Tag: refugee

‘A thousand Saddams’

A Yazidi family’s journey from war-torn Iraq to America

By C.S. Hagen     
MOORHEAD – Today, Ezzat Khudhur Alhaidar is safe from ISIS guns, but the memories of war still haunt him. In 2005, he donned a U.S. Army uniform and began working as a front-line interpreter, a position that put food in his belly and a target on his back.

He leans back into a leather sofa while his wife, Zaman Alo, finishes setting a makeshift table with a mound of biryani, steaming hot chickpea soup. Onions covered with sumac follow. Four more dishes take up the table’s last inches, which doubles as a nightstand: homemade pickled green tomatoes, olives, a sumac salad, and chicken kabob pieces, tastes of Alhaidar’s homeland in Iraq. He bemoans the lack of proper Iraqi kabobs, also known as kafta; the taste here is just not the same.

Volume blaring, Alhaidar’s five children finish watching “The Emoji Movie.” After only three years in America, his eldest children speak English with ease, explaining the movie’s plot. His second youngest daughter performs cartwheels with the grace of an Olympic athlete on the living room floor. The apartment walls are sparse; few pictures or decorations accompanied the family on their flight from Iraq, but the apartment is home and it’s safe.

They’re Yazidi, an ethno-religious minority, persecuted for centuries because of their adherence to Yazidism, the oldest Mesopotamian religion. Alhaidar obtained U.S. visas three months before the most recent pogrom against Yazidis began, watching news reports helplessly of neighbors and family fleeing before ISIS’s onslaught.

Ezzat Alhaidar – photo by C.S. Hagen

When Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003 during Operation Red Dawn, Alhaidar remembers feeling relief. During Hussein’s reign, no one dared breathe the dictator’s name, let alone speak ill of the government. If suspected of dissatisfaction, one could face flesh-eating acid in one of multiple torture chambers, Alhaidar said. Few came out alive.

As a child when he saw police, he remembers shivering with fear. “It was not life,” Alhaidar said. “We were the happiest people when we got rid of Saddam, but we didn’t know after Saddam, a thousand Saddams would come to the country. If there was a choice between now and Saddam, we would not choose Saddam.”

The ISIS invasion of Yazidi areas came quickly in 2014, with no time to raise alarms. The Peshmerga, the Iraqi Kurdistan forces, promised safety but fled before oncoming ISIS troops. One night, Yazidi villages went to sleep and awoke the next morning with ISIS in charge.

And then from 6,000 miles away, Alhaidar watched as the slaughter began.

The Yazidi people are regarded as people of a different faith who need to be killed or converted to Islam. Once before, they were targeted by Muslim extremists, primarily Sunni jihadists, after the US invasion of Iraq in 2014.

ISIS jihadists have been mostly beaten back, but Alhaidar’s relatives still have no home. After the massacres began, Alhaidar managed visas for his mother, a few nephews and nieces, from America, but other family still remain behind. They live in refugee camps and are unable to return home.

More than 40,000 Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar, identified as the final resting place of Noah’s ark, and nearly half a million people poured into Dohuk, the Kurdish north, in one of the largest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.

Villages were decimated. More than 5,000 people were killed in two days. Another 7,600 women were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery, many still missing. No less than 3,000 children were sent to brainwashing, indoctrination schools to learn how to become future terrorists, Alhaidar said.

Most of the ISIS forces were recognizable faces, Alhaidar said, coming from neighboring towns, and not foreign fighters.

“What can we expect of these kids in the future?” Alhaidar said. “We were crying over here. ISIS attacked my people. People have become hopeless, homeless.”

Growing up hard
At 16, Alhaidar rose with the sun to haul bricks on his back. Not manageable red baked bricks but heavy construction bricks, with a daily quota of 100, for $25 in pay.

“Life is hard, sometimes, and harsh, it can crush you,” Alhaidar said. “But I got a lesson from the bricks: if I didn’t go to school I knew I would spend my life hauling those bricks.”

In ancient times, Yazidi culture and religious rituals were passed orally from generation to generation. They do not have their own schools, and mosques were avoided to deter conversion.

Historically, the Yazidi have been attacked repeatedly by neighbors. Atrocities were recorded by researchers, historians, and writers, such as Henry Austen Layard. One genocide occurred in Shekhan Province, close to Mosul, after fleeing Yazidi were trapped along the Tigris River due to spring flooding. Yazidi women jumped into the river to escape conversion, according to Laynard.

A second genocide occurred in Sinjar Province, when Ottoman soldiers beheaded Yazidis.

