Uh oh—man the watchtowers! Some secret cabal is conspiring to bring more refugees to South Dakota:
Motivated by the refugee crisis, a group of South Dakota business, education, social services and government leaders informally have named the project Freedom’s Haven for New Americans Workforce.
Group leaders are not ready publicly to identify themselves, but are willing to share general plans and goals.
With tens of thousands of jobs open, and millions nationally, the leadership group recognizes that immigrants are an important part of South Dakota’s future economic growth.
…The planning group leading the effort has created detailed strategies broken into four broad categories. Those include identifying what might be needed by a new immigrant or refugee family; finding entities and relationships needed to provide that support; locating housing “temporary and more permanent;” and bringing together “important players on the private side.”
The ambitious plan seeks to pull together perhaps the most innovative and collaborative network of people, businesses and organizations ever assembled in the state. The problem, however, is that the leadership all have demanding, high-level jobs. They won’t be doing the detail work [Brad Johnson, “South Dakota Business Leaders Spearhead Immigrant Effort,” Watertown Public Opinion via Yahoo News, 2022.04.29].
Quick, Governor Noem! Call a Special Session to build Senator Novstrup’s wall! Keep those sneaky and surely Soros-funded liberals from flooding our state with terrorists and undesirables from other countries who might change our state!
Dont worry Corey, they will be white and Christian ‘enough’ so the carpet will get rolled out.
Righi on, Mark– “Wrapped in the American flag and prominently displaying the Bible” for all skeptics to see and trust!
The fine white immigrants that make the cut will be shown to their Levittown style tent cities and assigned their $7.25 per hour jobs. Ain’t Murica great?
What was the phone number again ?
You know, the “Call me when you’re
an American “ Hot line?
Maybe a modified EB5 program without
Joop , Mike and Poor old Richard would work.
I doubt it.
Remember who’s steering the ship.
Weird Al Noluckstruck just needs to go away.
Will they be able to enter the country? Republicans are sooo concerned about Covid that they want to keep Title 42 from ending. They are so concerned about infectious disease that they are suing the federal government from ending it in late May. It’s the only public health policy they like. The CDC said it’s no longer necessary but why trust the science when you don’t have too.
Mark, I’m not so sure. If this group were focused on bringing in Ukrainians or other white Christians, will they be keeping their identities secret?
it does seem odd that the governor herself wouldn’t jump on this bandwagon very publicly and quickly. She has made a big marketing push to recruit people to South Dakota for “freedom” In order to bring a bunch of white Republicans from other states who can vote for her in this year’s gubernatorial election and help boost her thin winning margin that she posted in 2018 over Billie Sutton. Perhaps she’s not as eager to get on board with bringing freedom seekers from Ukraine because they won’t be able to vote for another five years.
There’s not enough housing for the folk who are already here. Average rentals in Rapid City, for example, will set you back a grand a month. Who will foot the bill for these refugees and why can’t we do the same for the locals? Tear down the shacks and provide decent housing and wages that will support the newcomers as well as the locals. There’s a whole bunch of eager workers right down across from the southern border. The governor of Texas will even provide those folks with transportation to South Dakota…booyah!
Well…the business leaders are correct…we need willing workers who will accept the wages offered in our CAFOs, dairy farms, slaughterhouses, Amazon warehouses, motels, restaurants, and fabrication shops. We’ll figure out housing when they get here, it’s not an employer’s responsibility. Ukrainians would be wonderful. Hardworking people desperate to start over and used to our climate and geography. There are plenty of Ukrainians in western North Dakota .But to the newly arrived Ukrainians South Dakota will look like a garden compared with Watford City. Mexicans, legal or illegal would be fine too. Those folks have a great work ethic and don’t ask for much in the line of wages, housing or health care. Only problem is both groups are Catholic which upsets Lutherans, Pentacostals, and the unchurched but it’s either welcome the refugees or drop the employment age to 12 and put the kids to work early.
While I do long for the good ol’ days, Noem returning us to the 70’s is not what I had in mind.
You know you guys sound like the Sioux talking about the government giving their land away to the Norwegians.
I have to think Mark is right here (but hope he is not): SD is getting involved only when the refugee crisis is white Europeans. I suppose “white” is close enough to “American” to qualify. for the Governor’s warm welcome.
One other element that I hope gets considered (in addition to housing) is how an influx of non-English speakers affects a local school’s ability to meet the needs of English language learners. As business considers all the ways to use immigration to fatten their pockets, I hope considerations also go to supporting those refugees — beyond that job that nobody else was willing to take.
Cory,
You can withhold my last comment. I read full article and see I was somewhat off base. Also, sorry for misspelling your name earlier. Seems like original piece was written from a little more balanced perspective, and folks behind it are open to any legal refugee and engaged with LSS.
Still stand by the notion that white christian refugees certainly more welcomed in Red states like ours
O – aside from the French, almost all Europeans of every national stripe speak some English. This has been the case since the ’70’s.
The 1970’s, Sion? Those were the good old days when we had Democratic Governors. Noem is returning us to the 1920s, or maybe the 1870s.
Good point, Cory. Why isn’t our ‘call me when you’re an American’ governor jumping all over this?
Didn’t the past mayor of Aberdeen try to do this? Not secretly, but working with Lutheran Social Services. He lost his re-election bid big time.
Hey–for those MAGA folks out there. SD needs to go back to a point in time when children can be used to work in some of those jobs not suitable for adults (or adults are too expensive to hire). Not to worry about danger. Kids don’t realize it. Could also lower the age for marriage to create even more children.
Vote Republican. We need more Putin promoters in change. I believe child labor if common practice in Russia and other autocratic regimes.