Last night, lawyer Kennith Gosch of Aberdeen sent an e-mail to all 105 South Dakota legislators inviting them to Aberdeen on April 10 for the next local hate fest. I reprint in full:
Legislators,
You are invited to attend a lecture to be given by Aynaz Anni Cyrus, an Iranian-American Human Rights activist, at 6:30 p.m. on April 10, 2018, at the Aberdeen Civic Theater in Aberdeen, South Dakota. (See attachment.) Anni is an apostate of Islam. Learn how she escaped Islam and Iran and why she fears the same Islamic tyranny she experienced is coming to the United States. Also speaking will be Chris Gabautz, a national security consultant who infiltrated CAIR (Council on Islamic Relations) and will reveal its fraud, sedition and terrorism.
I have lived in Aberdeen, SD since 1972. It has been a great place to live. About two years ago I began to see a change my community. Violent crime began to increase significantly and criminal court appointments saw a rapid rise. In 2017, Brown County’s cost for attorneys appointed to defend the indigent exceeded the budget by thousands of dollars. Here is what my investigation revealed.
The main change in Aberdeen was that local government officials and Lutheran Social Services were bringing large numbers of improperly vetted refugees to Aberdeen, ostensibly to work at a beef plant and a fiber glass molding facility. Criminal law defense attorneys confirmed that they were being appointed to defend many of these refugees. Many of these refugees claimed they did not understand English and thus the taxpayers had the additional expense of paying interpreters. It appears they do not understand our system of justice since it is different from sharia law.
I also discovered that Lutheran Social Services (who was paid for bringing them here) and the companies the refugees were to work for (who received government subsidies for the refugees’ wages) were the ones who benefited from the refugees coming to Aberdeen. Shortly after they arrived in Aberdeen our community was left with the burden of providing them extra services through our courts, our schools and our welfare system.
Please note that in the last ten or more years we have had a number of legal immigrants working and living in Aberdeen but they are people who for the most part love America and want to assimilate into our society. I have not noticed that they were a burden on the taxpayers.
At no time did the citizens of Aberdeen have any say over whether refugees should be brought here or who should pay the extra tax burden caused by their being here.
Once I realized what was happening I decided to educate myself to see what could be done. I attended numerous lectures on the subject and purchased and studied a copy of the Koran. I encourage you to do the same and reach your own conclusions rather than get your information from the very people who are bringing the refugees to our community.
I also discovered that our local high school teaches our students the five pillars of Islam but nothing of sharia law. They give the students a test having them explain the five pillars of Islam and then ask them this question, “Now that you are more educated on the major beliefs of Islam, how have your views changed on the global Muslim population?”. The students are then asked to “[c]ompare your views to how the media commonly portrays Islam in the current news”.
I suggest to you learning the five pillars of Islam, without learning sharia law, does not give students enough information to correctly answer these questions. How many of these students do you think would know what a fatwa is, or how it is used today by some? Would they understand what the nine fatwas placed on Annie Cyras are? I encourage you as legislators to be better educated than these students.
There are people in Aberdeen who have a different point of view than mine but I almost never see them at any educational seminars concerning Islam or refugees or see any evidence that they truly understand Islam. They, along with the public, are always invited to attend the lectures that are brought to Aberdeen but seldom do.
I look forward to seeing you all attend. Please listen to both sides and educate yourselves on the issue. Reach your own informed decisions and do not be influenced by who shouts the loudest or gets the most people to come to Pierre. I expect you will be asked to vote on issues relating to refugees.
For your information I am a 1971 graduate of the University of South Dakota Law School and I have practiced law in Aberdeen since 1972. I am a member of an Aberdeen law firm but this email is being sent on my own behalf. I am not running for any office. I am just concerned for my community, my state and my country.
Kennith L. Gosch
315 5th Ave. SE
Aberdeen, SD 57401 [e-mail to all South Dakota legislators, 2018.04.03]
Gosch repeats many lies here, the same anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant bunk that Gosch’s small clique of bigots has been throwing around since bringing conspiracy theorist Ron Branstner to stoke hate in August 2016.
