Somali Refugee Flow to Minnesota Slows Dramatically

Two rogue federal judges have temporarily put President Trump’s immigration restrictions on hold, but the threat itself seems to be having an effect — not just on Mexico, but on inimical places like Somalia:

The pace of refugees arriving in Minnesota slowed markedly in recent months, even though President Trump’s executive order pausing resettlement remains mired in the courts.

Arrivals hit a low of 66 statewide in March, roughly one-fifth the level of a year ago, before rebounding slightly in April. Somalis, who last fall were a majority of refugees in the state, made up less than a quarter of last month’s arrivals, based on new data from the State Department.

For Minnesota’s resettlement agencies, the result has been layoffs and anxious calls from former clients worried about reuniting with family members still in the resettlement pipeline. For critics of refugee resettlement, the continued arrivals nationally — still in the thousands each month, including people from countries singled out for additional travel restrictions — are a disappointment.

The reasons for the slowdown are not entirely clear, and a bipartisan group of senators this month wrote Trump officials to demand an explanation.

Now this is classic Minnesota-nice thinking at its finest. Layoffs at resettlement agencies ought to be considered a good thing, as the entire misbegotten project winds down — unless your ultimate goal is to transport the entire population of a hostile land of cultural and religious aliens to downtown Minneapolis and change utterly the character of the community in the name of “human rights.”

Resettlement agencies in Minnesota and nationally were uncommonly busy last fall, at the start of the federal fiscal year, and rapidly moved toward the annual limit that former President Barack Obama had raised from 85,000 to 110,000 refugees; the refugee total so far this fiscal year is 42,000. But since Trump’s January executive order suspending resettlement and travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, and then a revised order in March, arrivals slowed down rapidly.

The situation in Somalia — the site of the “Black Hawk Down” atrocity — is terrible; then again, the situation in that benighted land is always terrible. But the Mrs. Jellybys of Minnesota don’t seem to understand that.

Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to be–if I understood it–the brotherhood of humanity, and gave utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and told them in whispers “Puss in Boots” and I don’t know what else until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed.

As Dickens makes clear, charity begins at home. But where’s the moral preening in that?

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