Refugee advocates think Trump can’t change Obama’s 110,000 refugee goal for this year

I have no time to say much about this sob story in South Carolina’s The State newspaper about Muslim refugees resettled in the Carolinas (mostly in North Carolina) because I have to dash to jury duty again today.  But, I can’t not mention this little blip from Jason Lee.  We wrote about him on many occasions when he was chosen to work for a refugee contractor, World Relief, in Spartanburg, SC in 2015.

Trump Test! Trump here with Senator Jeff Sessions his Attorney General nominee, can and must pause the Refugee Admissions Program. He can do it on day one, but I give him 4 weeks (I’m being generous)—until February 16th to do it! Sessions knows what can and should be done!

That was a resettlement plan that resulted in a heated controversy. Spartanburg is also in Rep. Trey Gowdy’s district and despite efforts by the Immigration Subcommittee chairman (Gowdy!) to question the choice of Spartanburg as a new resettlement site (he wrote a letter to Sec. of State Kerry), it went ahead as planned.

Jason Lee is wrong.  Congress does not approve the level of resettlement for the coming year (it is not an act of Congress).

The President of the United States proposes the level in September preceding the fiscal year and sends his determination to Congress for “consultation,” but there is no legal requirement for Congress to agree to whatever number the President has chosen.  Of course, if they give the President money to admit a certain number of refugees through the Appropriations process, then that is tantamount agreement to the numbers.

That said, Donald Trump can and should, because he has the power to do it, limit the number set by Obama on day one of his Presidency.  He can halt immigration from certain regions of the world, or pause the refugee program altogether. In fact, he would not be the first to pause the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.  In 2002, the program was almost ground to a halt as fear grew in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

Jason Lee’s wishful thinking?

Here is what Lee told The State:

Congress has approved admitting 110,000 refugees in fiscal 2017.

It will be difficult for President Trump to cut that number, said Jason Lee, former director of the refugee assistance group World Relief Spartanburg. [As you know, World Relief is one of nine major federal refugee resettlement contractors, paid by the head to place refugees in your towns—ed]

“A number of questions won’t be answered until President Trump takes office,” Lee said. “(But) he’s already backed off not allowing Muslim immigrants into the country.”

Read it all here.

See our archive on Spartanburg by clicking here.  (I warn you there are many posts there!)

It is through the Spartanburg controversy that I formed my opinion of SC Governor Nikki Haley (Trump’s nominee to be Ambassador to the UN).

Mama Merkel: Boo-hoo! We tried to help them and they attack us

Invasion of Europe News……

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has a bad year ahead.  On December 19th, a failed asylum seeker killed a dozen people celebrating a Christmas tradition in Berlin. Here we learn that a Syrian refugee (who had been granted permission to stay in dear old Deutschland) has been arrested on terror charges, and she is up for election later this year. To top it off Donald Trump, rather than her soulmate Barack Obama, will be in the White House.

From Reuters:

A Syrian migrant who arrived in Germany two years ago has been arrested on suspicion of seeking funds from Islamic State to drive truck bombs into a crowd, a German state prosecutor’s office said on Monday.

Obama to Frau Merkel: Ich liebe dich! You did good! Islam will ultimately rule Europa thanks to your kindness. (No, Obama did not say that as far as we know so don’t spread this as fake news!)

The arrest follows an attack two weeks ago when a Tunisian whose asylum request had been rejected rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people. The man, Anis Amri, 24, was later shot dead by Italian police.

In the latest case, the prosecutor in the western city of Saarbruecken said the 38-year-old Syrian was detained on Saturday and a formal arrest warrant was issued on Sunday on suspicion that he was trying to raise 180,000 euros ($189,000) to fund an attack.

[….]

The Syrian is from the city of Raqqa, Islamic State’s main stronghold in the country. The prosecutor’s office in Saarbruecken, near the French border, had been alerted to his activities by the BKA federal crime office.

The Syrian came to Germany on Dec. 5, 2014, just before a wave of more than 1.1 million asylum-seekers arrived from the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015. He was given permission to stay in Germany on Jan. 12, 2015.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made the now-controversial decision to open the country’s borders to refugees in September, 2015, described Islamist terrorism on New Year’s Eve as the greatest test facing Germany.

She has also said she is sickened by the prospect that refugees Germany has tried to help could mount attacks.

Continue reading here.

For all of our ‘Invasion of Europe’ posts, click here.  This archive extends back many years.