Gosch’s implication that crime has increased because of immigration has been rejected many times in Aberdeen. The most apt refutation came at last year’s city commission candidates’ debate, when eventual winner and former DCI agent Dave Lunzman said that increases in crime are not unique to Aberdeen and stem from drugs, and when his opponent Tom Black presented information from Aberdeen police chief Dave McNeil showing that while drug crimes are up, Aberdeen remains “an incredible safe community.”
Gosch continues the Tapio-style false attack on Lutheran Social Services and Aberdeen businesses. How a local lawyer can maintain any credibility in the community while attacking fellow Christians and fellow business leaders remains a complete mystery to me, a liberal blogger who draws immediate fire for even the slightest criticism of religious organizations or the Chamber of Commerce.
Gosch also lies about the welcoming, “public” nature of these events. Attendees at these hate events have ridiculed and attacked members of the public who challenge the hate speakers with questions and facts. Attendees have herded young, skeptical students to the front of the lecture hall where they can be spotlighted and intimidated. When I attempted to attend an event in December and document the proceedings for accurate blogging later, attendees tried to grab my property, blocked my view of the proceedings, and threatened to call the police and falsely accuse me of disorderly conduct. True to their thesis, these hate rallies are the opposite of welcoming.
If Gosch really meant what he says about learning about Islam, you’d think he’d go talk to his neighbors in Aberdeen who practice Islam. Instead, he portrays this event, featuring an apostate and a non-Muslim, both strangers from out of state, as an opportunity to “truly understand Islam.” In this claim, Gosch makes as much sense as I would if I invited everyone to hear an atheist blogger and an imam lead a discussion to help South Dakotans “truly understand Christianity.”
One poster for this deceptive hate rally appeared without permission at a local grocery store. The poster includes a deceptive disclaimer saying that the City of Aberdeen does not support this “women’s event.” This event is not a “women’s event.” It is an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant even. The only true part of the disclaimer is that statement the city, my city, does not support it. Neither does the unsuspecting grocer: when notified of the poster, the grocer removed it and denigrated the event as hate speech.
Kennith Gosch’s wife Ardys paid the fee to rent the civic theater for November’s Sunday hate rally. Apparently there’s no one in the Gosch household to talk sense into Ardys. Alas.
I’d love to have all of our legislators convene in our fair city. It’s just too bad they’re being invited to see the worst of Aberdeen: the lies, bigotry, and insulting bunk of handful of fearful old white people lamenting the fading of their racist privilege.
Fear is the factor no one wants to address …
There’s no simple solution to the fear of criminals, fear of terrorists, fear of the government’s turning tyrannical and, perhaps more than anything else, fear of one another.
All them CC permits still doesn’t keep wingnuts from seeing spooks everywhere. What a bunch of phony bad guys.
Cory,
I might have missed it, but I didn’t see you refute anything Gosch said or that Aynaz Anni Cyrus will be saying concerning Islam in your hate filled article.
The only thing you are refuting is the crime statistic.
Are going to this and are you going to debate Aynaz Anni Cyrus?
Who knew that Brian Gosch’s father was afraid Muslims would be elected to a majority of elected offices in SD or elsewhere in the US of A? Wouldn’t they need a majority to enact sharia law? If mr.Gosch is right, he may need to attend sharia law school, and ask LSS for a scholarship.
They’re watching you now mr. Gosch. They do beheadings. Better look both ways before kneeling before the big Chuy crucifix.
April 10, 2018 has been declared “Let’s Hate Brown People Day” in Aberdeen.
I would suggest that the gentleman, and I use the term loosely, take an extensive course in the Old Testament.” I would suggest that he take it from one of the Nuns of Presentation College, he might learn something about some of the truths in Christianity.
We do not need this hate in South Dakota. He and is redneck, racist friends should move to Washington, DC and work for their some what ignorant leader!!
GOT MELANIN? too bad! After reading this e-mail I understand that, in the mind of this very-educated-upper-middle-class white male, melanin comes with a certain degree of unlawfulness. It’s striking that, if one is Buddhist & refugee, by default, is compatible with American values, but being black and Muslim is…well, obviously, illegal!
What to do with those Black-refugee-Muslim-gay-women with a disability who are in favor of abortion?
Kick them out of South Dakota, Ioana, obviously. ;-)
Remember, Paul, Neal Tapio says the Presentation Sisters are part of the vast conspiracy of traitors waging war on “the Christian fabric of our nation.”
