Posted on 07/26/2014 5:50:03 AM PDT by RKBA Democrat
DOVER — Misinformation has surfaced this week regarding the relocation and settlement of Congolese refugees to Tri-City communities; however, one aspect of the program through the Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success is true — the communities of Dover, Somersworth and Rochester will have no say in the matter.
Dover Mayor Karen Weston said Friday that the notion of 3,000 refugees being resettled in the Garrison City is not accurate and also the GraniteGrok.com report by Skip Murphy that a meeting scheduled with ORIS Aug. 13 will not allow for residents to ask questions is a total fabrication.
What is known is that no more than 100 Congolese families would be resettled throughout Tri-City communities and as a community, Weston said, there is no authority on whether to accept or not.
How the families will be chosen or denied is a method unknown, as is whether individuals in the program may be mentally, physically, or chronically ill.
“We need to have that meeting to ask these hard questions,” she said.
That meeting she said is not only public and will allow for questions through a citizens forum, but is also one she's extended invitations to for Somersworth Mayor Dana Hilliard and Rochester Mayor T.J. Jean along with their respective councils.
Hilliard said officials are eager to learn more information as there are many concerns from the communities. Weston said gaining answers to those concerns is exactly the intention of the meeting.
She also said this is not a program, federally operated through the state, that Dover is embracing.
Dover City Manager Mike Joyal said he was contacted by a director at ORIS who was interested in the Garrison City as a relocation community. Weston, along with Planning Director Chris Parker and Economic Development Director Dan Barufaldi, met with a representative from ORIS. Joyal was unable to attend that day but said the three city officials who went were able to raise concerns.
“As a result of those questions and also wanting to make sure the public was informed, we asked that they would come back and address the city council as a whole,” he said. “We're looking for some data on what exactly is the success rate, what the impacts are on local community services, and where will financial assistance come from after the support from the agency runs out.”
The goal of the program is to promote self-sufficiency with the refugees.
Very little is known at this time as far as details into who would pick up financial and educational responsibility after the eight-month commitment of support ends from the program.
Once refugees have lived in the community for a certain length of time, they will also be able to sponsor additional family members to join them.
The refugees, she said, are not immigrants, though there is yet another rumor surrounding the proposal indicating that some of the illegal children crossing the Mexican border may be given refugee status. That fact has not been confirmed at this time.
Calls to ORIS on Friday were not returned by deadline.
“We have not endorsed these folks and we do have major concerns of the financial and educational impact on each of our cities,” Weston said.
Hilliard said the idea that the community would legally have to support the refugees through both social services and education once the assistance from the state runs out is totally unacceptable for the Hilltop City. And while he said he could not speak on behalf of Dover and Rochester, he knows each community shares the same concerns.
“It certainly isn't going to be acceptable to the city of Somersworth and I can bet it won't be acceptable to Dover or Rochester,” he said.
Jean said he has the same concerns with the welfare and needs of residents of the Lilac City being his number one priority.
“I really see this as really taxing the resources of the Tri-City communities for years to come if it's not very clear up front how many refugees will be coming and where it's capped, if at all,” he said.
The state is very clear, he said, on what municipalities must do to provide for residents in need of assistance and meeting those needs is already a challenge.
Like Hilliard and Weston, he hopes to learn at the Aug. 13 presentation from ORIS, what the true obligation will be in terms of providing all services.
“From a humanitarian standpoint my heart goes out to them and I certainly understand the difficulties they might be facing,” he said, but added that the needs of residents in his community have to come first and not be compromised.
Hilliard, who acknowledged his ancestral roots in Somersworth as being a result of immigration, said all three Tri-City communities were built on immigration.
“Our country was founded on immigration and it's through the hard work of immigrants that we move forward,” he said. “However, with that in mind and, again, knowing very little of what the intent is other than just through some brief conversations with Mayor Weston, there is a balance between the intentions of the federal government and relocation programs and then ensuring that they are going to meet the needs of the community where the people resettle.”