Picture of Yazidis before terrorist firing squads – from Ezzat Alhaidar’s Facebook

The Alhaidar family is originally from Sinjar, but his parents fled from oppression to a village called Kabartu, where Alhaidar was born. Later, Hussein’s regime destroyed their village and grouped 12 villages into a collective called Omayya. After Saddam fell from power, the collective was renamed Khanke.  

Although the villagers were also Yazidi, Alhaidar’s family was never accepted into the community, he said. Alhaidar’s father, formerly a shepherd, became a day laborer to put food on the table, and life for his family was difficult.

“They were always higher, as we were not from that village,” Alhaidar said.

Life became harder after his father died in 2004. Without money to take him to the hospital, his father asked a friend for help, but he passed away the next day.

“After my father’s death, my life became harder, and I felt that I had to walk alone with no support,” Alhaidar said. “My brothers and sister and my mother were in the situation, and were doing their best, yet nothing could be compared to my father. Before my father’s death, we would barely think about the tough or hard side of life.”

Refugee camps currently in use in Duhok area, Iraq – photo provided by BRHA Duhok

In 2013, the government handed out land parcels to the villagers, but not to his family. “They were mean, and they were always the people of the situation, nobody could raise their face to say ‘Hey, we’re over here.’”

“We were always getting attacked by those around us, and by that I mean Muslims,” Alhaidar said. “The only reason we were oppressed was because of our religion, which makes it difficult to maintain our culture.”

He began studying late into every night at the Iraq University of Dohuk. College was free, but he still needed money for food, clothes, and lodging. Some days, he borrowed clothes to attend classes. A brother helped with a loan of 500 dinars, the equivalent of $300.

While his friends were getting married and buying cars, Alhaidar worried about enough cash for his next meal. A dowry for marriage seemed an impossible dream. He spoke his native Kurdish, also Arabic and English, and saw opportunity when U.S. armed forces came, once again, to his homeland in 2003.

He signed up as an interpreter.

“That decision changed my life,” Alhaidar said. “And it changed the lives of all the people around me. Because of that decision to join the U.S. Army, I brought 28 people to the US and they are working, smiling, while if they were left over there, whatever you say is not enough, at the very least they would have no jobs.”

As a U.S. Army interpreter
“If you were a minority, you were gone. If you were US Army and coming from vacation, you were gone,” Alhaidar said about a lonely road he frequently had to travel. “Gone” means a quick bullet or indefinite imprisonment for exchange. Al-Qaeda terrorists would not frequently target military Humvees, but rather the vehicles following behind.

“I was an easy target for them,” Alhaidar said.

Being Yazidi and an interpreter for an invading force, and frequently meeting face to face with terrorists during interrogation sessions, meant he had to take extra precautions. Frequently, suspected terrorists were interviewed, then released two weeks later.

“We were safe, but we were scared to go anywhere,” Alhaidar said. He always watched for tailing cars, never went to Mosul. Terrorists targeted interpreters and their families. Stories of fellow interpreters ambushed by terrorists kept him on edge. Such as the story of one man who broke 27 bones during an Al-Qaeda sneak attack.

Before joining the US Army, food was scarce. Afterward, he could eat his fill. “You could smell the food a mile from the restaurant,” Alhaidar said.

He went on duty for 45 days in a row, then came home for six. He also worked as an advisor for US troops, helping differentiate between friend and suicide bomber. When he saw indiscriminate shooting, it was one of his jobs to stop the soldiers or private mercenaries and tell them the differences between Orange Zones and Red Zones, the latter meaning dangerous areas.

Ezzat Alhaidar while an interpreter for US Army – Facebook page photo

The stress of war, constant vigilance, leaving his home country to start a new life in a strange land, has taken its toll, Alhaidar said. He opens a kitchen cupboard and returns with a brown paper bag, filled with prescription medicine for PTSD. He’s improved over the years he’s lived in Moorhead, but is filled with a longing to help his people, as well as the new American community in Fargo/Moorhead.

He’s tried for help at the local Veterans Hospital, but was denied. The U.S. Army does not consider him a veteran.

“We wore the same uniform, wore the same boots, went on the same missions, and could be killed at any moment in Iraq and Afghanistan, but unfortunately, today, they do not recognize us as veterans,” Alhaidar said.

Ezzat Alhaidar showing his PTSD medicines – photo by C.S. Hagen

“It’s not about money. The U.S. Army was a school, and I was proud to be a student in that school. I was a part of it. But they said ‘No, rules are rules.’ Even if they could consider us veterans, and not pay us anything, that would be fine.

“Are you a veteran?” Alhaidar pretended to be military doctor questioning himself.

“No. I don’t have a paper. So what do they call it when I was working with them? Part of our duties meant that if we weren’t there, many more US soldiers would have been killed.”