For fun, search photos of Angela Merkel and Barack Obama (steamy!).

Lancaster, PA school district didn’t cave to ACLU, appealed refugee students case to higher court

https://www.aclupa.org/

In my previous post I noted that the media (the New York Times) is working overtime to sell the public on the notion that everything is just peachy in Lancaster with the decades-old refugee program there.  Then we see stories like this one that indicate at least some segments of the community are not thrilled at all—namely the school system.

BTW, see my Ten Things your town needs to know when ‘welcoming’ refugees and see that the first great impact on your community will most likely be in the school system.

Look how much this lawsuit filed by the ACLU is costing Lancaster taxpayers! If your town becomes a new ‘welcoming’ site, be prepared for unanticipated costs like these!

From Keystone Crossroads (hat tip: Joanne):

About 17,000 of the refugees arriving each year in the U.S. are children, yet their education — in particular, how public schools might accommodate them — plays a surprisingly minor role in placing families.

Federal law says public schools have to adjust to meet any number of students’ varying needs, including overcoming language barriers.

But that doesn’t always happen.

A few lawsuits have been filed in recent years on behalf of student refugees suffering the consequences of systematic shortcomings.

Schools have settled out of court in most cases.

Not Lancaster.

[….]

Lawyers for the Pennsylvania ACLU and Philadelphia-based Education Law Center sued the School District of Lancaster last summer.

The lawsuit claims that, despite the city’s robust tradition of resettlement, several teenage refugees waited months to enroll in public school. Ultimately, they were denied outright or diverted to magnet school Phoenix Academy, which has less support for nonnative English speakers than mainstream McCaskey High School.

[….]

In the meantime, a judicial panel in Philadelphia is considering Lancaster’s appeal. (See that story here)

[….]

Whether the district’s on the hook for any expenses depends on how the case turns out.

Defense attorneys’ bills are at about $150,000 so far, according to the district’s business administrator Matthew Przywara. The ACLU’s costs are approaching $2 million.

But Lancaster’s insurer has indicated it won’t pay out more than $100,000 for this lawsuit, district officials say.

There is more, continue reading here.

If the ACLU prevails be forewarned for refugee resettlement to your town to become even more expensive!

Click here for more on Lancaster, PA.  Someone should do a study of the negative impact on this longtime resettlement site.

BT! Church World Service working hard to get Syrian Muslims placed in Lancaster, PA

BT=Before Trump

This is the first of two posts (second one is here) on Lancaster, PA this morning.  I’ve been interested in Lancaster ever since that city’s refugee program was linked to Church World Service’s (CWS) placement of refugees in my county seat.  Those were mostly Meshketian (Russian Turkish Muslims) back in 2007.

Five years later, I traveled to Lancaster to a meeting of the refugee industry there—the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement was meeting with refugee contractors and advocates in 2013. A federal ORR employee shocked me by referring to any of the communities questioning the program as “pockets of resistance.”  He was happy to tell the gathering that Pennsylvania was ‘welcoming’ and didn’t have any PORs.

Church World Service does not just resettle refugees, but they advocate for illegal aliens as well. CWS CEO Rev. John McCullough being arrested in Washington, DC protesting in support of Obama’s executive amnesty. Photo and story here: http://njfon.org/2015/04/08/faith-groups-challenge-fifth-circuit-court-on-presidents-immigration-actions/ McCullough pulls down an annual salary of over $300,000 a year from his CWS work and from “related organizations.” Page 13- 14 http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2015/134/080/2015-134080201-0c44e710-9.pdf

If you would like to get some background on Lancaster before reading this below, click here for our Lancaster archive.

This is the news that appeared in the New York Times and reposted here in Vermont newspaper. Church World Service (with the NYT) is trying so hard to make everything look so perfect in Lancaster.  But, it isn’t and you will see what I mean in my next post.

Their [Syrian family—ed] imminent arrival explains all the commotion inside this slate-colored house in the small city of Lancaster, in south-central Pennsylvania. The state may have gone to Donald Trump, who likened the Syrian resettlement program to a “a great Trojan horse” for terrorists. But he isn’t president yet.

[….]

He [Josh, CWS’s 26 year old housing guy—ed] scours a government checklist of housing requirements for a resettlement [Contractors sign contracts to provide essential items for the refugees’ new home—ed], mindful that whatever he spends is deducted from a refugee’s one-time government grant of no more than $1,125. A family’s combined grants must cover its rent and other expenses until the nonprofit has helped the adults acquire Social Security numbers and jobs.

