Archive for the ‘Garden City’ Category:
An egress
To all,
The bad news: As I’ve delved deeper into my local government beat at the Telegram, I’ve found it more difficult to maintain this blog. I will be discontinuing the forum at the end of this month.
The good news: This means I’ll be able to work on more local government and immigration (!!!) stories at the Telegram. For example:
A New Home: A look at the Somalis of southwest Kansas
Seeking a Better Life: The changing face of the Midwest meatpacker
Groups Help Refugees Assimilate: A growing burden on social services serving refugees in the area
Faith & Immigration: What local faith leaders have to say about illegal immigration in southwest Kansas
I began blogging about immigration issues more than a year ago because I saw the issue and its related topics — diversity, race, intercultural relations, the changing demographics of the Midwest — as incredibly important to the region … but receiving little attention from the media, the storytellers of our society. Though the blogging project has been quite hit and miss at times, immigration still matters … especially in our incredibly diverse community in southwest Kansas. And so the Telegram (and I!) will continue covering its community and all the people in it.
Thanks for the opportunity to blog … I look forward to continuing the dialogue! Best, Shajia
Subscribe to the comments for this postKansan Kobach pens AZ law … Sunflower state next?
According to the Lawrence Journal World today, Kansas Secretary of State candidate Kris Kobach is not only getting paid to train the Maricopa County, AZ, sheriff’s department $300 per hour to train law enforcement how to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, but told the newspaper, if elected, “he would help draw up a similar bill in Kansas only if asked by a state legislator and if he had some spare time.”
Wow. I don’t think that is news our local law enforcement officials would like to hear. When the Arizona law first passed earlier this month, I talked to our chief of police, James Hawkins, who expressed dismay at the news. Hawkins said local law enforcement officials “just don’t care” whether someone is here illegally or not: The job of the GCPD, he said, is to keep the community safe by working with everyone.
Resources dire in western Kansas
Muna Ibrahim and her husband, Mamfoud Mohaned. listen to information being presented March 27 during a meeting of the Board of Ethnic Minority Leaders in Garden City at the Finnup Center. Brad Nading/Telegram
“The numbers just aren’t there” to justify federal immigration resources in western Kansas, our elected congressmen and their staffers say — but that assertion is “just flat wrong.”
Those aren’t my words but the words of Garden City Commissioner Reynaldo Mesa.
And he’s absolutely right. Alien residents in this area and other documented immigrants and refugees probably number in the thousands, but federal officials just don’t believe it because there are no studies to back the claim, Mesa said Tuesday, when he spoke publicly about last week’s Washington D.C. trip. That sentiment, the former mayor said, continues to create an unnecessary burden for residents in this area because their access to federal services are limited and inhibited: To take care of many procedural matters, many residents have to drive all the way to Wichita and/or Kansas City, Mo., often times more than once.
That’s why for nearly the last half decade congressional delegates from the Southwest Kansas Coalition — member cities include Garden City, Liberal and Dodge City — have been pushing Sens. Roberts and Brownback and Rep. Moran to institute an office (or, at the very least, an officer) in this part of the state. Garden City Manager Matt Allen also said that the city would put forward the effort to locate office space if federal officials would just provide the people. And if they couldn’t provide the people, then the city would put forth the people, if federal officials would just provide the training! It’s obvious local officials recognize that the need here is dire, and it’s why the tri-cities coalition outlined the issue as one of their top legislative priorities for the years ahead.
As Mesa said Tuesday, the next time the Mexican consulate from Kansas City rolls into town, city officials need to invite those nay-saying senators and staffers to come see the situation for themselves. There are hundreds of people out here who are unduly inhibited from immigration processes because of proximity. Yes, it’s easy to sit in Washington D.C. and ignore the need that exists here because there are no studies to back the claims – but the stark reality of the situation qualifies justification for federal resources more so than any study could ever quantify it.
Primary refugees in Garden City?
Mae La is the largest of seven refugee camps along Thailand’s border with Burma (the country renamed Myanmar by the military dictatorship). Many of Garden City's Burmese residents say they arrived in the U.S. after spending years in camps like this one. (Source: flickr.com)
I heard a surprising fact today: Refugees have been relocating to Garden City for a long time, but now many are coming directly here, to raise their families and hopefully find work at the Tyson plant in our backyard.
That from Velia Mendoza, the refugee coordinator at the Adult Learning Center at Garden City Community College. I spoke with her and several other staff at the refugee center located there, which the federal government designated earlier last year to track the movements and whereabouts of these families in this corner of the state, including in and around Dodge City and Liberal. (A little late on the ball, I would add, on the fed’s part.) Dubbed ‘primary refugees,’ many of these newest families of Somalian and Burmese descent are moving to Garden City directly after they are brought to the U.S., in part because they hope to find work at the local beef-packing plant and mostly because many already know some of the other hundreds of families that already live and work here, Mendoza said.
And that raises several additional challenges for both the community college staff and the other organizations that help these families, such as the local SRS, Catholic Social Services and private church groups, because unlike ’secondary refugees’ (many of the Somalian families in Garden City relocated here after the Emporia beef-packing plant shut down) they are completely new to American life and culture. On top of that, Tyson isn’t hiring as much as it used to, the staff added, and many heads of households are out of work currently. The center’s staff is having an awfully hard time helping them find work in the area — with the language, cultural and limited-education barriers for several breadwinners, finding work outside meatpacking is extremely difficult.
“So now what?” Hector Martinez, the director of the Adult Learning Center asked today. Good question. I don’t know. But there are several issues to be explored here about Garden City’s newest residents, and I plan to explore several of them over the next few months as the center continues to try to meet its ever-increasing demand for services. (The center offers ESL and driving classes, translation assistance, and more). Stay turned for many of these stories, and I welcome input below about what kinds of questions you have, as well.
Finney County: Half the population is “hard to count”
Following a Tuesday story I wrote about the special challenges facing the U.S. Census Bureau in Finney County (and all across the southwest Kansas and the High Plains for that matter!), I was contacted by researchers at the CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research about an interactive map they’ve put out that pinpoints areas across America where communities are considered “difficult to enumerate.”
You can zoom in near Garden City on the map and see that in Finney, Seward and Ford counties almost half the population is considered “hard to count,” based on demographic and housing characteristics that create challenges to achieving an accurate count, Steven Romalewski, director of the CUNY mapping service, told me.
If you decide to check it out, there is a list of FAQ here to help you navigate the site. The map is prety cool, outlining statistics such as educational and poverty levels by county that make communities especially hard to reach — do check it out!
A majority of the crowd tries to stay in the shade of an awning outside El Remido Market as Ritmo Latino entertains them with music during a Cinco de Mayo celebration. Brad Nading/Telegram