Additional duties included interpreting any communication between Iraqi and US forces, talking with village leaders, learning where the dangerous spots were, and locating IEDs.

Alhaidar was injured once when his Humvee was ordered to lead a nocturnal drive without headlights and they smashed into a gravel pile. He marched with soldiers into war, accompanied searches for terrorists going house to house, relayed information quickly under fire.

“We were between them,” Alhaidar said. “We would know who was lying and who was a danger.”

Once, a commanding officer known to Alhaidar as Captain Kingman, ordered him from the safety of a Humvee to accompany an ambulance into Mosul Province.

“Even a crazy person wouldn’t go into Mosul in an ambulance,” Alhaidar said. “No armor, no protection.”

He survived, but the same captain also required him to translate while he cursed elderly village leaders. “And you know, in Iraqi community, that was not allowed,” Alhaidar said. “We were there to protect people.”

The U.S. Army had one rule he can’t forget: never chase terrorists if they ran away.

“These bitter moments gave me lessons in life,” Alhaidar said. “I’m a new American, but even in Iraq I was American in my soul.”

Because of his role helping the U.S. Army, officials said he would be protected, but Alhaidar waited more than a year before obtaining a visa, during which time he saved enough money to purchase a house and find a wife, with a $7,000 dowry.

After he left the military in 2012, he worked as a teacher with Weatherford, an oil company. Working 15 days on and 15 off, he also started a computer shop and a learning center for teaching English as a second language.

The Alhaidar family – photo by C.S. Hagen

America
Over sips of cloying Iraqi tea, Alhaidar knows he is one of the more fortunate interpreters, one of thousands who worked with the U.S. Army during its post-9/11 military operations. In exchange for their services, Iraqis who collaborated were promised special visas, but the Special Immigrant Visa program became backlogged. Some are considered traitors by insurgents, and are actively hunted. Identities were kept secret.

President Donald Trump’s Administration travel ban has recently created new obstacles for the Army’s former Iraqi partners, and many are being denied visas.

In May 2014, however, Alhaidar packed his family’s lives into eight suitcases. He filled four with his most precious possessions – books – some Kurdish, some Arabic, and others in English. Hard drives and photo albums, the only transportable keepsakes he could bring, went into another suitcase.

Traveling through Jordan, his family landed in Chicago after a 14-hour flight.

“Everything was green, everything was beautiful, but we still knew our trip was not done,” Alhaidar said. A type of sadness came over his family during their layover in Jordan. Their home for countless generations seemed far away.

Today, Alhaidar has three bachelor’s degrees, and is active in community development. Neither Republican nor Democrat, he believes in dealing with issues, and not following a political line. He’s building a nonprofit organization, and is active with Mindful Seeds, a leadership program in the Fargo/Moorhead area.

Settling into America hasn’t been easy, but slowly, his children are growing used to the area. Alhaidar’s wife is in school, and he has found work, but is looking for more meaningful employment, perhaps one day in politics.

“Life has started to smile on us.”

With recent hate crime incidents in Fargo, seven cases so far in 2017, Alhaidar challenges people to make attempts to understand world events. He is no stranger to hate crimes. In Iraq, he was part of a close circle of friends including engineers, doctors, veterinarians, and technicians, with himself as a teacher, who once, when life was simpler, enjoyed picnics, a few beers, and music together.

“Due to tensions, discrimination, sectarian religious and political issues, and adding to that, ISIS attacks, there is barely anyone left in this group anymore. They all left the country. Each went to a different country, whether in Europe, America, or Australia, to start a new life away from their childhood memories.

“Life is about stepping toward each other and building trust,” Alhaidar said. “Even white supremacists we should listen to. We have to be careful of our daily actions, and see Fargo/Moorhead as a colorful community. Today, the life of Moorhead is the life of our kids.”

 

Nation, city, misleading public on refugee costs

Refugees cost taxpayers money, but the buck doesn’t stop there

By C.S. Hagen
FARGO – All fingers point to refugees being cost positive for cities, states, and the nation, and yet pressure from the Trump Administration on local city leaders to curb the influx of “huddled masses” persists.

In Washington D.C., Trump Administration officials are refusing to recognize a recent study performed by the Department of Health and Human Services, or H.H.S., that reported refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenue over the past decade than they cost, according to the Washington Post and New York Times.

A different study, also ignored, came from Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, or LEO, a research department at the University of Notre Dame. The March 2017 study stated refugee resettlement is cost-beneficial to the United States, especially with resettled children.

Over a 20-year period, refugees who entered the United States between 18 and 45 years of age, paid taxes in excess of support received by $21,200.

