A changing landscape as immigrants transform Main Streets

StarTribune ^ | 7/21/2012

[Altura Ct.]

A changing landscape as immigrants transform Main Streets

Once the henna artist arrives, business will really take off, Yonis Hajisaid said.

One of downtown Willmar's newest entrepreneurs, he owns the Nuura Shop, the latest Somali-owned business to open in downtown Willmar in the past five years.

The change from a barber shop to a henna and perfume parlor is a sign of how new immigrants are transforming business districts outstate just as they have along some main streets in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Drawn to Willmar because of jobs at the Jennie-O meatpacking plants, a growing number of Somali immigrants are calling this west-central Minnesota town home and opening small businesses on the side.

The official count says 700 of Willmar's 19,610 residents are originally from Somalia, but city officials and Somali community leaders say the real number is at least 2,000. The city's Latino population has leveled off at 4,099 according to the latest U.S. census data.

In cities such as Rochester and Faribault, too, new immigrants have arrived, adding new flavors and customers to downtown areas.

"Main Streets in many smaller Minnesota communities have not fared so well the last 25 or 30 years," said Bill Blazar, an executive at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. "The growth of immigrant populations and the businesses that are a direct result really are a shot in the arm. They're an economic development program."

The changes have also created angst for some residents.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Future jihadists.

[SpaceBar]

Our transformation into Crapistan.

[yldstrk]

degrading not transforming

[globelamp]

“A shot in the arm” indeed.

A quick check on how Somali immigration is really impacting Minnesota from American FactFinder, with whites as a comparison group:

http://factfinder2.census.gov

Percent employed (Somalis in Minnesota): 47.7% (Whites 67.1%)

Percent unemployed (Somalis in Minnesota): 12.6% (Whites 4.0%)

Median income of Somali worker in Minnesota: 14,716 dollars (whites 32,463 dollars)

In short, in NewSpeak(TM) the economic reality of Somali immigration into Minnsota is one of low employment, high unemployment and low incomes (less than half of the income of whites for those that do work).

But in the media, this is reported as an “economic shot in the arm”. Heh.

(Remember: The welfare state works through redistributing from those with above-average incomes to those with below-average incomes.)

[fieldmarshaldj]

Immigration is good SO LONG AS we have shared values. Satan worship, treating women as slaves, suicide bombings, “honor” killings, beheadings and male-on-goat copulation is incompatible with Western Civilization.

[Ben Ficklin]

"because of jobs at the Jennie-O meatpacking plants"

After Bush's infamous raids at all of Swift and Company's meatpacking plants thru-out the country back in 2006, the industry began targeting Somalis and Burmese for employment.

Many of those from Somali and Burma are here as political refugees.

[Hacksaw]

I’ve come to the conculsion that we need a moratorium on any more immigration. We are not undergoing an industrial revolution or labor shortage to justify the insane open borders policy we have.

[radioone]

“Somali worker in Minnesota: 14,716 dollars”

How come I have this strange feeling this amount doesn’t include a “little” support from the local welfare office.

[Carriage Hill]

"...a moratorium on any more immigration."

That might have helped 10-15yrs ago; it's too late now. Society's so thoroughly infiltrated, adulterated and polluted by illegals, terrorists, bottom-feeders, leeches, criminals et al, that a simple *halt* isn't going to stop or reverse what's coming.

[TurboZamboni]

Illegals leaving Arizona for sanctuary cities bring contagious diseases with them
http://www.examiner.com/article/illegals-leaving-arizona-for-sanctuary-cities-bring-contagious-diseases-with-them

Minn. braces for record number of whooping cough cases
http://www.kare11.com/news/article/983945/396/Whooping-cough-cases-in-Minn-to-be-a-record-breaker

[bcsco]

This is a ping list promoting Immigration Enforcement and Congressional Reform.
If you wish to be added or removed from this ping list, please contact me.

Would immigration status questions have stopped fatal St. Paul crash? (sanctuary city)

Thirteen Die in Tragedy in Texas

Five dead in nightmare Queens crash

DOJ: Immigration Apprehensions Lowest Since 1972

TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien

Justice Department probes Pennsylvania voter ID law

At least 13 killed as truck loaded with 23 passengers slams into trees in Texas

The Obama Nullification Doctrine

"34 Glorious,American Years that I’ve lived in America"

Mexico Aiding Illegal Alien Youths To Qualify For Dictator Obama's Deportation Relief Directive

[TurboZamboni]

USDA Partnering With Mexico to Boost Food Stamp Participation.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/19/usda-partnering-with-mexico-to-boost-food-stamp-participation/#ixzz216eEQ2WL

A decade ago, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman admonished the Wall Street Journal for its idée fixe on open-border immigration policy. “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” he warned.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWYwOTRlMzVkOGRjNjkyYTIwZjQyZGI5MDY1MTJmYTE=

In case anyone’s still in doubt as to the ultimate goal of the Amnestinians:
“Opening borders with the redistributionist state still intact will result in a larger and more confiscatory government.”

[tophat9000]

Yea..we are becoming a turdworld country

[maine yankee]

AUBURN, Maine (AP) — A Lewiston couple has denied charges that they accepted thousands of dollars in federal housing assistance money while failing to disclose extensive real estate holdings and income.

Roda O. Abdi, and her husband, Ali-Nassir H. Ahmed, each pleaded not guilty Thursday to a charge of felony theft.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lewiston-couple-charged-with-welfare-fraud-3722274.php

[layman]

Somalia is an ungovernable hellhole .... because of the people who live there.

[artichokegrower]

My town here on the Central Coast of California was transformed by the mass migration from Mexico during the 1980s ‘ and 1990s’. Once a trully multi-cultural mix of all etnicities and nationalities it is now 87 percent Hispanic. Ironically 87 percent of the births at the community hospital are funded through MediCal and 87 percent of the kids in the local schools are on the free lunch program.

[globelamp]

Indeed. Immigration was the Liberal H-bomb. The United States has been transformed, and will continue to be transformed, with an ever-growing (Democrat-voting) underclass imported from the third world. As Friedman correctly noted, a welfare state and open immigration is a disastrous mix.

There was a group of conservatives at the National Review who saw this in the 90-ies, and who came close to impacting policy. But naturally, the cocktail-party Republican crowd around the older Buckley threw them out, and decided to focus on “compassionate conservatism”, etc. so that the invitations would keep flowing. That should be a lesson to those who are hesitant to raise topics that provoke (serious) liberal ire.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” That might have helped 10-15yrs ago; it’s too late now. Society’s so thoroughly infiltrated, adulterated and polluted by illegals, terrorists, bottom-feeders, leeches, criminals et al, that a simple *halt* isn’t going to stop or reverse what’s coming. “

If there was any political will to remove illegals, it could still be done, but the Dems wants votes, and the WHORE Chamber of Commerce want plenty of cheap labor. We are screwed on both ends!

[Carriage Hill]

Both ends and all around us, too.