Hey, Ror, remind me: is Kennith actually Brian’s dad? And how is current Rep. Spencer Gosch related?
Jason, I don’t have to refute any of Kennith’s misinformed and prejudiced assumptions about a religion he does not understand and does not seek to understand. His words simply prove that he is a bigot. That issue stands independent of any discussion of comparative theology.
Cory needs to refute the fact that he is Cory.
Ioana, Roger, and Paul are the only ones here talking about skin color, by the way.
Gosch sounds ignorant, and he sounds like he believes a lot of stereotypical drivel about islam that probably isn’t true. If he was really concerned about Aberdeen not having the resources for the education, court system, or welfare of the migrant population, he should have addressed those issues directly. However, I don’t think he actually cares about those things. I think he is bummed out that some of his new neighbors believe in a different imaginary friend than he does. I think he feels entitled to approve or disapprove who moves to the town in which he lives. I think he misunderstands public school lessons on world cultures and world religions to be an endorsement of those things, or a support for conversation to those cultures or religions. I think he’s an idiot.
What color are the immigrants that Gosch set his sights on, Ryan?
Roger, that’s the point I was making. I think Gosch sounds like a moron, but he didn’t differentiate anybody based on their skin color – he is judging people based on ignorant stereotypes of their religion and based on their status as immigrants. You three are the ones talking about skin color.
I’m guessing that there is a continuum of skin tones for immigrants, muslims, and iranians, so when you folks make this about skin color, it shows your own views of muslims, immigrants, and iranians as being all one color, not Gosch’s.
What did you just say, Ryan, that doesn’t seem to make sense to me.
It is a pretty easy step to take, Gosch and the white supremacist like him always see skin color first, followed by religion or whatever.
I attempted to say not all immigrants, iranians, and muslims are brown.
South Dakota has a small but growing immigrant community, much of which emigrated from Mexico and Nepal. While roughly 3 percent of South Dakota’s population was born in another country, foreign-born residents support the state’s economy across sectors. Immigrants make up a critical share of the state’s labor force; 12 percent of all residents working in the manufacturing industry, for example, are immigrants, as are over 10 percent of the state’s building maintenance workers and groundskeepers. As workers, business owners, taxpayers, and neighbors, immigrants are an integral part of South Dakota’s diverse and thriving communities and make extensive contributions that benefit all.
More than 3 percent of South Dakota residents are immigrants, and a similar share are native-born U.S. citizens with at least one immigrant parent.
In 2015, 27,845 immigrants (foreign-born individuals) comprised 3.2 percent of the state’s population.
South Dakota was home to 11,867 women, 11,877 men, and 4,101 children who were immigrants.
The top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (12.1 percent of immigrants), Nepal (9.8 percent), Ethiopia (9.7 percent), Croatia (8 percent), and Guatemala (7.4 percent).
In 2016, 28,478 people in South Dakota (3.4 percent of the state’s population) were native-born Americans who had at least one immigrant parent.
More than a third of all immigrants in South Dakota are naturalized U.S. citizens.
10,426 immigrants (37.4 percent) had naturalized as of 2015, and 6,002 immigrants were eligible to become naturalized U.S. citizens in 2015.
Nearly three in four immigrants (74.3 percent) reported speaking English “well” or “very well.”
Only 9% of immigrants might be Islamic and practice Sharia Law. Wingnuts are scaredy cats if only 9% of immigrants make them wet their pants.
From American Immigration Council.
Jason, I don’t have to refute any of Kennith’s misinformed and prejudiced assumptions about a religion he does not understand and does not seek to understand. His words simply prove that he is a bigot. That issue stands independent of any discussion of comparative theology.
Besides, I have much better things to do with my time than dig through the Bible, the Koran, or anyone else’s holy book to support some facile prooftexting.
Roger C, you pose to me the irrefutable and inescapable. :-)
Cory,
Do you condone the way the Muslim Religion treats women?
Do you even know how they treat women?
American Christianity should be condemned for the way they treat women.
How do they treat women Roger?
How does Aberdeen sustain these industries like the beef plant and molded fiberglass, if not for the immigrant workers? Review the newspaper adds and looks at all the help wanted signs around Aberdeen. Workers are scarce.
