Violence Linked to Immigrant-Help Programs

Over the past decade, the United Nations, U.S. Department of State’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and a wide range of immigrant advocates including religious organizations have been answering the desires expressed by Muslims in Somalia and bringing thousands into the United States.

The result? Violence and social conflict is on the rise where large groups have settled in Minneapolis; Seattle; Nashville; Shelbyville, Tenn.; Garden City, Kan.; Emporia, Kan.; St. Louis and Greeley, Colo.

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The problem, experts suggest, is that the societal standards in the Islam-dominated Somalia and the United States are too different to simply transplant those, even the needy, from one place to the other without someone standing in the gap and offering guidance.

For example, in Somalia, Muslims periodically behead Christians simply for being Christian. Other members of the community are stoned for offenses such as adultery. Women are beaten for failing to cover themselves according to Muslim doctrine.

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Importing violence

After all, since Somalia gained its independence as a U.N. protectorate some 50 years ago, it has been {snip} run by a network of vicious clan warlords, sea-going pirates, khat-smoking terrorists and their friends.

Critics suggest that those factors, clan rivalries, religious beliefs and social customs, have been brought directly into the U.S. along with the immigrants, and those create huge conflicts.

Documentation of violence related to the immigrant community has come from the Minneapolis, Seattle, Nashville and other areas where large number of Somalis have congregated.

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Workplace demands

Then there have been the demands by Somali workers of their employers:

* Officials in Emporia, Kan., reported a spike in latent tuberculosis cases and outrage from residents when large numbers of Somalis began arriving in 2006 to work at a Tyson Foods plant and made demands of their employer.

* Somali meat packing workers in Grand Island, Neb., caused problems with Latino and other workers when they insisted that the company provide a schedule that allowed them time for their evening prayers. {snip}

* More than 200 Somalis working at a JBS meat packing plant in Greeley, Colo., walked off the job in September 2008. They were angry that the company wouldn’t let them have a regular prayer schedule during working hours. The company eventually fired more than 100 of the protesters.

* More Somalis in a Tyson Foods plant in Tennessee also demanded that the company replace the Labor Day holiday with a day off for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. {snip}

Reporter Brian Mosely of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette reported:

“I found that there was just an enormous culture clash going on here. The Somalis were–according to a lot of the people I talked to here–being very, very rude, inconsiderate, very demanding. They would go into stores and haggle over prices. They would also demand to see a male salesperson, would not deal with women in stores. Their culture is totally alien to anything the residents are used to.

“We’re talking about people who have not had any experience with Western civilization. They don’t know the language. Things like running water are a miracle to some of these folks . .&bnsp;. you don’t take people from a totally alien culture, put them into a community, and then say ‘alright, you must get along,'” he said.

Funding resettlement

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is the agency that recommends who is to be considered for entrance into the U.S. as a refugee, and the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Refugee Resettlement works with the U.N. to determine who is granted refugee status in the U.S.

Prior to the 1990s, the U.S. determined who received refugee status–and refugees from Muslim countries were low on the list.

However, in recent years this has shifted. Now, there are high numbers of refugees from Iraq, Burma, Bhutan, Iran and Somalia. In fact, at least 40 percent of the refugees are Muslims.

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According to the Refugee Settlement Watch, when these Muslims arrive, they automatically are eligible for federal, state and local welfare programs for 30 days.

Federal assistance includes Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, Child Care and Development Fund, Low-Income Energy Assistance, Postsecondary Education loans and grants and more.

Further, Muslims and other refugees are resettled by charitable organizations, including many funded by George Soros-front groups.

Ann Corcoran, who runs the Refugee Settlement Watch website, reports the Soros link to many immigration/refugee “reform” groups, including:

* American Immigration Council

* American Immigration Law Foundation

* Fair Immigration Reform Movement

* Immigrant Defense Project

* Immigrant Legal Resource Center

* Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project

* Immigration Policy Center

* Migration Policy Institute

* National Immigration Law Center

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) provides funding for other organizations, including the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition based in Nashville.

The MPI also receives funding from Unbound Philanthropy, run by William Reeves. He provides funding for the American Immigration Law Foundation, International Rescue Committee, Southern Poverty Law Center and the International Rescue Committee. Reeves also donated to Active Voice, a radical group in San Francisco that has produced a film attacking Shelbyville residents for their reaction to the Somali invasion of the quiet town.

Addressing the problem

But is there a solution?

Corcoran has some suggestions: “As a conservative I don’t believe the government should be taking money from citizens and giving it with virtually no oversight to non-profit groups and churches. Funding your charitable causes is not a function of government. Real charity . . . is for you to put your time and money into caring for people–immigrants, refugees or other impoverished people–not badgering others to do so or taking (stealing!) their money to redistribute it to others.”

She continued, “Refugee families should be individually sponsored by churches or other groups in a truly charitable endeavor, and we should not take more families than we can take care of. There are millions of refugees in the world and we will be only able to take so many, so we should be doing it right.”

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“It makes no sense to bring in tens of thousands of refugees and place them on welfare and other public assistance either. Unless, of course, you are a proponent of the Cloward-Piven/Alinsky strategy of bringing about crisis to crash our form of government,” she said.

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“We have been so beaten over the head that all cultures are equal that we have to start thinking about the possibility that all cultures are not equal. Some people are raised in a culture of lying, cheating, stealing and murdering and think nothing of it because that’s part of their culture. Islam contributes to this attitude, too. Islam says that Muslims can do anything they want to infidels because we’re the scum of the earth. There are some cultures that will fit in America and some cultures won’t,” she said.