Might as well address the elephant in the room you and to an even greater extent RJ want to keep promoting as a non-issue.
I think it was on another thread where RJ said 99% of all Muslims in the U.S. are assimilated. Later in that same thread he said Muslims in the U.S. are different than the ones in Europe because they don't live in ghettos and then alluded to "all" of them being assimilated. I'll put aside the rather odd notion of a liberal, progressive thinker like RJ associating ghettos as inherently likely to breed crime.
What I have, however, been noting for well over a week is that immigrants and refugees from societies that do not hold our secular values are absolutely prone to creating significant issues in our communities and that we must stand up for secular values and demand and support reforms from within those societies both at home and abroad. I say this because I live in a state with somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 refugees from a war torn country - Somalia. Most of them live in the Twin Cities metro. And the issues that community both faces and creates for the broader community (and even, potentially, for the country) are very real.
I'll preface this by noting that the significant majority of these people are law abiding. I don't run around day to day thinking about Somali crime. But I am also very much aware of the challenges and stresses this community places upon local and Federal law enforcement and other government agencies. That notion that most of the refugees are law abiding must remain very firmly in the left side of your brain. Try not to go all reactionary as you read through all of the examples below. The point is, the issues cited below are very real. And, by and large, the issues this community both faces and creates greatly outstrip their proportion of our state population.
The causes here are also complex. Not only is Somali society have very different norms and values from our own, the region is war torn - meaning many of the refugees have experienced outrageous instances of trauma. Many of these refugees come to our country with limited education and few skills. Most of them arrive with very few resources. And all of them are trying to adapt to a very different society, which creates its own stresses.
To try and claim 99% of these folks have assimilated, that there are not elements of radicalization within their community and that the values some within their community do not present unique risks is just misplaced. Local and Federal authorities spend significant resources trying to find ways to aid assimilation and to assure radicalization is kept in check.
1 - The community has significant crime issues. Quite a bit of it is gang related. Again, the reasons are complex. For years the U.S. government took the position they would not deport Somali criminals deemed dangerous because they did not wish to return these individuals to a war torn country. In part this is because Somalia is just a dangerous place. In part it was because a return to Somalia might present a greater risk these individuals could become radicalized and cause problems in other ways around the world. But a few years ago the government shifted its stance and lined up as many as 3,000 convicted felons for deportation. 3,000 out of a total population at the top end of estimates which numbers 100,000. This is from the Star Tribune.
http://www.startribune.com/feds-step-up-deportation-of-somalis-in-trouble-in-minnesota/224729142/
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2015-crime-statistics
"The 2015 statistics show the estimated rate of violent crime was 372.6 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the property crime rate was 2,487.0 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. The violent crime rate rose 3.1 percent compared with the 2014 rate, and the property crime rate declined 3.4 percent."
This shows that the US crime rate is about about 2850 people/100,000 residents. It would be logical to believe that the lower the socio-economic group, The higher the crime rate. It wouldn't take much to get 2850 to 3000.
2 - The idea none of these refugees are prone to radicalization is just demonstrably false. The FBI in the Twin Cities spends significant resources monitoring the community because it knows youth are targeted for radicalization. This is just the latest case. There have been others - including one several years ago where up to 40 youth simply went missing and returned to Somalia to join an Al-Qaeda affiliated terror group. And this should be of concern to all of us.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/11/16/third-day-of-isis-trial
3 - Part of their cultural differences are just different approaches to how they treat women and girls and their greater acceptance of violence. We are talking about a society where it is common place for girls to be circumcised. Among other things it is generally accepted that issues of domestic violence are higher than in our general population and less likely to ever be reported. Yes, the broader community seeks to make resources available to address these issues. But these are things that happen. This is from Maine - reporting on domestic violence in their Somali refugee community.
http://www.pressherald.com/2014/10/01/domestic-violence-often-kept-hidden-by-maine-immigrants-refugees/
4 - As further evidence of different cultural views, there are numerous incidents which bleed into and impact the broader community. All of these are recent:
This happened about a mile from my house this summer. I do not know the victim. But I do know people who live in the immediate vicinity and this was extremely aggressive and alarming. Again, one culture and its greater acceptance of violence towards women clashing with another.
http://kstp.com/news/minneapolis-police-investigate-alleged-terroristic-threats-calhoun-parkway/4186341/
My daughter and her friends love to go to Uptown - which is essentially where this happened. It is a trendy neighborhood full of shops and restaurants. So this was also alarming to local parents. One of the perps here was in his 50's. Again, one culture and its views on violence towards women clashing with another.
http://www.startribune.com/woman-assaulted-by-five-men-while-walking-in-uptown-on-saturday-night/376450591/
Just last week a Somali refugee allegedly raped a woman at knife point on a bus up North of the Twin Cities. Think about how brazen you need to be to rape someone on a bus.
http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/Minneapolis-man-charged-with-raping-woman-at-knifepoint-while-traveling-on-bus-through-Polk-County-406224285.html
And I think everyone is aware of the young man in St. Cloud who wandered into a Mall recently and started attacking people with a machete after asking if his victims were Muslim.
If we are going to talk about these issues, it is important we do so from a position of honesty about the very real challenges refugee communities from countries that are traumatized and do not practice Western secular values can pose.