I want you to know (and the NYT doesn’t) that it is $1,125 per family member, so the Syrian family of 6 being discussed here will get $6,750 (plus welfare) and that CWS will get another approximately $6,750 as their share (of your tax dollars) to resettle this family (for their salaries and overhead).

Such encounters [Josh meets a refugee at Walmart***] happen often in Lancaster, whose rich history of acceptance is rooted, in part, in the influence of the Mennonites, Amish and other faiths. A glimpse of the local worldview came in January when a supportive rally of more than 200 people drowned out a much smaller anti-immigrant protest outside the Church World Service office in Lancaster. [See our report on the resistors rally, here.]

Sheila Mastropietro, the group’s longtime supervisor in Lancaster, took heart in the moment. It reflected a communal understanding of both the global refugee crisis and the rigorous screening process that refugees undergo before coming to the United States. [The communal understanding is wearing thin as you will see in my next post.—ed]

The big question for the resettlement contractors is: What will Trump do and when will he do it?

Still, given a president-elect who seems averse to the country’s modest commitment to refugee relocation, Mastropietro says, “We don’t know what to expect.”

[….]

Last fiscal year, the Lancaster office of the Church World Service helped to resettle 407 of the 85,000 refugees admitted to this country; this fiscal year, its target is 550 of a hoped-for 110,000.

“We are acting as if the numbers are going to be the same — until we hear something different,” she says.

Lancaster a happy “medley of cultures” (then why did Lancaster County go 57% for Trump):

Decades of resettlement work have transformed the Lancaster area into a medley of cultures so rich that Amer Alfayadh, 34, a senior case manager, struggles to name them all: “Syrians, Iraqis, Somalis, Congolese, Ukrainians, Belorussians, people from Kazakhstan. Then, of course, Lebanese, Palestinians. Bhutanese, Nepalese, Burmese, Sri Lankans …”

***I would love to know what the deal is with Walmart.  Wherever I traveled on my middle America tour this past summer, I heard that Walmart was a gathering place for Muslim refugees.  Is Walmart giving them gift cards or other goodies?  Does anyone know?

9/11 Mastermind explains why they call it the ‘Religion of Peace’

Get the book! https://www.amazon.com/Enhanced-Interrogation-Motives-Islamic-Terrorists/dp/1101906847/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483361554&sr=8-1&keywords=enhanced+interrogation+mitchell

This is the 5th in my series on James Mitchell’s ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ where the CIA contractor tells us how Enhanced Interrogation Techniques did work to reveal not only upcoming planned terror attacks, but also revealed the mindset behind the Islamic supremacists’ view of how things should be in the world.

Our initial interest was in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s assertion that the Islamists’ plan is to conquer America through immigration and by out-breeding us, but that violent attacks would ultimately wear us down and prepare us for submission.

See previous posts here, here , here and here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make it your new year’s resolution to learn more about Islam!

P.S. I sure hope Donald Trump takes time to read this book!

US State Dept. announces ‘new’ program to admit Iraqis persecuted by ISIS

Frankly folks, I’m suspicious.  If the Obama Administration had any interest in saving the Yazidis, what took them so long? And, why this new category of refugee just as Obama exits the White House.

My opinion is that this is a political move to shame Trump if he tries to slow the massive flow from Iraq.

My first thought upon reading this article at Voice of America (VOA) is that the State Dept. is setting up this special category of Iraqi refugee (btw, we admitted 122,532 Iraqis over Obama’s 8 years), so when Trump comes in and tries to pause the program from certain terror-producing regions of the world, the Left/Dems will scream and holler that he is opposed to saving Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities.

A brief mention of the Center for American Progress by Voice of America makes me suspicious and my guess is that this story was fed to VOA by CAP.  You know that is the group John Podesta created with George Soros and the Clintons (see my 2009 post) and if you enjoyed reading John Podesta’s Wikileaks e-mails you will recognize the name Neera Tanden who is CAP’s Prez. and was on the Clinton team.

The article reads like we haven’t been hauling Iraqis to America by the tens of thousands during the Obama Administration (see numbers below).

Voice of America:

WASHINGTON —

The U.S. government is working to permanently resettle hundreds of Iraqis who were victims of Islamic State (IS) violence.

Bartlett is most likely a career government employee. Trump will appoint someone above him as Asst. Sec. of State for PRM, but like all federal agencies there will be many entrenched bureaucrats working their own angles against Trump policies.

