St. Louis refugee contractor wants to help make the area the fastest growing immigrant community in America by 2020
To further that goal they recently purchased a closed Catholic School (bye-bye Catholics) and are converting one room into a Muslim prayer room!
Readers, the International Institute of St. Louis is a subcontractor of one of the big nine*** federal refugee contractors—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). USCRI is 99% funded with taxpayer dollars. More on the International Institute’s finances after this news.
Anna Crosslin, president and CEO of the Institute: Formerly we had no place for all of our clients to pray! Where is the ACLU?
More cultural clashes coming to Missouri? Have we so quickly forgotten the recent Bosnian murder? African Americans don’t take kindly to refugees, who are getting a lot of government help, moving in to their communities!
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
In the shuttered St. Elizabeth Academy just east of Tower Grove Park, the tiny room with the small window used to be a bathroom, but it will now serve as a prayer room for Muslims.
The room has been emptied, the only addition a bar along one wall to hang prayer rugs.
It’s one small, but important addition to what is being prepped as the new home for the International Institute of St. Louis, which has helped more than 20,000 refugees legally resettle into the area by offering English classes and assistance in finding housing and jobs.
At its current location on South Grand Boulevard, the Institute has no designated place for Muslims to pray.
“I’d walk out and see men near the elevator or stairwell, in a corner with a piece of cardboard down, praying,” said Anna Crosslin, president and CEO of the Institute, which has been in operation since 1919.
Adding the prayer room points to the ongoing challenges to serve refugees from more than 75 countries, coming to St. Louis with various customs, languages and beliefs. Since moving into its current facility in 1999, the Institute has more than doubled the number of people it serves, to about 7,500 a year.
“We feel we need to be above 12,000, and there is no way we can do that now,” Crosslin said.
The Institute also plans to enhance career development and job training opportunities. The efforts are part of the region’s goal to be the fastest-growing metropolitan area for immigrants by 2020.
[….]
When I arrived in September 1978, we served about 1,200 annually, primarily through our (English as a second language) classes,” Crosslin said. “There was no formal refugee resettlement program in Missouri — that happened in winter 1978-79.”
[….]
With immigration reform efforts nationwide and the St. Louis Mosaic Project initiative locally, Crosslin expects the number of clients served each year to reach 12,500 by November 2019, the Institute’s 100th anniversary.
If she is right, this will be an enormous jump in numbers for St. Louis. The whole state of Missouri “welcomed” just about 12,000 refugees since 2004. 2,564 of those were Somalis, btw. Most went to St. Louis and Kansas City, some were spread around the whole state.
So, if you are wondering where all their “refugee” clients will come from, these won’t all be refugees “served” by the Institute helping them find housing and get jobs—all of these contractors are getting geared-up to get federal bucks to “serve” the new Obama amnesty recipients.
There is much more, here at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. ...
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