Rumors abound as Tyson Foods continues to send mixed messages

The Times-Gazette in Shelbyville, TN has a new story today laying out the time line of the developing story we first posted here before Christmas about an alleged terror threat at the Tyson Foods meatpacking plant, the same plant we have been writing about for years!

T-G Reporter Brian Mosely asks about the mixed messages coming out of company with a suggestion that maybe bloggers (!) wouldn’t be speculating about what exactly happened if Tyson’s spokesmen would come out with the whole truth.   Mosely gives us a time line of who said what and when, then concludes:

If the alleged graffiti did not include the reported threatening words, what exactly was written that would require the involvement of federal authorities? And which federal agency is now looking into this matter?

But if the graffiti was harmless and not threatening, why not release the contents of the message to the public?

Doing so would go a long way in stifling the rumor mill and putting worried residents at ease.

Had Tyson Foods given a full explanation of what allegedly occurred in the facility, we seriously doubt that Nashville’s NBC affiliate would have wasted valuable holiday air time on a story based on a second-hand rumor about what someone supposedly wrote on a bathroom wall.

Instead, the lack of disclosure over what appears to be a minor case of vandalism has only incited more speculation and rumor over what goes on inside the plant.

Read it all.

Yes, indeed! Time for the whole story!

Rumor: The federal government supplements some refugee salaries

A reader sent me this e-mail yesterday, and I don’t know the answer.  Maybe one of you do.

[Recently] I got a call from someone who had a small business some years back. He told me a refugee approached him for a job at that time and said he (the refugee) could work for $4.00 an hour as the federal govt would kick in the rest up to the minumum wage.

This is something I have heard for years – and it seems Tyson worked something with Clinton, but I never heard specifics on it other than claims such as the one above.

If you know if this is true or not, please let us know.  Either comment directly to this post or e-mail me privately at the address in the right hand column.

Episcopal Migration Ministries lobbies for more money, forget meaningful reform

Episcopal Migration Ministries held its annual conference in Washington, DC recently so that they could lobby Congress for more money for the refugee program.  They call it “reforming” the program but I have doubts we will see any meaningful reform anytime soon—it’s all about the funding stupid.

Before I proceed with more of this recent news about the lobbying campaign, I remind readers that critics of the financially struggling Episcopal Church USA claim the church is staying afloat with the money it receives for refugee resettlement.  See a post here, in March, that is the second post we’ve written on the subject.  I don’t know if its true, but it warrants looking into.   The first reform we should be demanding is that the volags (supposedly voluntary agencies) undergo regular rigorous financial audits.  Readers are probably surprised to learn that there are no financial audits required at this time.

From Episcopal News Service:

The U.S. Department of State works with and funds 11 volunteer agencies — five of them faith-based, including EMM — and the State of Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services to resettle refugees in the United States. Each year, Congress and the president determine the number of refugees permitted to resettle in the U.S.; for 2010 they set the ceiling at 95,000.

What?  Where did we pick up an extra 15,000 refugees for FY2010?  The Presidential Determination letter for 2010 put the ceiling at 80,000 (the highest number since before 9/11)!   And, by the way, the State of Iowa has dropped out of the refugee program and a Kurdish volag has stepped in to bring refugees to your town (see links in this post).

Throughout the four-day conference, EMM offered training for its frontline staff, including job development in today’s economy and church co-sponsorship, and in areas specific to its partners, the Department of State and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Eric P. Schwartz gave the conference’s keynote address April 14 and praised EMM and its affiliates for their work.

“Your ministries and your network are important partners in refugee protection,” he said. “In the last fiscal year you resettled some 5,000 refugees through 31 affiliates in 21 states, which is a marked increase from previous years, and you are managing your network responsibly through opening offices in new locations, all during a very difficult economic period,” he said.

Schwartz also talked about the doubling of the reception and placement grant — $900 to $1,800 — passed by Congress for 2010. But, as important as the funding increase is in addressing refugees’ immediate needs — a roof, a clean bed and basic assistance — more still needs to be done for refugees. To that end, Schwartz said, it’s important for the State Department and resettlement partners to “stay the course.”

“The White House is leading a comprehensive effort to review the resettlement program and we will remain deeply engaged in this enterprise,” he said. “We will be working closely with the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services to secure additional job training, education, cash and medical assistance in the months that follow reception and placement.”