Larry Bartlett, director of the Office of Refugee Admissions at the State Department told VOA that the U.S. is coordinating with the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to bring in hundreds of Iraqis to several to be determined locations in the U.S. Most of them are Yazidis and Christians whose communities were uprooted by IS. Many of them suffered brutality and torture at the hands of IS.

[….]

The resettlement efforts mark the first widespread attempt by the U.S. to admit Iraqis who survived under IS. [So who was persecuting the 122,000 plus we admitted in the last 8 years?—ed]

[….]

“We confirmed that Yazidis were the most traumatized [and] were the most victimized,” Bartlett said. “But there are other groups that were also affected by [IS] such as Christians and other religious minorities up there in the north.”

[….]

“We would expect that within a course of a year we would do hundreds of people,” Bartlett said. “One of the things we want to focus on is resettling families as a whole. There have been other programs in the past where just some of the victims were resettled for treatment. We are looking at this differently. We are looking at this as a family unity program of linking families together as much as possible.” [And, we haven’t been bringing families?—ed]

There is more, continue reading here.

BTW, interesting that Bartlett is making this announcement.  Is Anne Richard (Asst. Sec. of State for Population, Refugees and Migration) busy packing up her office?

So let’s look at the numbers for Iraqi refugees admitted to the US since Obama took office!

And, remember readers that refugees by definition are supposed to be escaping persecution for one of several reasons (including race, religion, political views).

From the very beginning I have asked: so if Sunni Muslims persecute Shiite Muslims in Iraq and vice versa, does it make any sense to bring in both warring factions, and place them in your towns as we have been doing for over 8 years (Bush reluctantly opened the Iraqi flood gates at the end of his Administration).

From Fiscal Year 2009 until December 1, 2016 (8 fiscal years and a few months) we admitted to the US 122,532 Iraqi refugees (in some of those years Iraqis were the top ethnic group we resettled).

The numbers break down like this:

Sunni Muslims: 44,367

Shiite Muslims: 32,766

Moslems (not specified): 1,887

Catholics: 13,306

Christians (not specified): 21,173

Yazidis: 1,215

There were many other groups, including some other Christian denominations that were smaller in number.

So, I will ask again, who was persecuting the Muslims? Are they persecuting each other and thus they are eligible for refugee status? Sure looks like it!

For ambitious readers, this is the 715th post I’ve written about Iraqi refugees, see Iraqi category here.

Annual RRW round-up for 2016

Happy New Year!

Just short of 2 million views were recorded at Refugee Resettlement Watch this past year—only a tiny number less than our top year so far (2015) when the refugee issue broke through and became a major political issue widely discussed in government circles and around kitchen tables (just as I am writing this, Fox News is doing a refugee segment based on a recent Breitbart story).  That is not a lot of viewers by big blog standards, but for a single issue blog, I’m thrilled by those numbers.

Purchase of my booklet benefits a national security organization.

In July of 2017, Refugee Resettlement Watch turns ten!  In our first full year, 2008, we had just short of 200,000 views and the numbers have grown ever since. The largest number of our readers arrive simply through search engines, followed by facebook and twitter users who send around our posts.

To date we have written 8,143 posts (I’ll give you the top three for the year shortly).

I checked my first youtube video yesterday for the first time in a long time and see that it has 2,651,000+ views.  And, I had a look at Amazon to get some information about my little book.

Wow! I have never looked at the reviews and now see that there are 117 of them.  Only 9 are critical.  So thanks to all who took time to give a thumbs-up to ‘Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America.‘

This will make you laugh! Amazon placed this comment in the 9 critical ones:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good little book
ByChelsea M.on July 10, 2015
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Good little book! Glad the author gave information such as this – more people should care. Only gave a 3 because it made me mad – the book deserves a 5.

The highlight of my year was the summer roadtrip I made where I met so many of you, some for the first time! I put 6,000 miles on my car over 30 days. Thanks to all who welcomed me and took time to tell me about what is happening in your communities and what you are doing about it.

Another highlight of 2016 was receiving this coveted award from the Southern Poverty Law Center.  What the SPLC doesn’t get is that by listing me in this esteemed group, they actually further encourage me to keep doing what I am doing!

Drum roll for the Top Three Posts of 2016!

Amarillo, TX being destroyed by refugee overload

Brussels is coming to a town near you! Time for a moratorium on Muslim migration to America!

