2024 - Q2
Progress on family reunification!
Your friends G, M, and R have all been approved for asylum. That opened the door for submission of Petitions for Family Reunification. The petitions for G and R have been approved. (M’s asylum case was more complex and his petition is pending.) The young wives will still need to complete a series of health screenings, interviews and vetting with the US Government before their visas and travel authorizations are issued. On August 15, it will be three years of separation from their husbands. But it is possible one or two of these families will be reunited by then! Of course, it is also possible for snags to emerge and more years to pass.
After the interviews are complete and travel dates are set, I plan to send out a fund-raising letter to help with family reunification travel costs. And after the young women arrive in Idaho, we plan to host a whopping big party.
The Grace House
As many of you know, an anonymous donor has been allowing Bridge Builders the use of a house on the numbered streets. Our four friends who came under Uniting for Ukraine live in the main floor unit. Our three friends who came under Operation Allies Welcome live in a separate basement unit. In lieu of rent, residents and volunteers have helped finish the basement and make other improvements to the house. It has been a model of cooperation, and motivated many volunteers to download Google Translate.
The owner of the house will be putting it up for sale in 2025, so all of the residents will need to make other arrangements. Their move-out date is no later than Dec 31, 2024. It takes some time to find a rental, so they are looking right now. The OAW men may soon need three separate units suitable for young married couples. Everyone has jobs and is expecting to pay rent. Do you have suggestions for affordable housing options for these four families? If you know the families, you can contact them directly. Or let me know, and I can pass your idea along, or help you exchange contact info. (Bridge Builders does not plan to rent and sublet, or subsidize rent. The new contracts will be directly with these families.)
Jobs
Jobs on the low end of the pay scale often have a lot of turnover. We are always grateful for word-of-mouth ideas for jobs that are suitable for people who may also be going to school and may` not have great English. Short commutes and a rate of $18/hr or more are a plus.
A long conversation
A new Welcome Corps (aka Sponsor Circle) group has formed in Idaho Falls. They organized a meeting at the library to recruit a few volunteers to sponsor a new family, and all of us were surprised when the meeting was standing-room-only, and roughly split between supporters and opponents. Several insisted on recording video of the meeting. One of the attendees wrote a report for the Bonneville County Republican website, and I responded in the comments. I have these kinds of conversations frequently, so I’m reprinting it in full here, for you to listen in on. Her report is first, in italics, followed by my responses after.
“These are the notes I took from the resettlement meeting held on Tuesday, January 30, 2024 .
It was hosted by a couple from Idaho Falls in conjunction with the US department of State.
The organization is Welcome Corps! This is not a city ran program but will have much impact on the city, our taxes and our way of life.
Private/Public Sponsorship Program
You can check out information through Welcome Corps and Bridge Builders on FB and Google
Functions of this PPP....finances/employment, housing/transportation, documentation, language/clothing, medical
It is a fundraising organization......requirements include but are not limited too:
$2425 /person
90 day commitment
Must participate in sponsorship essentials training course
The people you are "sponsoring" have already gone through the vetting process, seeking asylum and just waiting in a camp somewhere to be accepted into a program.
They are looking for at least 5 people sponsorship groups, for fundraising, to bring refugees seeking asylum to the United States. Most come solo and work to bring their families over after they have integrated. So it will not just be a few it will turn into many.
My thoughts:
It will take way more than $2425 to provide them with the basic needs for one month
After the 90 days what happens to them? Are they just left to fend for themselves, using our underfunded, understaffed local agencies for "benefits"....denying our taxpayers the right to use them AND when they need more services locally, who will fund that? THE TAXPAYERS!!!
This is NOT a sanctuary city per se....but definitely the beginning of one. Twin Falls is a sanctuary city and they have been fighting it for at least 20 years if not longer. They bring their "war" with them, girls get raped, they get priority for housing, school, college and social benefits.
I sounds like to me that the Federal Government no longer has funds to manage this program so they are putting into the hands of the citizens.
I am not sure what we can do to shut it down since it is private but once we let them in....they will come.