The White House reform is a joke!

There isn’t any real reform coming from the White House whose main mission is to make it easier for more refugees and asylees to get into the US (more voters!) and to redistribute wealth.   They don’t care about the biggest problem they have—too many refugees (immigrants) causing stress for communities and potentially social unrest (remember crisis brings change!) like the extreme kind in Los Angeles yesterday (here too) and resettlement agencies running amok mostly because they are overloaded and unmonitored and simply demanding more money, more money, more money!

Cities have reached their capacity to absorb more needy people and the powers that be have no way of knowing what that capacity is.  Rumors are circulating that some locations have told Schwartz’s shop in the State Department to stop sending refugees.  We know for sure that Fredericksburg, VA is one of those and San Antonio, TX  and Boise, ID officials were expressing the same concern just in the last few weeks.  How many more are there?

So how do the powers in Washington assess a community’s capacity to take in more refugees—they don’t, and they don’t have a clue how to go about it.  I do!

Reform suggestions from me

Regular readers know that this is a reform proposal I’ve been harping on for years.  We need social and economic impact studies done for each city or town that is, or is proposed to be, a resettlement city.   This federal study would be patterned after the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) required by the National Environmental Policy Act which requires that when a major federal action is proposed for a location a public hearing is held and all pertinent information is reported to the public.  A finding is made as to whether the impact on the community is significant.  In the case of the EIS a determination might be made to not proceed with the project.

I envision a similar study for resettlement cities.   Economic factors such as job availability, housing, medical care, schools etc. would be incorporated in the study.  Public input would be obtained.  Contrary to the present view that resettlement should be done in secrecy so that citizens won’t be able to object, a full public debate on how many refugees will be brought to a community and from where they might originate will cause less social unrest then the sneaky strategy employed today.

I repeat:  if the State Department and the volags cannot sell the program to the community with all the facts on the table then maybe it’s not a good fit for the community!

The strategy employed obviously since the inception of the Refugee Act of 1980—keep pouring refugees into certain cities until people scream—stinks!    It’s not good for the refugees and it’s not good for social cohesion.

If at the conclusion of the initial Social and Economic Impact study it was determined how many refugees a city (town, county) could manage, only that number would be resettled.  After a given period of time —three years, five years(?)— a new study would be ordered that would determine whether the city had the capacity to continue at that level or be increased or decreased based on changing economic and social conditions.

And, of course, I continue to suggest we remove all the middlemen volags from the program—-it should be run through the State Department and each State’s refugee agency.  All the churches and other caring groups could provide true charity by giving their own time and private resources to the refugees.  They just would no longer handle the taxpayers’ money.

Comments worth noting: It’s clear that you are anti-immigrant

Yesterday I posted on the ‘rumor’ that a new volag was being created by the US State Department—Kurdish Human Rights Watch.

We received two comments about this that were posted on a differant post (this one).  So that readers don’t overlook them, here they are below:

From reader “Handren:”

It’s clear that you are anti-immigrant, but my question is where did you come from, who are your ancestors? Are you a Native American? Since they are the only natural inhabitants of this land before immigrants came.

Now aside from that, in this country as you are aware, people need organizations such as the Kurdish Human Rights Watch to provide them with assistance to provide the American system.* They need to understand where to go to look for a job, where to go to find safe housing and where does one go to get additional education, where do you go for culturally and linguistically appropriate health services. That is where the wonderful and helpful staff of the Kurdish Human Rights Watch, come in, wherever they may be, in Virginia, California, Michigan, Tennessee, Washington state and I happen to know of their additional offices in Texas and Portland that due to the bad economy had to be closed down.

Many people including non-immigrants or non-refugees recieve services from KHRW, they do it gladly because they are compassionate and caring people. They have housed American families and their children in their housing program, helped companies working in Iraq (free of charge) provided assistance to the military and other government entities in Iraq and in the US.

I can’t say enough about them, I can’t emphasize how important their work is, you may hate immigrants and refugees but organizations like the Kurdish Human Rights Watch saves lives. Enough with the hatred, enough with the immigrant and refugee bashing. Get a life, love someone!

* To teach them how to get all their welfare benefits and become politically active?   And, we the taxpayer should pay for that?