HUGE! Food stamp fraud bust in Baltimore, check out the names, see a pattern?

On this third top post of last year….

For years I followed food stamp fraud (trafficking) stories (like this one), but because the refugee issue was exploding, I had to necessarily curtail my interest in this HUGE form of fraud on American taxpayers. We aren’t talking about the little fraud involving purchasing items not allowed in the SNAP program, but huge multi-million dollar food stamp fraud called trafficking mostly at immigrant owned/managed convenience stores.  I cannot understand why no reporters are interested in what could be Pulitzer Prize worthy investigative work (assuming the PP went to politically incorrect journalism!).  To date, to my knowledge, no real journalist has taken on this major scam on America!

If anyone wants to get a start, type ‘food stamp fraud’ in to RRW’s search window and get some background on trafficking.

Next, here are the Top Ten Countries from which readers arrived at RRW in 2016 (excluding the US of course):

Canada

UK

Australia

Germany

South Africa

France

Norway

Netherlands

India

Sweden

For new readers:  See recent monthly round-ups for instructions on getting the most out of RRW (at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.)

More comments from me on commenting….

Always looking for a way to find more time to research and write (and have a life!), I’m making a change in how I handle your comments. I’ve always moderated comments and excluded ones that include foul language, ad hominem attacks against other commenters, and threats of violence, but I am going to further limit them.

First, not wanting to sound too unkind, but RRW is written by me alone and as most blogs do, it reflects the blogger’s political views (in other words my political views).  Although I am happy that so many people want to hear what I have to report, I don’t make a living at this. This is a labor of love and I am not paid for my work by anyone. Notice I have no ads here at RRW, so traffic is not an issue for me. If you don’t like my views, don’t visit!

A prime example of the point I am making is about Israel and Jews. I have said this before and I guess I may have to keep repeating it!  I am a supporter of the state of Israel and I don’t believe there is a Jewish conspiracy to change America.  It is my opinion that it is progressive political ideology that is attempting to change America by changing the people.  Progressives come from all major religious groups and includes those with no religious beliefs as well.  So, I have not been, and am not going to, post any comments about a Jewish conspiracy.

RRW isn’t a forum for you to write a blog within my blog.  How about creating your own blog!

Increasingly, so many of you are sending many links in each comment and often the comment does not relate in any way to the post where the comment has been placed. I can’t look at all your links and still find time to write and research.

So (starting today) I am asking you to limit comments (you can disagree with what I have said, with the above exception) to about 150 words and to include only one or two links.  If you have something longer to say, write to me at RefugeeWatcher@gmail.com and ask me to consider your longer piece as a guest post.

I’ll try harder to check that e-mail address if you promise to not send me e-mails all day long on every subject under the sun! (I have no staff, no interns!)  I too am interested in many issues, but there is not enough time in the day. I’m a firm believer in focusing on one or two issues in order to accomplish something. I don’t think being the most well-read person on the internet accomplishes much!

Enough!  Again Happy New Year (and sorry to sound so mean and opinionated, but I want to not burn out!)!

P.S. This is no time to sit back, or burn out! Keep the pressure on Donald Trump to do what he promised during his Presidential campaign!

Mitchell’s ‘Enhanced Interrogation:’ “Violent jihad is the religious duty of every True Muslim”

You will find it at Amazon.

This is installment #4 in my series on the important book by James Mitchell: ‘Enhanced Interrogation.‘

See previous posts here, here and here.  In my first post we told you that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that Islam will dominate America one day through demographic change—through the Hijra (migration!) and by out-breeding us—because they can’t get the job done entirely through violence.

I think everyone of you should know what was learned by using ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’ on “high-value” detainees.

Get the book!

 

Continued to the next page….

 

Infidels! Make it a new year’s resolution to learn more about Islam!

Refugees with low education levels needed for jobs like meatpacking

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart yesterday analyzed the education levels of refugees arriving at record numbers in the US right now as Obama gets ready to vacate the White House.

Residents told me that Somalis working for Cargill have changed the town of Ft. Morgan, Colorado. Photo: http://madworldnews.com/colorado-biz-200-muslims-job/

Readers here know that I have been for years discussing the role that BIG MEAT plays in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program and my 6,000 mile tour of America this past summer took me to several major meatpacking towns being changed by the influx of large numbers of Somalis to supply cheap labor to meat industry giants like JBS in Greeley, Colorado and Cargill in Ft. Morgan.

(I also visited meatpacking towns in Minnesota and North and South Dakota.)

