After reading this article, you might want to send a thank you note to the State Department. In the 1990s, they arranged the entry of some 80,000 Somali "refugees" into the US. Two of the largest resulting Somali communities became Minneapolis and Nashville. Assimilation has been an abject failure. Youth gangs have been born, and many have returned to Somalia to join the terrorist/jihadist organization, Al Shabaab.
And that is not all.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/mar/20/somalis-face-sex-trafficking-trial-in-nashville/?print=1
And the flow continues.
As far as I recall, the primary massive refugee airlift was done during the Bush administration. The rationale was that a particular Somali caste or clan were descendants of baNtu speaking people taken as slaves by Arab merchants, and sold into Somalia, who were perpetually looked down upon by their Muslim brothers and sisters. The solution, in the spirit of "freedom on the march" enunciated by President Shrub, was to bring them all to the USA where they would be welcomed and become fervent democrats (small-d, this was the Bush administration).
ReplyDeleteLike most refugees who lacked connections or importable wealth, they ended up in non-union meat packing plants working for minimum wage, while their children ran the streets and, as second generations often do, became fascinated with the culture of their homeland.
Wrong all around of course. But nobody wanted to repeat the error of turning away shiploads of Jews in the late 1930s...
I wasn't making an analogy to the St. Louis. I was noting, those who resort to airlifts are trying not to repeat the error of turning away the St. Louis.
ReplyDeleteIts like how we got into Vietnam, because Chamberlain appeased Hitler, except Vietnam wasn't Germany, and Ho Chi Minh, whatever his virtues or vices, was't Hitler.
Politicians and generals are always ready to fight the last war. Its true that the solution is not "Bring them to the USA." But, circa 1940, a lot of Americans thought we had too many Jews already, and they couldn't assimilate properly in a Christian nation. A lot of Americans were also saying, we're not going to go to war to save the Jews.
AFTER the war, they were a little more popular.