Somali Migration to Maine: it’s the welfare magnet, stupid

[Meilia]

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...magnet-stupid/

Yesterday I brought to readers’ attention that now that the Somali population in Lewiston, ME is large and well-established, the demands for accomodation of Muslim religious practices has begun, see CAIR threatens, here. Among those who study Islamic supremacism around the world, this is known as the Stealth Jihad (see our entire category here)—changing a country from within to bring about Islamic dominance.

In my post I attributed a role to Catholic Charities in bringing the first Somalis to Maine, and after a little research I found that assertion was accurate. However, the majority of the thousands of Somalis now continuing to upset Lewiston are secondary migrants resettled by Catholic Charities and other federally contracted agencies in Georgia. Here is the best summary I’ve found so far about how Lewiston got to the point it’s at now with CAIR breathing down the necks of school adminstrators. I’ve only taken a bit of this very long and thorough 2002 article, so please read the whole thing.

LEWISTON — Every week, another four or five Somali families arrive in this workaday city on the Androscoggin River.

They are refugees from the clan-wracked ruins of their homeland on the Horn of Africa, from years of waiting in camps in Kenya. And they are migrants from their place of first resettlement in America, more often than not trekking 1,000 miles from the heat and multihued humanity of metropolitan Atlanta to this sparse, wintry, whitest of all states.

They are nomads, their ancient instincts honed to a 21st century edge. Pioneers in a new world, they discovered Lewiston and claimed a bit of it for themselves.

“It’s like finding a small island in the middle of the Pacific,” says Mohammed Abdi, who last year moved here from Decatur, Ga., and was quickly hired as the liaison between the city’s schools and the burgeoning Somali community. “We put it on the map.”

They were originally resettled with American blacks and that wasn’t going so well, an issue we have discussed at RRW on previous occasions.

In their exodus, they say they are looking for peace and quiet, cheaper housing, a more benevolent welfare system, better schools and a place to raise their children — families of seven or more are common —with fewer perils and temptations. That they are leaving a metro area renowned as an African-American mecca to resettle in Maine, home to fewer than 7,000 blacks in 2000, is less a matter of irony than intent, given the prickly state of their relations with African-Americans and a desire to protect their children from assimilating too quickly.

Scouts sent out! But, I will bet you anything they had some hints from their friends at Catholic Charities which was already resettling Somalis in Portland, ME.

Fed up with life in Atlanta —he was robbed twice — Abdiaziz Ali said members of the Somali community there researched other places on the Internet, comparing crime rates, the cost of housing, test scores. Then they sent scouts to a handful of cities — Kansas City, Mo., Nashville, Tenn., San Diego, Houston and El Paso in Texas, and Portland and Lewiston in Maine.

Maine was preferred, and Portland was full.

It is cold but the welfare is oh so good! Note when you read the article that some of the men stayed back in Georgia to continue to work while the wives and kids went to Maine for the welfare.

Indeed, in moving from Georgia to Maine, Somalis are trading one of the nation’s least generous welfare systems for one of its most generous.

Lewiston provides general assistance to anyone in need, splitting the cost with the state. Such relief was unavailable in Clarkston. In Georgia, there is a four-year time limit for receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. In Maine it’s five, but even that can be extended. About a quarter of Lewiston’s Somali families receive that form of welfare, according to the state. And in Maine, a state-funded program assists single parents while they attend college.

There is a waiting list for public housing in Lewiston, but not nearly as long as back in Georgia. About a third of the more than 90 apartments at Hillview, Lewiston’s largest public housing project, have Somali tenants, and about 35 more Somali families have received Section 8 vouchers, which subsidize the rent on private apartments.

[...]

Fulfilling that expectation [that people work] is complicated because so many of the Somali families are single mothers and children, the fathers dead, missing, still in Africa or still in Atlanta.

“The men don’t like it here — it’s too cold or too quiet or too behind,” says Fatuma Hussein, whose own husband still drives a taxi in Atlanta, making frequent visits to her and their three young children.

The role of Catholic Charities

There were no Somalis in Lewiston prior to the colonization that began after 9/11. Note in the article that Somalis are quoted as saying Portland was “full.” That would be full of primarily Somalis and Sudanese resettled in Maine by Catholic Charities, the only refugee resettlement contractor in the state for 30 years. That makes it easy for us to check the numbers Catholic Charities brought. Not nearly the tens of thousands resettled in other states, but from 1983-2005, Catholic Charities resettled 498 Somalis and 607 Sudanese (I mention the Sudanese because we have heard lots about problems with the “Sudanese community” of Portland recently). You will see later that the number 498 is inaccurate because in just 3 individual years during that time period, reported in annual reports to Congress, below, the number exceeds 498.

To this day, Catholic Charities is resettling new Somalis in Maine. The stats aren’t out for 2009 but in 2007 the number of Somalis resettled was 118 and in 2008 it was 60 (that drop may be because of the discovery by the State Department of the fraud in the family reunification program).

I don’t believe the Somali scouts found Lewiston all on their own—-I think there is a really good chance that earlier resettled Maine Somalis and Catholic Charities (CC) in Atlanta tipped-off the scouts to the lucrative welfare in Lewiston. So, I checked the Office of Refugee Resettlement annual reports to Congress for the years 1997, 1998, and 1999 to see how many Somalis CC had brought to Maine in the years preceding the migration. Sure enough, in 1997, CC resettled 228 Somalis to Maine, in 1998 the number was 168 and in 1999, 277. What are the chances that a few of those Somalis were “related” to Atlanta Somalis and told them to ‘come on up, the public assistance is great!’

Piven must be so proud!

