Quote:
Originally Posted by sentinel
I secretly wish Gov Pritzker would just go 'fuck it, Illinois will take 170,000 Afghan refugees, and resettle them all throughout the state. Chicago, Rockford, Effingham, Champaign, Peoria, Cairo, you name it." That would be a great way to increase the state's population very quickly, and more importantly, increase the amount of federal money Illinois would receive.
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I openly wish he would do this, no need to do it in secret.
Fort McCoy by Madison is one of three staging points for refugees coming into the country. If there's one thing America has done well in our various overseas boondoggles it's bringing the brain drain home with us. We should take every Afghan who wants a better life in America with us. Wisconsin actually saw almost the exact same thing happen after Vietnam and the other various associated wars in Cambodia and Laos. The refugees were brought to Fort McCoy for temporary housing and then spread out around the State of Wisconsin resulting in the huge Hmong community that now exists there. That was a happy coincidence for the Hmong culturally because Wisconsin's natural areas actually provide for a continuation of Hmong cultural practices around fishing and other traditional outdoors ways of life. Probably 25% of the guests I rent my river home to are Hmong families coming for a fishing trip. It's always the whole family too, grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, and the kids. Fun to watch people enjoying a family activity like that and passing down skills that originated at "home".
Anyhow, I digress, as an American and a landlord I say bring all the Afghans back. Pack them into Chicago, Wisconsin, wherever. We have the space, why not share it? I will gladly rehab 30 more apartments and rent them to newly minted Afghan-Americans. I have a feeling my son will have some new playmates at the park in Mayfair soon as our community already has a large number of Yeminis who have fled the violence perpetrated upon them by the military industrial complex goons known as the House of Saud. Will not be surprised to see Afghans choosing this area to settle en masse given the large number of Arabic speakers already established here.