Flint’s Next Crisis?



Syrian immigrants in SerbiaThe city of Flint, Michigan, which garnered national attention this year for its lead-contaminated water, may once again find itself in crisis mode if refugee resettlement contractors in the state get their way.

According to Breitbart News, mid-Michigan refugee contractors are planning on resettling 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees in FY 2017 in Flint without the knowledge of local officials. “At this point it appears city leaders have not been informed of the details regarding this matter,” a spokesperson for Mayor Karen Weaver and the city of Flint told Breitbart.

A review of refugee resettlement data from the Department of State reveals that over the course of the last 10 years, a mere eight refugees have been resettled to the Flint area; four in FY 2011 and four in FY 2013 to be exact. This hardly makes Flint an obvious choice for resettling 100 additional refugees seeking to call the U.S. home. To the contrary, it seems rather irresponsible to place refugees in a city that is already trying to recover from its own public health and financial emergencies.

By now everyone in America has heard of Flint’s water crisis, where residents in this largely low-income and working class community were poisoned by high levels of lead in their drinking water. Though federal officials reported earlier this summer that it was now safe to drink “properly filtered water,” some homes are still reportedly unable to have proper systems installed, requiring many residents to continue to rely on bottled water.

Moreover, the city of Flint has only recently come out of its financial emergency. From December 2011 to April 2015, Flint was so plagued with financial problems that they were placed under state receivership. Nearly four years and four emergency managers later, the city is on the road to being debt free for the first time in a decade. While efforts to put Flint back on track should be commended, they should also not be pushed during its recovery period by flooding the city with individuals who will heavily rely on government assistance.

Needless to say, it is reckless and negligent to both prospective refugees and current residents to so drastically increase the number of refugees going to the area when the city of Flint has hardly had an opportunity to get back on its feet. Instead of setting unsuspecting refugees up for potential failure by resettling them in an area with well-documented public health and financial problems, refugee contractors and their parent agencies should place time and effort helping preexisting communities recover.

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Content written by Federation for American Immigration Reform staff.

2 Comments

  1. avatar

    The unvarnished truth is that these refugee settlement groups care about their paychecks. The more people they bring in, the more money they make. They give the refugees a couple months assistance and then dump them on the taxpayers, where they remain on high welfare rates for years. Hillary promises to increase this, when the only solution is for us to set aside, and enforce, neutral camps in their countries.

    She said something quite telling on Tuesday in a televised speech to a labor union. She asked “why am I not 50 points ahead in the polls”. Obviously, she thinks the public is the problem, not her. We just don’t recognize her genius. The question she should be asking herself is why, in spite of Trump’s huge negatives and the fact she has outspent him many times over, this race is essentially tied. But again, it’s not her, it’s us. Too dumb to know better.

    We get it about Trump. A lot of us are reluctant to vote for him until you realize that she could easily have 2 or 3 Supreme Court picks, which would continue the socialist utopia agenda that’s been in place for the last 8 years. Where if you’re white and don’t knuckle under to the concept of microaggessions and safe spaces, you’re guilty until proven innocent. We get she refuses to admit there’s any threat at all from Islamic extremism, in fact she denies it exists.

    Her supporters say they will move to another country if he wins. His supporters needn’t bother if she wins. She’s working as hard as she can to bring us to third world status. This will not be the country we grew up in.