Note to readers in Maine: I have many more discoveries I want to share with you in another post, things that need further research, but this is getting too long!

To all readers: If you want to learn more about the Lewiston multicultural experiment, search RRW for ‘Lewiston,’ we have written a lot on the topic.

For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing. That specific program has not yet been reopened, but will be soon. Nevertheless, thousands of Somalis continue to be resettled as I write this.

[ilbegone]

Where else have you heard something similar to this except for the limited migration which isn't quite overwhelming their same race predecessors?

They were originally resettled with American blacks and that wasn’t going so well...

In their exodus, they say they are looking for peace and quiet, cheaper housing, a more benevolent welfare system, better schools and a place to raise their children — families of seven or more are common —with fewer perils and temptations. That they are leaving a metro area renowned as an African-American mecca to resettle in Maine, home to fewer than 7,000 blacks in 2000, is less a matter of irony than intent, given the prickly state of their relations with African-Americans and a desire to protect their children from assimilating too quickly.

[REWHBLCAIN]

ME city mulls suffrage for non-citizens in local elections
Denial of noncitizen vote mobilizes petition drive
Some opponents on the city's Charter Commission cite legal uncertainties.
By Tom Bell
The Portland Press Herald (ME), March 12, 2010
http://www.pressherald.com/news/deni...010-03-11.html

Portland, ME -- The city's Charter Commission voted 7-5 Thursday against a proposal to give voting rights to noncitizens, but the issue is hardly dead. A petition drive is under way.

Immediately after the vote, a group of young leaders in Portland's immigrant community and members of the League of Young Voters formed a 10-member petition committee, the first step required for taking out papers for a petition drive.

The committee must gather about 5,100 signatures to get the issue on the ballot in November.

Portland would be the first municipality in Maine to grant voting rights to resident aliens. The charter change would require noncitizens to prove they are legal residents to get their names on the city's voting rolls. They could not vote in state or federal elections.

While noncitizens cannot sign the petitions that will circulate, they will help distribute them throughout the city, said Will Everitt, director of the League of Young Voters.

There is increasing enthusiasm among immigrants for the effort to let noncitizens vote in city elections, particularly among young people, said Alfred Jacob, a Sudanese-American who is on the petition committee.

There are about 7,000 immigrants in Portland, many of whom can't vote because of language barriers and the long and cumbersome citizenship process, Jacob said. ''How can you live in a place where you have no voice?'' he said. ''You need a chance to participate.''

The Charter Commission voted after a debate about whether giving noncitizens voting rights could withstand a legal challenge. City Attorney Gary Wood told the commission that there is ambiguity in state law, and that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court would ultimately decide the issue.

For some commissioners, including Tom Valleau and Jim Cohen, uncertainty about the proposal's legality played a key role in their decision to reject it.

''I think we'd be making a misstep if we put this issue on the ballot - legally shaky as it is,'' Valleau said.

Others, including Commissioner Jim Gooch, think there is a decent chance that the court would support the change. If commissioners think it's the right thing to do, Gooch said, they should not let legal uncertainty stand in the way.

Commissioner Nathan Smith, who voted ''no,'' said it would be better if the question appeared on the ballot as the product of a petition drive, rather than through the ''top-down'' approach of the commission.

During the public hearing that preceded the commission's debate, Barbara Campbell Harvey of Portland said that immigrants who want to vote should become citizens.

''If you want to vote, put your hand over your heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance,'' she said.

Jacob, who will circulate petitions, told commissioners that the city's immigrant population is growing, and that children from immigrant families make up half of the enrollment in some Portland schools.

He said immigrants love the city and want to help shape it. Because many can't vote, he said, city officials have no reason to listen to them as constituents.

Jacob said the 12-member Charter Commission is an example of just that. ''You don't see any minorities sitting among you guys right now,'' he said.

Commissioners Cohen, Valleau, Smith, Richard Ranaghan Jr., Pamela Plumb, John Spritz and Naomi Mermin voted ''no.''

Commissioners Gooch, Ben Chipman, Anna Trevorrow, Robert O'Brien and Linda Davis voted ''yes.''

The commission plans to issue a preliminary report in May and a final set of recommendations in July. It has already decided to ask voters in November to change the city charter to establish a popularly elected mayor.

Although that was the main issue during the campaign last year to select members of the commission, it has raised little controversy or public interest since the panel began meeting.

The issue of granting voting rights to noncitizens has attracted the most public attention - and emotion. The number of immigrants attending the meetings has grown each time the commission has discussed it. On Thursday, 20 of the 26 people at the meeting were immigrants.

After the meeting, some said they were angry and felt belittled by the way some of the commissioners talked about them.

Mohammmed Dina, 24, a Somali-American who is a student at the University of Maine, said he was saddened by the vote. ''They ignored part of the community,'' he said.

[usa today]

''How can you live in a place where you have no voice?''

Geeeez

Then go back where you came from ,

can we say "twilight zone"

[Twoller]

...

There is increasing enthusiasm among immigrants for the effort to let noncitizens vote in city elections, particularly among young people, said Alfred Jacob, a Sudanese-American who is on the petition committee.

...

Again notice a distinction being made here. Enthusiasm is coming from the "immigrants". This conceivably includes citizens. So citizens are endorsing and mobilizing to make it possible for non-citizens to vote.

This is an important observation. US citizenship is no longer an assurance that the individual respectably claiming US citizenship will uphold the integrity of US citizenship. We can guess that these subversives are anchor babies, children of people who are not both US citizens. We need to change that respect so that the public rightly looks askance at the citizenship claims of people who are not the children of two US citizens.