Atypical Refugees
I saw an interesting title in Google News, but when I clicked on it, it was already gone. I found a copy in Google's cache and I am going to place a complete copy of article in my blog as a historical reference. There is no byline, but it was posted on September 17 at 4:01 AM. The title was staggering: About half of Katrina refugees in W.Va. have criminal records

CHARLESTON, W.Va.

About half of the nearly 350 Hurricane Katrina refugees who were evacuated to West Virginia have criminal records, including many who made their way to Preston County's Camp Dawson.

About 205 remained at the West Virginia National Guard's training center yesterday.

West Virginia State Police said that 45 percent of the refugees had past criminal records and 22 percent of them have a history of committing a violent crime.

State Police fingerprinted refugees when they began arriving at Charleston's Yeager Airport on September Third before being taken to Camp Dawson and recently received F-B-I information on their past criminal histories.

Joe Thornton is a spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.

He told The Charleston Gazette that there wasn't a restriction on who came to the state.

Violent crimes are defined by the F-B-I as crimes against people and include sexual assault, kidnapping and battery, among other offenses.

Only two of the refugees have been arrested since they began arriving in West Virginia. Another was sent to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's office in Pittsburgh as an illegal immigrant.

Damien Batiste of New Orleans has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. He is being held in the Tygarts Valley Regional Jail near Elkins charged with third-degree sexual assault.

I have had several international friends email me and say they were shocked by the reports of the refugees rioting and other problems. It is important for people to understand two things about these problems.

One, bad news sells – the media gets more viewers (and thus, more advertising dollars) when they show the worse in human nature instead of the best. Therefore we get a picture that is much darker than the reality as the media has no incentive to show a balanced picture.

Two, the people causing problems are not typical Americans. The typical Americans that lived in New Orleans (one of the most corrupt cities in America) left before Katrina arrived. Those that stayed behind were largely those without the resources to leave. Given the correlation between poverty and crime, many of those who stayed were criminals. I believe some of those who stayed behind did so with the plan of looting before the police returned. This is not a typical cross-section of America and their response to a disaster was not a typical American response.

Fortunately, Americans are generous enough to find a place for the refugees. Not only does this support the 50% of the refugee population without criminal records, it may provide a second chance for those with such records.

 
 
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