Seriously, Jason, you don’t know the history of American Christianity and the treatment of women.
Roger,
This topic is about the present. So please tell us how they are currently treated by Christian religions.
Jason, your limited memory does not serve you well, I have repeatedly told you that I don’t have to answer your inane question or prove or disprove anything to you.
Sharia Law is history, just as American Christianity is history.
Oh look. Roger can’t back up what he said.
Oh look, Jason is running his Trumpian mouth.
Jason, I think you know from my blog history that I oppose any effort to use religion to deny human beings their equal dignity and equal protection under the law. But that’s not the pot that Kennith is stirring, and that’s not the argument that Kennith is losing. His letter has little to do with the actual substance of Islam, and it certainly ignores the substance of his own widely professed Lutheranism by expressing such lies and bigotry.
Cory,
Do know anything about this woman?
I certainly don’t and I wish I would have the time to go to this.
If the schools are not teaching that Sharia law is practiced, than that is an education failure. Is that the case in the Aberdeen schools?
Do you leave out facts when you teach Cory? Btw, what subject do you teach?
As for crime, if you are a refugee, it should be one strike and you are out.
The largest problem I have in this article is the lack of education the students are getting.
Jason, read Gosch’s letter carefully. The claims Gosch makes are mostly irrelevant to whatever he mentions about the woman. You’re trying to lead us into the distracting shouting that Kennith wants. I’m focusing on the overarching issue of his lies and fearmongering.
“Ioana, Roger, and Paul are the only ones here talking about skin color, by the way.”
And Ryan.
Apparently skin color is important to you Ryan, since you highlighted this. Why is skin color an issue for you?
Debbo,
Religion isn’t a race.
That is a fact.
Debbo is a pastor, she knows that religion is not a race and in no way made such an assertion.
Roger,
Ioana, Roger, and Paul brought race into a Religion thread. Ryan called those 3 out for being idiots.
Debbo comes in and defends Ioana, Roger, and Paul using race by saying Ryan “highlighteted” race.
This implies that Debbo agrees with Ioana, Roger, and Paul.
If she disagrees with those 3 about race being an issue in religion then she better communicate that there.
Btw Roger, why are you speaking for Debbo? Do you think she can’t speak for herself?
Ryan did not call anybody out for being idiots nor would he.
Jason, you intentionally misquoted Ryan to make the point that Debbo thinks religion is a race.
Debbo is a long time personal friend of mine, I do not have to speak for her, she is very capable of doing so her self and quite articulately.
Please show me where Debbo said that religion is a race, that exact quote, please.
Roger,
Where did I say Debbo said religion is a race?
You are one of the three that said religion is a race.
Roger Cornelius 2018-04-04 at 13:44
April 10, 2018 has been declared “Let’s Hate Brown People Day” in Aberdeen.
I don’t care if you know her or not. It’s not very considerate to speak for other people.
Jason at 21:47
“Debbo,”
“Religion isn’t a race”.
“That is a fact”.
The fact of this matter is, not a single one of us said anything about religion being a race, those are your words, Jason. That is one more of your delusions, read the comments, nobody said religion is a race.
One more time, DFP is open forum, it is not inconsiderate to comment on behalf of another. Hell, you are quite adept at taking other people’s words and twisting them to meet one of delusions.
Roger Cornelius 2018-04-04 at 13:44
April 10, 2018 has been declared “Let’s Hate Brown People Day” in Aberdeen.
You brought race into this thread. In FACT, you were the first of the three to do so.
Are you refuting that fact?
Ken Gosch is Brian Gosch’s father. For all I know, Spencer Gosch is spawn of a monkey and a chihuahua.
Religon is being used as cover for race. Kennith makes sloppy and disingenuous appeals to comparative theology, but he’s not really studying a religion. He’s certainly not connecting the dots between Islamic principles and his allegations of increased crime and social spending. He’s adopting the easy scapegoating of foreigners with different color skin, but since even he knows that racism is socially unacceptable, he pretends he’s engaging in some intellectual, theological opposition. But he doesn’t seek out his brown neighbors to talk about their actual relgiious beliefs. He doesn’t engage them or his church or his broader community in conversations about how to join Lutheran Social Services in helping these new neighbors overcome their difficulties. He’s just trying to drive brown people away so Aberdeen can stay white like him.
