Posted on 08/26/2008 12:23:59 PM PDT by mainestategop
Awhile back I got an email from one of my readers who asked if I would write about the Somali Refugees of Lewiston Maine. In the late nineties the Somalis came to our state in search of services. Before that most of them had been relegated to Big cities such as New York and Boston. A larger concentration lived in Atlanta. They were unhappy with raising their families in neighborhoods with high crime rates and where hip hop culture turned other African Americans to immorality.
In Somali culture, they would send scouts to find fertile land to raise cattle and sheep. Instead in the US, the scouts went searching for small safe cities where they could raise their families in peace. That and with the help of the Internet, the Somalis chose the city of Lewiston Maine. Lewiston, though a former mill town attracted the Somalis with its many myriad of social programs and with its small safe community attracted the Somalis. Word reached as far as Kenya about Lewiston's good schools, cheap housing, its programs, its low crime and thousands of them immigrated.
At first the Somalis were welcomed into the community. The addition of them made The town almost similar to Lagos, Nairobi or Mecca. But problems began to unfold. Lewiston's social network was unable to handle the massive influx of refugees. The people began to complain that they would take away jobs and housing. Many people complained of being evicted from public housing to make way for the refugees. Also it had a negative impact on taxes. Maine is one of the most tax burdened states in the nation, just behind New York and New Jersey. Lewiston soon had one of the highest property taxes in the state. Many residents including the mayor began to protest and urged the Somalis to move on. Of course leftist moonbats in Maine also protested citing that those who opposed them were all racists. To make matters worse, Matt Hale's World Church of the creator, which had chapters in Presque Isle and Portland came to roost along with members of the Aryan Nations which had it's eastern headquarters in Hampton Beach New Hampshire, causing concerned citizens to shy away. The September 11th attacks also didn't help. Since most were Muslim, suspicion grew on the community and in 2006 a frozen pigs head was thrown into their mosque.
One thing that didn't come true, the Somalis did not take any jobs away. Because of Maine's socialist economy, there were not enough and almost all of them had no education whatsoever. Nearly all of them were unemployed. Most of them receive money from the federal and state government anyway. With this the Somalis with the help of other social workers encouraged and aided them to move to other communities in Maine as well as New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Several refugees moved to Portland Maine which had a small Arab Islamic community there. Others went to Portsmouth, Manchester, Boston and Salem. In 2006 it was reported that more than half the Somalis were still unemployed. Complements of Governor Chrome dome and Maine's socialist government.
Crime has also not been a problem either, unlike Most Muslim Brothers, the Somalis take to heart Mohammed's warnings about how thieves, murderers, adulterers and rapists would burn in the fires of Allah. Very few Somalis have been involved in crime in Lewiston.
Today the Somalis have still struggled to assimilate into their new homes and become productive members of their communities. The fact that Maine has the 3rd worst economy in the nation and is the second poorest state in the country does not help matters either. If Somalis were encouraged to do more to learn basic skills, and move to communities out west where jobs were plentiful there could be hope for them. Local non profit and Christian missions are also helpful for the Somalis as well and have done a better job than government programs.
“Today the Somalis have still struggled to assimilate into their new homes and become productive members of their communities.”
If these legal immigrants don’t have the education levels needed to survive in America, then SEND THEM BACK TO SOMALIA!
I am SICK of legal and illegal third worlders coming here and leaching off the welfare state.
That's because they didn't come there to work. They came to game the system. No one with one eye and a grain of sense thinks that flooding a small town with thousands of refugees with no education is going to do anything but create problems.
They also lie to get more Somalians into the country by claiming that they are family.
This makes me so damn mad. How do all these people get into the country and then with other people it takes years to get a green card?
Well what do you expect? Maine is the most loose welfare system in the nation! You can do crazy stuff here to scam the system you could never do in places like California or New York. That's why they're sending their welfare recipients here.
“How do all these people get into the country and then with other people it takes years to get a green card?”
The more delays the better, we have more than enough people in this country.
Shut down immigration legal and illegal completely I say.
Unfortunately thanks to John Chromedome and the dems they are having hardship.
Yeah, and you can go straight to Hell, too.
This is YOUR state's problem. Embrace your stupidity. Don't try to shovel it off on us. Enjoy your Mogadishu-flavored lobster rolls, mainstategop.
If they were "refugees" their first goal would be to get out of the immediate area. When they are still around in a nation across the globe over a decade later with more coming over, it is "economic refugee" status they seek, not political asylum.
If you don't have a job or a sponsor when you come to a community/nation, you contribute nothing to the social system. Good schools only remain so while everyone is on the same page of the book and the student to taxpayer ratio is good.
I disagree with you there. Our country should be very choosy; however an educated, moral person will get harassed for years, but all these third worlders and Muslims seem to have no problem at all coming over here and having the red carpet rolled out.
Yet they chose the armpit of the nation to do it in.
Lewiston Maine... A run down mill city with a shopping mall and this in a state where even the poorest are screwed over.
I'll say this though, Lew looks lot like somthing out of mogadishu or national Geographic. If the Dems keep taxing us and we keep bringing in people from Mexico and elsewhere enmasse who wont assimilate, the whole country is going to be a fourth world dictatorship. Obama or McCain will be el presidente.
'West' to me is what most Americans think 'West' means: Where I live in Nevada.
No way are you sending those basketheads here.
And they might as well as go to New Hampshire. Already the pits now thanks to the refugees flooding in from PRM (People's republic of Massachusetts)
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