Last July, Fred Festler attended one of Ron Branstner's anti-refugee and anti-immigrant talks in Little Falls, and if the account in a recent Morrison County Record article is correct, he and his friends still fretting about stealth Islamic refugees from Somalia sneaking into Morrison County and getting public housing vouchers.
Big Fears In Little Falls
The Morrison County Record's Terry Lehrke reported Friday in Refugees, land, taxes, MNSure:
Forty residents were on hand Monday, to hear what legislators, Rep. Ron Kresha and Sen. Paul Gazelka, had to say about upcoming issues at the State Capitol. They were also there to share their own concerns — about land, property taxes, a possible influx of refugees, and provisions of MNSure.
...In response to questions and comments from Greg Smith, Fred Festler and Richard Japp about allowing refugees into Minnesota, and the expense of doing so, Gazelka said it was a very complex issue.
Smith said the Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) in Little Falls opened up its Section 8 housing list, with space for 133 residents; local residents get first choice. He told the legislators that someone told him there were 96 refugee families attempting to get on the list. “Fortunately we were able to fill the list with all local residents at this time,” he said.
Smith claimed in other parts of the country ways were found to override that and give that priority to refugees.
Lorelee Beto, the executive director of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) in Morrison County, said after the meeting, there are currently 231 applicants on her waiting list for Section 8 housing, 39 of whom are local residents. There are just two openings on the HRA voucher list, which will go to local residents, with preference given to the elderly and disabled. There were not 133 openings, she said. In addition, the ethnicity of those applying is not taken into consideration or given out to the public. She noted the Morrison County HRA works with the Todd County HRA.
Gazelka doesn't want all people to be able to live where they want in the USA
But perhaps more concerning that the persistent fears of the anti-refugee folks in Little Falls? Senator Gazelka's response:
“We want people to come to our country to be legal immigrants and come in and become part of our culture and become Americans and swear allegiance to the flag,” said Gazelka. “If people don’t really have that same attitude, it’s going to create challenges.”
Gazelka said he tweeted the governor that he didn’t think Minnesota should be accepting refugees from the Middle East right now, “because we have no way of vetting who’s who.”
Gazelka said it wouldn’t be just those coming over from the Middle East settling in Minnesota, but those who are currently in other parts of the U.S., called secondary migration. “More of those are coming to Minnesota than the actual allotment,” he said.
Local solutions, Gazelka said, would be to encourage local residents to apply for Section 8 housing.
“On the federal level, though, I really believe we should be setting up safe housing in their countries or neighboring countries for those refugees to remain,” Gazelka said. “We know that the costs are dramatic to that local community — when you have a large population of any group. We’re trying to figure how to work through it.”
“We don’t have to build low-income Section 8 housing,” said Smith. “We can set it up based on the HRA list in a particular county; we can stay ahead of that using the list.”
In short, Gazelka not only favors discriminating against resettling refugees, but also seeking ways to prevent them from moving within the United States once they're settled here (refugee resettlement programs do not underwrite "secondary resettlement," otherwise known as "moving).
Update: Gazelka's Tweet
We found this tweet about Syrian refugees--not "refugees from the Middle East"--in Gazelka's twitter stream:
President Obama should halt acceptance of Syrian refugees. GovDayton should not accept any more in MN. Michigan Governor already acted.
— Paul Gazelka (@paulgazelka) November 16, 2015
Perhaps if he'd actually used @GovMarkDayton in the tweet, the governor would have known about his concern. However, Gazelka's tweet singled out Syrians, not other Middle Eastern country.
Constitutional common sense from Kresha
Fortunately, Kresha inserted a bit of constitutional common sense into the discussion:
When Gazelka noted it was a local issue, Smith asked the legislators if they would use their influence with the county commissioners.
“I would never influence the county commissioners,” said Kresha. “If they want to talk to me, that’s great. It would never be conscionable for me to say ‘I’m your state representative.’”
Another problem, Kresha said, “I can’t create lodging discrimination. I can’t say, ‘Create X-amount of low-income housing only for these people in these numbers,’ because the courts will toss it out.
“Whether we _like it or not, the Constitution treats anybody who is a citizen fairly, and it doesn’t matter what they look like,” Kresha said.
That sort of answer--the Constitution--probably won't be enough to satisfy Tea Party fan Greg Smith.
Somehow, we suspect Kresha's suggestion of shifting the cost of resettlement to non-profits won't keep his constituent happy:
However, Kresha said there are things that can be done.
“If you’re a nonprofit that brings in a large group of people — I don’t care if they’re Christian refugees, Somalians, etc. — I think you should be responsible for paying for some of those welfare costs. At the end of the day, it becomes a taxpayer problem,” Kresha said.
We'll continue to monitor the Fear Of A Muslim Refugee Invasion on the part of some Morrison County residents.
Photo: Little Falls, Minnesota.
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