Reader “Angello Costa” said this:

Mustafa Al-Karadaghi was the founder of KHRW. No name was changed. This is a great organization that has provided assistance to all kinds of individuals and families in 7 different states. This is also an organization that cares. Many of their clients are non-Kurds, non-refugees and non-immigrants, but low-income individuals (including African American and Caucasians) who live in Fairfax County, California, Texas, Seattle, Michigan, Portland, Maryland, and Tennessee [See Kurdish gangs in Nashville, here-ed]. They have done so with little funding and bidding on contracts, and winning fair and square contracts to provide these services. Nothing was given to them. They won like any other non-profit who bids on an open announcement.

Angelo, it is still not clear, if no name has been changed who is Dr. Pary Karadaghi?  A relative of Mustafa?

Let me be clear.  I have nothing against a group of Kurdish immigrants organizing themselves.  But, from the standpoint of fiscally conservative government policy my objection is to ANY NON-PROFIT GROUP THAT LIVES OFF TAXPAYERS (OTHER PEOPLE’S) MONEY!   LOL! Judy would say I’m shouting, using all capital letters, yes, I am!

 

A new volag? A Kurdish federal government contractor?

Update March 5th:  Two comments on this post were posted elsewhere at RRW, so I’ve highlighted them as ‘comments worth mentioning’ here.

I’m posting this in our ‘rumors’ category!   There is a story going around that instead of doing away with the volags (supposedly voluntary government refugee contractors) something I advocate, we are now adding a new one! 

The word is that it is Kurdish Human Rights Watch, see their website here.  By the looks of the activities at their website, they are already getting federal funding.  Yup!  Sure enough, a check of their most recent Form 990 (2008) tells us they are primarily funded with your tax dollars already!  Of their funds reported that year, $2,115,881 is from you–the taxpayer– and only $15,555 is from individual donations. 

But, they still were in the ‘red.’  The two principle employees Pary Karadaghi and Jacque Wilson actually pitched in their own money in the form of a loan to “pay bills.”

So, if this outfit becomes a Volag —number 10, they will be given refugees to resettle (presumably any religion and any ethnicity), paid by the head (which has now been doubled by the Obama Administration) and I expect they will have their DC-area headquarters office paid for (by you!) like so many of the other Top Ten (now nine) maybe-ten-again-soon federal contractors. 

If any readers can shed light on this rumor, it would be greatly appreciated!  If this is to be volag number 10, then readers might wish to check out the cities listed at their site where they are already located and presumably now will be resettling more refugees (to compete with existing contractors).

Addendum:    Who are these people?  I was just searching around a little and every time I typed in Kurdish Human Rights Watch at the Virginia Secretary of States Office I came up with no documentation on KHRW, but instead it took me to something called Global Community Partners incorporated in 1991 by Jacque Wilson. 

A little legal problem popped up for Mr. Al-Karadaghi in 1999 when he had a judgement against Kurdish Human Rights Watch for not having workman’s compensation.  But, I notice his name in court documents is Mustafa Al-Karadaghi.  So where does the Dr. Pary Karadaghi name come in–is Pary a son or daughter of Mustafa or are they one and the same?  If so, why change names?

Also note that Dr. Pary Karadaghi is advocating for more Iraqi refugees (what else) to come to the US, here when we know they are not finding employment and some wish to go home to Iraq.   And, they, at KHRW, would surely be happy to resettle them—for a price!

Gaza refugee rumor has eternal life

Last January President Obama signed a Presidential Determination about refugees in Gaza. Its purpose was to send $20 million in aid to  Gazans who had suffered in the war with Israel. (Would he ever send aid for the traumatized Israeli children who lived under constant bombardment by rockets from Gaza? Fat chance!) An email has been circulating ever since, saying that this order meant that we were bringing hundreds of thousands of Hamas members into the United States, probably because the funds were directed to “urgent refugee and migration needs.” “Refugees” refers to the people in Gaza, who have been awarded perpetual refugee status, unlike all other refugees around the world. “Migration” is not the same as immigration; it refers to people moving around over there, not coming here.

I’ve been seeing references to this inaccurate email since the directive was signed. The rumor was so widespread that Senator Jon Kyl sponsored an amendment based on it, and had to withdraw the amendment when he realized it was false.

Lately it seems to be reviving; I’ve been seeing more references to it. Today I saw a blog post that simply reproduced the email — or rather, an embellished version of it that added another mistake: that HR 1388 was passed behind our backs (this happened in February and was reported on widely) and that this bill about volunteerism had a stealth measure about bringing Hamas members here. So I thought I’d better deal with this issue again, in case our readers are coming across this nonsense. If you want to see the wrongheaded blog post, here it is, though I hate to give such an incompetent blogger any traffic.

