Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Refugees continue to trickle into St. Cloud, Minnesota. Last year Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota opened a sub-office in the city to serve the growing refugee population, Refugees, mostly Somalis, began arriving a decade ago to take jobs at Electrolux and meat-packing companies, but now these jobs are no longer readily available. An article in the Star Tribune covers the topic.
ST. CLOUD – The basement apartment on the edge of St. Cloud State University’s campus isn’t much to look at, but to Roble Hussein, it’s guri, or “home.”
Three months ago, he lived in a refugee camp halfway across the globe, surviving on one meal a day.
He left his wife and five children to find work and peace in America.
Now, with the help of a new refugee resettlement office in St. Cloud, the Somali native’s dreams have come true. Almost.
Hussein is among about 100 refugees from Somalia and Iraq recently transplanted to the St. Cloud area with assistance from a new branch office of Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota — one of five designated refugee resettlement agencies in Minnesota.
Over the next two years, LSS’s St. Cloud office will help resettle 200 more people fleeing violence in Somalia and Iraq.
That St. Cloud was chosen as a destination for the new arrivals has raised questions among immigration supporters and foes alike.
Lutheran Social Service opened the suboffice last year, within months of several incidents that highlighted the tension simmering between longtime St. Cloud residents and Somali immigrants. Among them: A Somali store owner’s business was vandalized with the words “Go home,” spray-painted in large red letters, windows were broken at a local mosque, and the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into claims that Somali students routinely faced discrimination and bullying in school because of their culture and Muslim religion..
For readers not from Minnesota, St Cloud has a long history of racial tension. In particular there have been many anti-Semitic activities at St. Cloud University. (St Cloud is also part of the home district of the nutty Rep. Michelle Bachmann – a trust-fund brat whose family got rich off of government agricultural subsidies.)
…”One funny thing about refugee resettlement is that the State Department requires that they have a warm meal upon arriving,” said Kim Dettmer, director of refugee services for the main LSS office in Minneapolis. For that, Jimenez-Wheatley turns to the Somali Café in St. Cloud, which prepares a welcoming meal to be delivered to the apartment.
From the moment the refugees arrive, the clock is running.
“We have a tight deadline. The State Department defines refugee resettlement period as 30 days. It used to be 90 days and even 180 days. A lot of the cases we extend to another two months,” Dettmer explained… Read more here
I’m not sure what is so “funny” about the warm meal requirement of the State Department refugee contract — “those pesky regulations!” It’s probably one of the easiest requirements. Refugees arrive tired and hungry after long intercontinental flights, and most of the time do not get a meal on the American leg of their flight. They need a place to eat and sleep upon arrival. It seems like that is a no-brainer.