Don’t fall for the word games. Racist devils have clever tongues. These hate rallies are about religious bigotry and racism.
Cory,
Do you think it is right for teachers to withhold facts from students?
mfi – great post!
Jason, it’s impossible for any educator to provide an exhaustive education on every subject. Introducing children to world cultures and world religions is a good idea to show people that there are more ideas out there than what our local religious and cultural leaders believe and teach. When kids learn math, they can’t learn ALL of math. When kids learn history, they don’t learn every thing that has ever happened. When kids take band class, they don’t play every instrument. Expecting a teacher who introduces a topic to teach every.single.thing related to that topic is silly, don’t you think? And you aren’t suggesting that teaching a subject equates to supporting all topics discussed, are you?
Debbo, I know you don’t like me because I am a white male, but I don’t mind. I’ll play along with your question, although it made no sense. When I comment about gender issues, you suggest gender is some hot-button issue for me. When I comment about “privilege” issues, you suggest white privilege is a hot button issue for me. When I call out people for introducing race in an otherwise race-free conversation, you suggest that race is an important consideration for me. I have told you repeatedly that these issues are not “hot buttons” for me. I like to offer my opinion on all sorts of topics that Cory posts because I like to be a part of intelligent conversations and I sort of feel like the conversation Cory starts is the point of the blogging in the first place. I ignore a lot of stupid comments on this blog. I call some out. I comment on and praise good comments and articles quite often, too. I know you like to generalize people and ideas, especially white men and their ideas, but just because I comment on something doesn’t mean it is a big deal to me. Sometimes I’m bored. Sometimes people just need to be reminded that not everyone agrees with them. Sometime hypocrites have friends and become comfortable in their delusion that they aren’t hypocrites because other hypocrites agree with them (*ahem*). Sometimes I like to bother mike from iowa because I think he secretly loves my writing style and is afraid to admit it.
Why are my comments such a hot button for you? Misandry? Veiled jealousy? Self-hating-white-person syndrome? Misplaced anger about something I had nothing to do with? All of the above?
Whatever it is…I forgive you. And not because I am a good person and rise above – but because your opinions are not important to me; like most other things, they are indeed not hot buttons for me.
Racial and ethnic discrimination in America and elsewhere have long been tied up in religion, just as it is tied up with greed. Slavery was excused as being “God’s will,” until other people with faith stood up and said, “No, it isn’t.”
The early settlers of Dakota Territory, including my ancestors, had participated in the Civil War on the anti-slavery side and were rather clear that God’s will did not extend to hating and enslaving folks of another race. But times changed and humans being flawed, many of those settlers ended up hating and abusing and killing another race of folks who actually lived here first.
Catholics, especially those from Southern Europe, were not considered “white” in many parts of the country, and in South Dakota the Ku Klux Klan formed to hate and oppose our Catholic neighbors in just the same hateful way we see the haters going after Muslims today. Even Catholics from Ireland faced discrimination in many parts of the country and that included South Dakota.
Let’s not forget Chinese immigrants who built our early railroad system and washed the clothes of early Deadwood residents, but who faced hate and discrimination until most left.
When you hate on people, they tend to find other places to go. They take their resources, the best of which is their culture which can enrich people who take time to listen and learn. Islam has a long history on the Northern Plains. The first mosque built in America was in North Dakota, and those believers farmed the area. Most are gone now.
People who despise the haters, migrate elsewhere along with them. One of the reasons South Dakota is decaying is they have too many haters driving too many good folks away.
Well said, Donald.
And … sharia “law” isn’t really a thing, despite what Gosch and his bonehead associates say.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-sharia/2016/06/24/7e3efb7a-31ef-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html?utm_term=.7d96be58a0cb
Ryan said, “Debbo, I know you don’t like me because I am a white male.”
Not true. I disagree with you because you are wrong.
Ryan said, “Why are my comments such a hot button for you?”
Any comments that serve to continue the 2nd class status of women and POC are indeed hot buttons for me because I am sick to death of being discriminated against. Denial of white privilege and white male privilege perpetuates that discrimination. It makes me very angry and I have spent most of my lifetime working against such discrimination in as many systemic and individual forms as I can.