Here is the comment I left there. As of this writing it has not been approved, so let’s see if “Compass” can redeem himself by issuing a correction. Responsible journalists who repeated the rumor have corrected themselves when I informed them of the error.

This post is completely inaccurate. You are conflating two different things. HR 1388 was passed last January and became law in April. It is about volunteerism and has nothing to do with Palestinian refugees. See this.

Obama signed the Presidential Determination about the Palestinians in January. It was a reaction to the Gaza-Israel war and was meant to provide aid IN GAZA. The information is based on an inaccurate email that apparently is still circulating. I have written on the issue extensively on my blog, Refugee Resettlement Watch; here is one post.  Snopes also deals with it accurately here.  The Snopes account also mentions the conflation of HR 1388 with the Presidential Determination.

So, whoever you are, Compass Blog, you have just reproduced an old and inaccurate email with any fact-checking at all. Your supposed link to the Federal Register doesn’t work, so you probably didn’t even click on it yourself, just left it in the email you copied. You give blogging a bad name.

Obama has done many terrible things, and is set to do many more. He is the worst president ever by far, an enemy of America and all we stand for. Perpetuating false rumors does not help the fight against him; it just makes his opponents look silly and ignorant.

I will add that since this memo was signed in January we have not seen any refugees from Gaza come here, in case you need a further fact check. And it wouldn’t make sense anyway. Obama is an enemy of Israel and would want its foes to remain where they are. They can’t fight Israel from our land, whereas in Gaza they can continue to prepare for their final solution. Much of the aid money flowing into Gaza goes right to Hamas, as we reported here.

Update 10/16/09: The offending blog did not post my comment. Contrast that with Phyllis Chesler and Michael Ledeen who made corrections based on the information I sent them. That’s the difference between serious writers and sensationalist bloggers.

170 Bhutanese resettled in New York City

The New York Times reported this week about the new lives of Bhutanese/Nepalese refugees resettling in the Bronx.   These 170 resettled by the International Rescue Committee are a tiny fraction of the 60,000 the US will be taking over 5 years.

All of the newcomers are Bhutanese of Nepalese ethnicity who had migrated to Bhutan or were descended from immigrants. In the early 1990s, Bhutan expelled tens of thousands of Nepali Bhutanese, most of them from poor farming families, accusing them of immigrating illegally. The majority ended up in seven refugee camps in Nepal, where they lived in bamboo-and-thatch huts and were cared for by international aid agencies.

Bhutan refused to take them back and Nepal refused to give them citizenship. In 2007, the United States agreed to resettle at least 60,000 of them. The first arrived in early 2008.

There isn’t much in this article that we haven’t reported before about how they came to be in the US, but I was interested in this report on their living conditions.  Early in the article the reporter describes a sparsely furnished apartment.

The place was furnished with a couple of bureaus, several beds that doubled as couches and little else.

The federally contracted resettlement agencies sign a contract with the US State Department and commit to supply certain furnishings.  It sounds like these folks may have not gotten everything they were supposed to get—a common complaint.

Then this really attracted my attention.  The landlord of this 60-unit building is somehow connected to the International Rescue Committee.  What is the connection?  Does anyone know?  One of those rumors we are always trying to nail down is that some landlords have ‘insider’ connections with resettlement agencies.

Through an elaborate process involving consultation between resettlement agencies, about 170 Bhutanese refugees have been placed in New York. The families at 2515 University Avenue were brought by the International Rescue Committee, an agency that has a longstanding relationship with the landlord.

Whatever the connection, the building is not without its dangers.

Mr. Tamang said that one day his elderly parents, who speak no English, were alone in their apartment when they heard loud knocking. Opening the door, the father was confronted by several young men. Although he understood none of the words the men were using, he gathered from their angry gestures that they were looking for a missing bicycle and were demanding to search the apartment.

Mr. Tamang said his father, small and mild-mannered, stepped aside to allow the group to enter, but the men eventually went away, leaving the father shaken.

“They were trying to get in,” Mr. Tamang recalled, surprise and pain in his voice. “We are very honest people.” Mr. Tamang said he would no longer leave his parents without one of their English-speaking children.