He noted the federal government doesn't necessarily have a positive track record when it comes to making good on promises of assistance.
“Short term promises do not equal long term solutions,” he said.
Beyond his concern for Somersworth, he is also concerned for what actually happens to the refugees, many of whom may have come from crises and travesties in their native homes.
Leaving local communities to provide for the refugees, including English as A Second Language resources for children who will have to be integrated into local school systems, is not fair to the families relying on promises of opportunity, he said.
“Neither one of our communities are about dampening hopes and spirits. We are dedicated to the success of those who move to our area. It's not fair to the community and it's not fair to them. It's not fair to the human beings you are giving the hopes and promises to,” he said.
The presentation will be held Wednesday, Aug. 13, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers at City Hall.
We're serfs, not citizens.
Dover, New Hampshire
Ever hear about what happened to Wausau, WI? A Lutheran Church brought in a small group of Hmong refugees from SE Asia. That small group thanks to chain migration and network effects blew up to thousands and Wausau went to hell. I would bet the same thing happened with the Somalis in Minneapolis-St Paul. All it takes for your city to go 3rd World is a pioneer group sticking around and it will snowball.
they will also be able to sponsor additional family members to join them.
Invasion is the correct word.
This won’t stop until there is nation-wide resistance sufficient to threaten the Regime or the tyrant is deposed.
These NH communities cannot handle an influx like that. I’m sure plenty of those MA liberals who have taken over the state think they can, but are mostly clueless about the problem that refugees from a backward chaotic African environment will bring with them.
Both parties are committed to turning America into a non-white socialist hellhole. Electing republicans won’t do anything to change this.
VOLAGs, the Lutherans, Catholic Charities, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, are one of the prime reasons for these disastrous refugee resettlement policies, and responsible for devastating dozens of once beautiful communities in this country.
Here come the Ebola vectors.
NO more money to Catholic Charities if what you say is true!!!
Just one aspect of Obama’s ruination of our nation.
“This won’t stop until there is nation-wide resistance sufficient to threaten the Regime or the tyrant is deposed.”
No, this won’t stop until Americans themselves breed the next tier of this pyramid scam we call an economy.
Just look at Portland and Lewiston Maine, Somalia refugees have caused an epidemic of crime in that city, Drugs, Gangs, etc.http://www.eutimes.net/2009/12/somali-youths-are-randomly-attacking-people-in-lewiston-maine/ of course you have to read a European paper to find this stuff out.
” ... the idea that the community would legally have to support the refugees through both social services and education once the assistance from the state runs out is totally unacceptable for the Hilltop City”
That’s gonna short-dick every Congolese cannibal in New Hampshire ....
Feeding them, hmmm.
Another way to handle it, ship them to fair-weather cities with hobo/bum problems?
Congresscritters telling us we have no right to know what is in legislation and others telling us we have to accept “refugees” deposited in our neighborhoods.
At some point it will be necessary to introduce these fascists to notion that a well employed baseball bat can curtail their “authority”.
I’m guessing (hoping?) the acknowledgment of the fall of our Republic is complete. The idea of Federalism has been stood upon its head. Though, nstead of righteous indignation, all I read was woeful hand-wringing
Massholes.
There are plenty of Americans who could have been educated and motivated to fill the available jobs in the US. However, they have been raised and educated for dependency and the social welfare programs by many names actively discourage getting a job and earning self respect. The country is being buried by millions of Obama voters and even while they are still illegal, many will vote with the active collusion of the progressive left who serve as Obama's handmaidens. The country won't be brought back by an increase in the birthrate of legal citizens. This is the end game and either in 2014 or 2016, the Left will cement their hold on the political government of the country. The only solution would come from outside the existing system, if there is any solution at all.
Obama is just following in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W., who rolled out the red carpet and flooded American towns with tens of thousands of barbaric, illiterate, Somali Muslim savages against the objections of pretty much everyone.
I have no problem blaming Obama for his ruination of the country but as another Freeper above me pointed out, both parties are equally culpable in this travesty.
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