I just about went ballistic when I learned about the white cops who murdered the black man in his backyard holding his cell phone. I wanted to scream when I read about the white Minneapolis cops who made the middle aged Latino strip naked from the waist down on a public city street because they had to “search him for contraband.” I was so sickened by President Sh*thole’s “grab em” tape about women I went in the bathroom and vomited, then cried.
You bet Ryan. Discrimination and blatant denial of privilege, aiding discrimination, are as hot button as any issue can be for me.
Debbo
Many that benefit from white privilege and specifically white male privilege, see the items you have outlined as isolated incidents and thus not important. How many times do the haters condemn the victims for their own deaths?
Unfortunately, the situations you have noted have become all to common with Trump’s presidency, Trump, by his own actions, has emboldened racist and hate crimes to a whole new level.
Debbo, your comments are 100% more likely to “serve to continue the 2nd class status of women and POC” than mine. I advocate for equality. I support individual responsibility for all actions. I don’t think women or people who aren’t caucasian are second class anything. You appear to think that you are second class because you are female. You appear to think that men are first class and white people are first class. You perpetuate gender and racial disparity. I think it is an admirable goal to spend one’s life fighting for injustice, and helping those in need, and standing up to oppressors. I don’t think pointing fingers at innocent but imperfect allies will help you in your endeavor. But again, I’m handicapped by my desire to actually achieve goals through reasonable action instead of blaming faceless scapegoats for my problems and wondering why progress is slow.
You use the racist, criminal acts of some white men as an excuse to discriminate against other white men. You play the role of victim very well. I’m just not buying it. And like I said, I don’t deny privilege exists, I just think there are many more factors to it than you want to pretend there are.
Oh Ryan. “You appear to think that you are second class because you are female. You appear to think that men are first class and white people are first class.” II’m going to copy part of a comment I made elsewhere for you to help assess whether or not this is really all in my head and imaginary.
” Look at photos of state legislatures– pick any state. Or governors, judges, the executive suite of any Fortune 1000 company, sheriffs, police chiefs, religious denominational leaders, wealthiest 1000 Americans, military officers, university professors, prisoner populations, on and on, ad nauseam.”
🎵Yeah, just my imagination, running away with me!🎶
Women are 2nd class citizens, just ask any stoopid wingnut you happen to see. Women can’t be trusted to make healthy medical choices for themselves and any group of parasitic cells they are being forced to nurture to term in their sovereign bodies. Women aren’t capable of receiving the same pay as men do for comparable work.
It wasn’t until around 1970 that women could have their own credit rating. Some people, take misogynist Drumpf, for example, think women are nothing but sex objects to be used and discarded at Drumpf’s pleasure.
Thanks, BCB.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/04/exclusive-robert-mercer-backed-a-secretive-group-that-worked-with-facebook-google-to-target-anti-muslim-ads-at-swing-voters/
Facebook now claims Cambridge Analytica got 87 million profiles. CA is another Mercer enterprise.
De nada, mfi!
Meanwhile, the comments from those discussing privilege suggest that they just might all agree that all sorts of privilege exists, while disputing the source, cause and frequency of such privilege. Whatever its origins or frequency, I suspect that the folks commenting here would all like to reduce or eliminate unfair privilege.
But perhaps some privilege is actually fair. Affirmative action privilege is premised on that idea, although some argue that idea is incorrect. When mandatory military conscription was the law of the land, women and girls were privileged to not be subject to the draft, which was typically considered to be fair.
Privilege, to the extent exists merely because a fetus decided to grow in a mom based on her race or religion, and based on what sex the fetus decided to be, seems objectionable absence evidence that the fetus had the mental capacity to make such a decision, and that decision of where to develop was rationally based upon predictive abilities regarding potential advantages and disadvantages of the options available to the fetus.
Just to clarify my too wordy last paragraph, I was trying to say:
Treating people differently based on where they are born, or because of gender, seems a bit irrational.
But the news doesn’t stop there. On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Facebook admitted “malicious actors” used certain search tools to get at the information of most of its 2 billion users all over the world. Basically, the company admitted that if you were a user, there was a good chance your information had been accessed at some point. (Those search tools have since been disabled.) [Washington Post / Craig Timberg, Tony Romm, and Elizabeth Dwoskin]
Just ran across something elsewhere that might be helpful to the topic of hate against immigrants and POC. A favorite lie is that immigrants [POC] increase crime. Absolutely not true. In fact, it’s the opposite.
