North Dakota: Cass County Caves to Lutheran Refugee Contractor; Votes for More Refugees

But, continue reading! There is good news too! Wait for it!

Remember that I told you here that North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum went down the wimpy middle and said the state would take more refugees if local jurisdictions agreed. So it looks like Cass County has given the governor his green light.

Read all about it here.

Unless the governor changes his mind, North Dakota taxpayers will be continuing to prop up a 4-decades-old federal program that was never supposed to be a burden on local and state taxpaying citizens.

If you are a new reader, be sure to see an important post yesterday where I explain what the Open Borders Left is doing to smash the President’s September Executive Order that gives state and local government an opportunity to opt-in or opt-out of being a refugee placement city or county.

Cass County might have caved, but the citizens of Bismarck came out in force to urge their county commission to say NO! to more refugees and the commissioners decided to postpone the decision.

Before I give you the news, know that it was 11 degrees in Bismarck last night! Can you pull this off where you live?

Decision On Refugee Consent Delayed

BISMARCK — People came from all over Monday evening in the hopes of making their voice heard to the Burleigh County Commission.

Bismarck Mayor Steve Bakken was in attendance.

With a heavy police presence, you could feel the tension in the air as most of the crowd was there to convince the commission to vote against giving consent to Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota for a refugee settlement.

The consent is necessary after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September that requires state and local governments to give consent to whether they will accept refugees or not.

Some people KX News spoke with did not want that to happen.

“124 people statewide does not have an impact, however, if the 124 do a chain migration that could easily be 1,200. And in a state of 750,000 people, 1,200 is a lot,” said local resident Phillip Cohen, who’s against allowing the consent.

The problem was so many people turned up to the meeting, they couldn’t fit everyone inside, so in the interest of fairness, the commission decided to table the matter until a larger venue could be secured in the near future.

Brian Bitner is the chair of the commission and said he also has reservations about granting the consent for financial reasons.

“I haven’t seen anything in this package, anywhere, that tells me that we’re consenting to five or 50 or 500 or anything. So North Dakota is already the highest per capita state for refugee resettlement in terms of number of citizens, so in the absence of any sort of number, there’s no way we could know the cost to the state or the county, and I simply can’t support that,” said Bitner.

Opponents of the news said an increase in refugees could lead to a drain on government services and an increase in crime, something the pro-refugee crowd overwhelmingly denied.

[….]

But with no decision Monday, the clock is ticking, because agencies must submit their written consent by Jan. 21 or lose federal funds that could be used to reunite families and place refugees in places with jobs, and other supportive means.

More here.

As for the January 21 deadline, it is for the nine resettlement contractors and their subcontractors to have their plans submitted to the US State Department in order to get their federal funding. At that time they need to have written permission from the governor and from the county government, or the city (if applicable), in hand.

(See the US State Department’s funding guidance here.)

They are shooting to get those approvals by Christmas, so you must get moving where you live! As I’ll tell you in an upcoming post, the Leftwing refugee contractors and others in the Open Borders movement are putting every county in play! (Not just those with existing sites, like these.)

The Left has made it into a referendum on Donald Trump’s refugee policies in an election year. The President is correct that state’s can choose whether to be a resettlement state or not. For us it is a referendum on state’s rights and whether local citizens will have a say in whether their communities will be changed (forever!).