We recently told you about a Bhutanese young man killed by an African American thug in a dangerous Jacksonville neighborhood where he had been resettled, here.    It appears that another refugee in this Bronx building writes a blog and that Florida murder is one of the stories he has posted for his community here and back home.   Check out ‘Journalism in Exile’ here.

Note to new readers:  To understand why there are problems in the camps in Nepal and why a journalist might be missing there, you can go to this previous post of mine and learn about the politics of those (Maoists!) who do not want the Bhutanese to be scattered across the world.

Rumor: Refugees are exempt from taxes….

…..for a certain period of time.   This is from reader ‘bearinggifts’:

There is a persistent rumor out there according to which refugees who start businesses are exempt from taxes for a period of time. the tax-free time is usually stated as 3 years.

Sometimes this rumor has it that they pay no taxes of any type (eg., no income taxes, if employed) for a period of time. I kind of doubt this version of the rumor, but was wondering about the business tax exemption. It really sounds like something the corrupt SBA would do.

‘Bearinggifts,’ I keep hearing the rumor too about refugees not paying federal income tax for 3 years, but if that is true that would be a bombshell piece of information.  I’m guessing it is more likely that their income is so low they fall into that huge segment of the American population that pays no taxes anyway (you know the ones Obama wants to redistribute the wealth to).

I don’t know about the small business angle except that refugees get all sorts of opportunities through micro-loans and special savings accounts (IDAs) to start businesses.

Judy wrote favorably of such loans here.  I would be interested to know in light of the banking crisis how many of those loans have gone into default.  Note also in Judy’s story that a volag is involved in the lending—International Institute of St. Louis.  Is this more of the taxpayer-money racket these volags have gotten into?

I have written less favorably of micro-loans geared to immigrants and refugees here because these loans use special Sharia financing rules.  And, here for several reasons, not the least of which is that this favoritism creates animosity in small communities where American citizens wonder why they can’t get such good deals.

I’m getting off track.  As for the tax question,  ‘bearinggifts,’ I don’t know if those businesses are tax-exempt for a period of time.  Does anyone know?

Rumors is a new category we launched last week to try to find the facts behind many aspects of the Refugee Resettlement Program of the federal government.   Because the program is run so secretively, rumors abound.  And, frankly it is to the program’s detriment.  From the very beginning in Hagerstown, MD I’ve contended that informing the public is critically important.   If the program is a good one it should withstand public scrutiny.

Rumor: Reader says some refugees let off the hook on repaying their airfare loans

Reader TonyLee says that he has heard that fairly well-off refugees who came to the US in the 1980′s and 1990′s did not suffer any consequences for not repaying taxpayer funded airfare “loans,” while today’s really poor refugees are hounded by the volags (supposedly non-profit federal contractors)  for the money.   Here is what he says:

Here’s another rumor. We know the Volags chase down the refugees to recover the interest-free loans made for airfare to the U.S. (must inculcate responsibility, you see).

We know the Volags pocket a whopping 25% of the funds they collect.

I have seen almost comical threatening legal letters sent to people who are illiterate. In these letters they are told their credit will be wrecked, they will be unable to buy a house, etc, etc.

Here is the rumor: those who arrived in the 80’s and 90’s did not pay back their loans and did not suffer any consequences.

Ironically, the Volags today are hounding truly poor and oppressed refugees for their last crumbs while the refugees who arrived in the 80’s and early 90’s who were not really refugees at all – many were basically middle class, educated Soviet Jews, never paid back the air loans. They were told they didn’t have to.

As we mentioned the other day in launching this new category (Rumors!), we do want to get at the truth about many many aspects of the Refugee Resettlement Program that are being kept hidden from the general public.

Can anyone tell us if Mr. Lee’s rumor is true or false?

Rumor: Refugees are getting larger SSI payments than American citizens

We’re launching a new category this morning, obviously titled “Rumors.”   One of the most important reforms the Refugee Resettlement industry must make is to promote transparency (where have I heard that word before?) in how the program operates.    The result of the present obvious strategy of keeping the public in the dark about the program is that “rumors” get a life of their own.   We want to find the facts!

The “rumor” of the day is that the Obama Stimulus plan gives refugees larger Supplemental Security Income (SSI) increases than American citizens are receiving.

True or false?    Would a reader who knows the answer please give us the facts.