to resettleemnt. As you can imagine the girl was quite shaken as were all the families. They knew we were having economic issues but assumed they would be safe in America. Given our large population, we haven’t suffered like Jacksonville as there have been only a few incidents but it will get worse.

As I have stated before, the Bhutanese are the most special group I have worked with in my 12 years as a volunteer. They are so humble and spiritual. I encourage your readers to actually meet and work with a family.

I understand concerns about other ethnic groups, but this one is so different as case workers can attest to.

Mr. Parker, some years back (I’m still tracking down the link) the Atlanta paper did an investigation about refugees being placed in apartment buildings that just happened to be owned by resettlement agency bigwigs.   Is there any evidence of this practice still going on as a possible explanation for why agencies are placing refugees in certain buildings?  The only other plausible explanation is that they are cheap and want to use as little of their own funds as possible.

The only plausible reason the resettlement agencies (well, the top ten contractors who hire the local resettlement agencies anyway) to continue to encourage as a big a stream of refugees to the US as they can get is because their funding (from the taxpayer) is linked to how many refugees they resettle—they are paid by the head.   It is all about the quantity they bring in and not about the quality of life for refugees.

For quality of life and how it could be, readers, go here, and see what I said about how refugee resettlement could be done. And, here is the link to the group’s blog, Refugee Resettlment Support.  These folks will bring a smile to your face.