The White House defended its rejection of the study by saying H.H.S.’s conclusions were illegitimate and politically motivated, according to the New York Times. And yet right-wing media outlets, such as Breitbart, refuse to report on such numbers, reporting instead that taxpayers will spend $4.1 billion in 2017 to support 519,018 refugees resettled in the United States since 2009. Little to no mention is made of refugee benefits in the article.

In Fargo, a similar pattern has emerged. Despite the lack of hard, cold, statistical data, reports and testimonies from business leaders, entrepreneurs, police, human rights organizations, and new Americans echo national findings, saying refugees are beneficial for Fargo and the state.

“Unfortunately, the refugee and immigrant controversy is no longer about fact-finding,” Hukun Abdullahi, member of the Moorhead Human Rights Commission and North Dakota United Against Hate, said.

Originally from Somalia, Abdullahi has taken a stand against recent immigration issues and increasing hate crimes in Fargo. Washington D.C.’s anti-refugee agenda has spread like a virus, infecting local governments and encouraging bigots to target New Americans and trump up political agendas.

“This issue is more about Making America Great Again or in other words, Making America White again,” Abdullahi said. “Historically, immigrants and refugees have been blessed to obtain bipartisan support. Maybe that was because most immigrants and refugees were white and Christian at the time. They were able to blend in more easily and were perceived more ‘American’ per se. With growing numbers of immigrants who are no longer white or Christian, this has really made people think about what America has become, and thus want their country back.”

The country, the state, and even Fargo’s demographics have changed, and xenophobia lies at the root of such opposition, Abdullahi said.

“There is nothing wrong to that about having an opinion,” Abdullahi said. “What is wrong, however, is there are still groups of people who never want immigrants and refugees to be seen as equal to them.”

Within President Donald Trump’s first week of taking office, the refugee issue came under fierce debate when Trump signed an executive order stating “Secretary of State shall, within one year of the date of this order, provide a report on the estimated long-term costs of USRAP (United States Refugee Admissions Program) at the federal, state, and local levels.”

In Fargo, the fire was lit during a Fargo City Commissioners meeting on October 24, 2016, by Dave Piepkorn, who also serves as deputy mayor, when he attacked Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, a nonprofit group responsible for handling refugees in the state.

Piepkorn wants to know the costs of refugees, an obscure price tag as few agencies distinguish refugees from other racial types. Piepkorn sees refugee resettlement as an unfunded mandate, and that the state should have the right to decide on the numbers of refugees it allows. He’s also stated that refugees are depressing wages locally, and receiving benefits other residents are not receiving.

Trump’s chief policy adviser, Stephen Miller, is using identical tactics form public opinion. Miller is concerned only with costs, not fiscal benefits, when determining the annual refugee cap, which he is attempting to slice by more than half, or less than 50,000 for the nation. On Wednesday, Trump’s Administration announced it capped the amount of refugees the nation would accept at 45,000 US, which means with 19,000 from Africa, 17,500 for the Near East and South Asia, 5,000 for East Asia, 2,000 for Europe and Central Asia, and 1,500 for Latin America and the Caribbean.

So far, Piepkorn has expressed similar if not identical considerations, despite the repeated attempts of city officials, Lutheran Social Services, and leaders from the Fargo Human Relations Commission, to discuss the issues.

Instead of agreeing to sit-downs with local leaders, Piepkorn has made his views known on right-wing radio stations such as AM 1100 The Flag Need to Know Morning Show, where Piepkorn took partial credit for influencing the former Trump special adviser Steve Bannon’s platform against immigrants.

Piepkorn has been repeatedly contacted for comment, but so far refuses to answer telephone calls or call back.

“Let’s have a conversation,” Barry Nelson, of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition and the Fargo Human Relations Commission, said. “Dave Piepkorn has never reached out to any one of us who did this at his request. He’s never wanted to talk about it, and again he didn’t show up for the report.”

Although Piepkorn has led the charge against the displaced in Fargo, he failed to appear at one of the most important meetings pertaining to the issue.

“To me, it is a lack of leadership to not only deny the facts and figures that do not agree with that so-called leader’s ideology or opinions, but it is inhumane and immoral to target a group of residents and citizens to advance one’s agenda,” Nelson said.

To combat rising hate crimes, the Human Relations Commission passed a resolution originally proposed by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, establishing Fargo as a hate-free community. The resolution was passed on to the Fargo City Commission this week to be voted on next month, and was passed unanimously by the Moorhead City Commission on Monday.

“It puts the city on record as saying that these crimes keep occurring and allowing city leaders to make a statement that this city won’t tolerate hate crimes,” Nelson said.