“In 136 metro areas, almost 70 percent of those studied, the immigrant population increased between 1980 and 2016 while crime stayed stable or fell. The number of areas where crime and immigration both increased was much lower — 54 areas, slightly more than a quarter of the total. The 10 places with the largest increases in immigrants all had lower levels of crime in 2016 than in 1980.”
Here is a link to the well researched and sourced article:
https://goo.gl/HgMGzD
Great topic and great discussions.
Mike from Iowa, thank you for sharing the statistics about Immigrants residing in SD. I would like to point out that UNHCR and US government provides protection and processes refugees from Bhutan who have been in refugee camps in Nepal.
Ryan,
I don’t expect every minute detail to be taught. I do expect the major details to be taught. Sharia law is a major detail of the Muslim religion.
Dave,
Let’s let Asifa Quraishi-Landes and Aynaz Anni Cyrus have a debate so we can all be informed.
Thanks for posting this, Cory. Seth Myers recently did a Closer Look segment on a Tucker Carlson piece on Fox News that similarly complained that when a town in PA saw an increase in immigrants, no one in the town got to decide. “What are you, the racist townsfolk from Blazing Saddles?” That feels exactly like what’s happening here. If he wants to have a town meeting every time someone moves to town then ok, but to basically cry foul that they didn’t get one when a bunch of “different” (brown and Muslim) moved in is pretty objectively terrible.
Also, it’s hilarious(ly sad) to me that he’s trying to pit resettled refugees against “legal” immigrants. Let me shout this loudly enough into the blogosphere so that hopefully he’ll hear it: RESETTLED REFUGEES ARE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS. It takes *years* and a mountain of paperwork to attain refugee status, which has only gotten harder since the current president has been elected. For him to say that there’s still inadequate vetting is laughable, and tells me that his real concerns is – SHOCKINGLY – maybe not about the vetting after all.
Finally (this particularly irked me for some reason): the dig at refugees for needing an interpreter in court is ridiculous, and a need that I might’ve thought he as an attorney could comprehend. I’m not bilingual by any stretch of the imagination, but I know enough high school and medical Spanish to fumble my way through a restaurant or helping a Spanish-speaking patient with the basics in a healthcare setting. However, anything beyond that and I’d absolutely need help…perhaps…someone to, I don’t know, interpret for me? There’s a difference between conversational day to day language abilities and the language skills required to navigate the legal system.
Angie,
He never said refugees were illegal immigrants.
Jason, I guess it seemed to be *really* strongly implied when he contrasted refugees with “legal immigrants” after explaining LSS’s resettlement process:
“Please note that in the last ten or more years we have had a number of legal immigrants working and living in Aberdeen but they are people who for the most part love America and want to assimilate into our society. I have not noticed that they were a burden on the taxpayers.
At no time did the citizens of Aberdeen have any say over whether refugees should be brought here or who should pay the extra tax burden caused by their being here.”
Thanks for your comment Angie. Actually, crime decreases when more immigrants move into a town, and the group least likely to be criminal actors are undocumented immigrants. That info comes directly from the Cato Institute.
https://goo.gl/aTqWss
(I don’t think I’ve ever linked to Cato before. It made my finger cramp up.)
Aberdeen’s Karen community comes from Bhutan/Nepal and I have heard nothing but good things about them.
You are welcome, Ms Hart.
Jason:
Is Asifa Quraishi-Landes going to be part of the April 10 event? It appears she isn’t. Has she been invited? Are organizers afraid of inviting someone who may possibly debunk their crazy bigoted views?
Dave,
You will have to ask Cory. He’s the one that posted this.
My question to you Dave is do you deny that Muslims deny women equal rights?
Jason
Will you now admit that you chickened out of the promised debate with Cory on the Lalley program.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-principal-implement-halal-menu/
Another fake nerws story wingnuts believed was true.
There out there still
they always will they’re the hate-owls
Move on, there’s a howl of a hate owl calling
To belong, they’re crying in the night
Be strong, find the heartless hate owl falling
Stay up till dawn until the night is gone
Thanks to LRB for the lyrics.
Jason running his mouth