title: WHY UNEDUCATED SOMALI REFUGEES Who Don’t Speak English Are Fleeing Arizona For Minnesota [VIDEO]
text: A few weeks ago, we reported on the first female Muslim legislator, Ilhan Omar, the 34-year-old Democrat community organizer who came to America as a refugee from Somalia. Ilhan was one of only two state legislators who voted to prevent Life Insurance companies from denying benefits to benefactors of terrorists who died committing an act of terror against Americans.Omar is also a vocal opponent of President Trump (see video here) and his plan to better vet refugees coming from nations that are terror hotbeds. It s not unrealistic that the largest Somali Muslim population in America will also become a hotbed for terror.On November 19, 2016 U.S. District Judge Michael Davis sent a clear message to America: There is a terrorist cell in Minneapolis and it is still alive today. In sentencing nine young Somali-Minnesotans on terror conspiracy charges this week, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis closed a chapter in the federal government s long, extraordinary investigation of ISIL recruitment in Minnesota.But the full story is far from over.Each day, Davis sought to extract acknowledgment from the young men that they were  terrorists,  and left no doubt as to his thoughts on whether they were simply misguided youths. Everyone talks about Brussels or Paris having cells,  Davis said one day, then, raising his voice:  We have a cell here in Minneapolis. Saying the Minnesota public had  danced around  the issue, Davis described the cell s size as being between nine to 20, including those sentenced last week and others killed abroad.  Star TribuneRefugee expert Ann Corcoran who owns the amazing Refugee Resettlement Watch website explores why Somali refugees are fleeing states like Arizona where they are being delivered by our government and heading for Minnesota? Corcoran asks: Why would they leave a climate more like home to move to the frigid north in droves?  All sorts of reasons are given in this article from the Phoenix New Times  -supposedly for jobs, to be with family members, Somali  community,  better welfare, but not mentioned is to build political power through numbers.  Minnesota will be the first state to push for aspects of Shariah Law to be put in place, in my opinion.Bilad Yusuf and her seven kids were on their way to Minnesota, less than two months after they arrived in Phoenix. We didn t know how to get jobs here, and even if we did, we didn t know how we d get to them,  she explained through an interpreter who translated from Somali to English.After waiting for six years in a refugee camp, Yusuf and her family arrived in the United States this winter amidst the chaos surrounding the Trump administration s attempt to block Somali immigrants like them from entering the country.Following a brief stop in Houston, they were transferred to Phoenix. There, stranded in the urban sprawl without a car, they found themselves lost: Where were they supposed to get groceries? How did they go about setting up long-overdue doctor s appointments? How would they pay rent after their initial stipend from the U.S. government ran out?The Somali Association of Arizona stepped in, providing groceries and setting up doctor s appointments for the refugees. But they couldn t do anything about the fact that the fact that with limited English and no training, Yusuf and her older children weren t qualified for many jobs.So, worried that her rent would be cut off soon, Yusuf ultimately decided they should move to Minnesota, where she, like virtually all Somalis, has family.Mukhtar Sheikh, the program coordinator for the Somali Association of Arizona, says that Yusuf s story is a common one.Between 1981 and 2017, Arizona took in 7,351 Somali refugees, according to Department of Economic Security statistics. But how many of those refugees actually stay in the state is another question.Sheikh estimates that as many as half the Somali refugees resettled in Arizona end up leaving   typically for Minnesota, or other parts of the country where there s a large Somali community   because they re unable to find jobs here. I think Arizona is able to do more for refugees, to be honest,  he says.  If Arizona invested in these families, it would actually benefit the state, because they re really hardworking. Contrary to popular belief, refugees who are resettled in Arizona receive relatively little financial assistance from the state. In fact, their main source of cash assistance is the federal government.But the biggest challenge is finding a job, he says. When he first arrived in Phoenix, he was able to find a job at Sky Harbor International Airport and work his way through ASU. Other Somalis have followed a similar path and found jobs at the airport. But many others have found that even jobs cleaning hotel rooms or washing dishes in a restaurant come with a requirement that applicants speak English   or, unofficially, Spanish. The people that struggle the most are people who have no educational background,  Sheikh says.  They re the people most in need, and they face the biggest hardships when coming here and trying to find opportunities here. Recently, he s gotten calls from recruiters working on behalf of Amazon warehouses in Minnesota and Kentucky, looking to hire managers who speak Somali in addition to English.Should American companies be actively recruiting non-English speaking, uneducated refugees for jobs in America? Why are the airports one of the first places newly transplanted refugees coming from terror hotbed nations are finding employment? Shouldn t we fix our broken welfare system instead of recruiting workers from overseas to do the jobs Americans won t do? That tells him that they re hiring a lot of Somali refugees who don t speak English yet, he says. He d like to see the same thing happen in Arizona, where, to his knowledge, only a handful of refugees have been able to get jobs at Amazon distribution centers.But, he acknowledges,  There s only only so much that one company can do. There has to be support from the state. The Department of Economic Security, which administers the Arizona Refugee Resettlement program, doesn t track where refugees end up once they stop receiving services from the state, director of communications Tasya Peterson says.So it s impossible to get an exact count of how many refugees have left for other states in search of better opportunities.But, Peterson adds: We do know that Somali refugees resettled in many states have relocated to live in cities in which the largest numbers of Somalis reside, including cities in Minnesota and Ohio, due to mutual assistance and other affinity relationships.   Phoenix New TimesFor residents of Minneapolis however, many are facing a new reality with the exploding Somali refugee population. In July 2015, we reported on a mob of 30 young Somali men who  raged  through an upscale neighborhood, yelling disparaging comments and threats against homeowners.A female resident of the neighborhood, obviously shaken in a TV interview, related how she was screamed at by a Somali man who threatened to kidnap and rape her. They were screaming at the house that they were going to kidnap you and they were going to rape you,  one Minneapolis resident told KSTP TV.  It was a very traumatizing experience. Somalis living in Minneapolis are almost all Sunni Muslims, and residents of the Lake Calhoun area say this isn t the first time a group of Somali men has made an intimidating march through their neighborhood, which is filled with million-dollar homes.Here is the shocking and disturbing video taken by the homeowner who reported the incident. For the entire story, click HERE: 