Here is Leahy reporting on the fact that Somalis enter the US with the least education of any refugee group thus making them desirable employees for the beef and poultry industry (LOL! Not pork!).

Somalis are the least educated group of refugees who have arrived in the United States during the first three months of FY 2017.

As Breitbart News reported previously, the Obama administration has resettled 25,671 refugees in the country during the three month period beginning October 1, 2016 and ending December 30, 2016. This is almost double the number of refugees resettled in the United States during the same period in the prior fiscal year, FY 2016.

More than 85 percent of these refugees arrived from just eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Burma, Ukraine, Bhutan, and Iran.

[….]

The levels of education of arriving refugees from these eight countries vary widely. More than 71 percent of refugees arriving from the Ukraine have achieved high school level or higher training (secondary, university, professional, or technical degrees). At the other end of the spectrum, less than nine percent of refugees from Somalia arrived with high school level or higher training.

[….]

Somalis, in particular, are heavily employed in the meat packing industry.

The consequence of the availability of low skill, low wage refugees to fill jobs in the meat packing and related industries has been to keep wages down and limit employment opportunities in those industries for low skilled American citizens living near those meat packing plants. The plants also need a steady supply of new healthy workers to replace the workers whose hands are eventually damaged by the rapid repetitive motions required in the high-speed, low-tech slaughterhouse line.

A number of communities have experienced this problem over the past decade, including Shelbyville, Tennessee; Liberal, Kansas; Fort Morgan, Colorado; Austin, Minnesota; and Grand Island, Nebraska.

It is an extensive report, continue reading here.

I have been told by readers over the years, and by some living in meatpacking towns, that meatpacking was a desirable job for Americans a couple of decades ago, but when these global corporations discovered immigrant (cheap!) labor all that changed.  Refugees supplement their wages with your welfare subsidies!

Refugee Resettlement was big news in 2016

Just now as I read through news on my various alerts I saw several year-end wrap-up local news stories including from Poughkeepsie, NY and Rutland, VT which ranked refugee resettlement controversies among their top stories of the year.

The one from Idaho places refugee resettlement right up there with the 2016 Presidential election as a leading story for 2016!

MagicValley.com gleefully notes that a petition drive failed to put the issue before county voters, but this type of activity is not a wasted effort. It generated media, sneering media, but nevertheless the process created political controversy. This is an important stage in bringing about political change. As I say to everyone, stop looking for the silver bullet. There is no silver bullet, or no right thing to do, just keep up the political pressure in whatever way you can using whatever talents and time you have.

I’ve been writing RRW since 2007 and I must say, this has not happened in those nearly ten years—that the refugee issue would be a leading story of the year anywhere, so keep up the good work.

When you are feeling frustrated that your concerns about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program are not being addressed, know that getting those concerns reported in your local media (within an overarching theme of agitating your elected officials) is a first important step toward reaching a political tipping point.

Here is some of what MagicValley.com had to say:

Refugee resettlement, which was a controversial issue in Twin Falls in 2015 and continued to be on in 2016, was also a major issue in the presidential race, and the debate over Medicaid expansion in Idaho will be shifted drastically because of the outcome. [By the way, the Office of Refugee Resettlement itself says that if your state has expanded Medicaid it makes it a more ‘welcoming’ target for the placement of refugees.—ed]

[….]

A movement to shut down the College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center started last year, after news came out that some Syrians could be among the refugees to be resettled in Twin Falls. (None have been to date.) As the Syrian civil war dragged on, displacing millions of people, refugee resettlement became a topic of worldwide debate and a major issue in the presidential race, with Trump’s hard-line views on refugee admissions and anti-Muslim rhetoric energizing some and horrifying others. As for Twin Falls, it started to attract national media attention as an example of a town divided over what was becoming a focus of national political arguments.

A drive for a countywide referendum on whether to shut down the refugee center fizzled this spring when organizers got about a quarter of the number of signatures they would need to get on the ballot. In June, however, the debate flared back up after news came out about a 5-year-old girl at the Fawnbrook Apartments being sexually assaulted by three boys from Middle Eastern refugee families.

Continue reading here.

LOL! That is all I am snipping.  I am really careful about not taking too much of published news accounts, however, this publication is the only one in the nation to ever send me a legal letter telling me I have snipped too much of their report.

Does anyone know where the case is regarding the sexual assault from last June?

Our archive on Twin Falls may be found by clicking here.