I do not want you to think that I do not have sympathy for refugees seeking asylum. I believe that they should be given a chance at a new life. I have witnessed and been apart of citizenship hearings, sponsorship of families. A family that I view as my "family" (from Japan yes I speak a little Japanese) just received their US citizenship after much hard work and dedication using their own money, education and work visas after more than 10 years! It was a monumental moment for us to share but 10 years is hardly 90 days.
90 days and $2425 are unrealistic numbers.
I believe they should be given English classes and a work visa (that is how the people I know did it) and become tax paying citizens and not a benefit "eating" community.
We all ready have an understaffed/underbudgeted first responder department. Who is going to bear the burden of keeping our neighborhoods safe WITHOUT tax payers footing the bill?
I shared the information from the meeting but remember my thoughts are MY OWN and by no means does it mean you need to agree with me. This a situation where you need to research and decide for yourself your own thoughts. Education is mandatory moving forward!
Anyone else who attended this meeting and has other thoughts, ideas or different perspective than I left with please share those with me as well.”
My response:
I am glad you took the time to attend the meeting and write up a response! I also attended, and I’d like to respond to your notes.
This is Joe Mitchell. I am an Idaho native and registered Republican. And I have already led the effort to resettle two groups of refugees in Idaho Falls. The new Welcome Corps group will be part of a similar program.
Legal refugees arrive with Employee Authorization Documents and Social Security numbers. Everyone we have resettled has had a full-time job within one month. They have worked as machine operators at Yellowstone Plastics, CNAs at MountainView Hospital, an intern at the INL, and on the production line at Idahoan. One already started his own small business. They have not been dependent on taxpayers; they are taxpayers.
Everyone we have resettled has enrolled in English language or other classes at CEI or ISU. One just graduated Summa Cum Laude from the ISU Technology program, taking classes in his 4th language (English), and continuing to work full-time.
In addition to paying taxes, and not being dependent on government assistance, all of the refugees have made enough money to send some to their home countries. One helps fund an underground school for girls who have been denied access to public schooling by the Taliban.
The funding for our resettlement efforts has come from private donations, from people and institutions in Idaho Falls who volunteered to help.
Twin Falls is not a sanctuary city; Idaho Falls has no plan to become one. (There are none in Idaho.) The idea of sanctuary cities is to weaken Federal enforcement of immigration law. Refugees arriving through the Welcome Corp are fine with enforcement of the law, because they are fully legal. Refugee advocacy groups such as ours agree that there is a crisis of illegal immigration in the US. Our country needs to make rapid and widespread changes to resolve it.
“Girls get raped”? My heart breaks for them. I have a wife, daughter, and granddaughter and I can imagine nothing worse. (Women and children in refugee camps are especially vulnerable to violence, including sexual assault.) I can only say all of the men we have welcomed to Idaho Falls have passed criminal background checks, and have been exceptionally respectful to women of all ages, including my wife, and their own wives.
This discussion is on the Republican Party website. But welcoming refugees is not a Red or Blue issue. Many veterans groups support refugees on the basis of loyalty to allies. Many industry leaders support refugees on the basis of their desire to reliably work at essential jobs. Many liberal groups support refugees on humanitarian principles. And many churches support refugees, believing that it is part of clear Biblical teaching. I appreciate all of these perspectives. Our group, Idaho Falls Bridge Builders, is eager to partner with people and organizations across the red-blue spectrum of political views.
I believe that our values align with your conservative values of freedom, self-reliance, and opportunity for those willing to work. We are a privately funded grassroots organization that promotes independence, use of English, hard work, and following the law. I look forward to having you and the Conservative Coalition of Idaho Falls as supporters and allies of Bridge Builders and the newly formed Welcome Corps.
I appreciate your call to “research and decide for yourself.” Here are some resources I recommend:
The website for the nonprofit that I am part of: https://sites.google.com/view/idaho-falls-bridge-builders/home
A podcast that my wife Kim and I were on recently: https://mosaics.castos.com/episodes/joe-kim-mitchell-welcoming-refugees-to-idaho-falls
A national nonprofit that has information about Afghan resettlement:
(That's all for this newsletter, thank you for reading!)