Despite the national upheaval on immigration issues, those that are behind such political agendas and racist reforms are numerically inferior, Abdullahi said.

“Fortunately for us, this group of people is very small,” Abdullahi said. “The denial of facts from the US Government is an example how such a small group of people in influential positions could still disrupt lives of many and diminish the value of what immigrants and refugees are contributing in their new society.”

Some numbers Piepkorn has been searching for have been discovered, such as financial costs provided by the Fargo Police Department, nursing and interpreter costs from Cass County Public Health. Most agencies, however, do not track refugees.

Since January 2002, 3,677 refugees have been settled in Fargo, according to a Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota report. New Americans are employers, taxpayers, and field workers, choosing occupations few local citizens are willing to apply for.

Statistically, what is known at the local level is that refugees contributed $542.8 million to the city’s GDP in 2014, and have a spending power of $149.4 million, according to the Refugee Resettlement in Fargo report, a study commissioned to the Fargo Human Relations Commission to perform and released in April.

First-generation immigrants are cost-positive in North Dakota by approximately $3,250, and long-term benefits are incalculable, according to the study and the City of Fargo’s Community Development Department. First-generation households are cost-positive by $4,900, making North Dakota the second most cost-positive state in the nation.

Between 2011 and 2013, immigrants in North Dakota paid $133.9 million in taxes and spent $425.7 million, according to the Fargo Human Relations Commission’s first report, released in February 2017.

Nationally, since 2011, the U.S. Refugee Admission Program has received approximately 655,000 applications, with more than 75 percent of the applicants fleeing from Iraq, Myanmar, Syria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bhutan, according to the United States Government Accountability Office, or GAO.

In 2016, the United States admitted 85,000 refugees, the largest yearly number in more than 15 years, according to GAO.

“This is not cost overruns on a bridge or road construction. This is not a debate about whether or not to construct a city hall or a dam,” Nelson said. “This is putting a target squarely on the backs of men, women and children who ask only that they have a chance, just like most of our ancestors, to begin a new life in safety and security.

“This is putting human beings in harm’s way. Is that the moral leadership we want and expect in our community, in our country? I truly hope that the moral leadership and citizenry of our community will look at the true facts of refugee resettlement and see this kind of discounting and targeting for the basest and cruelest of human instincts that it is.”

Historically, the refugee debate is nothing new. In the 1840s, Americans turned their hatred on the Irish fleeing famine when potato blight struck. At that time, newspapers reported the Irish were disease-ridden, they threatened American jobs and welfare budgets, they practiced an alien religion, they were rapists and criminals — charges remarkably similar to accusations made in Fargo in 2016 by Valley News Live — and more recently by Commissioner Piepkorn — against the area’s refugees and new Americans.

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Chinese, at that time, were escaping persecution and civil wars, and because of their distinct culture, their Qing-styled queues, they became easily-identifiable targets for racial “purists,” who accused them of depriving jobs, unionizing the mining industry, and forcing the lowering of wages. The blatantly racist policy was not abandoned until 1943, when China became an ally with the United States against Japan.

The list goes on: French-speaking Catholic Acadians in 1755, Germans in 1848, Jewish refugees in 1848 and 1939, Vietnamese refugees in 1975, seven Middle Eastern countries in 2017.

Ironically, while Americans favored keeping the world’s downtrodden from its shores, one of the nation’s foremost and secret goals after World War II was to hunt for military and scientific booty, which sometimes came in the form of Nazi scientists, in covert actions such as the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency’s “Operation Paperclip.”

Historically, crackdowns on refugees have led to little more than demonization, breeding division and fear. Since 1882, U.S. presidents have gone through cycles of banning or restricting ethnic groups, only to apologize years later for inflicting harm, according to professor Erika Lee, a historian at the University of Minnesota.

Lee helped start the website Immigration Syllabus, which shies away from political debate and focuses on immigration facts.

“When we close the gates, we look back on those periods with shame,” Lee said in the Star Tribune. “And I do feel that we are on the verge of repeating some of those past mistakes.”

“Refugees entering the U.S. as adults tend to have poor economic outcomes when they first enter, but they improve significantly over time,” the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities report stated. “Use of Medicaid, welfare, and SNAP decrease over time, while employment and income increase.”

After 20 years in the United States, approximately 11 percent still rely on SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as Food Stamps, and incomes increase exponentially.

Currently, the present cost of relocating a refugee is $14,384, and over time the refugee receives $86,863 in social insurance costs, but pays taxes of $122,422, which leaves a cost positive net payment by the refugee of $21,195, according to the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities.

“By their tenth year in the U.S., refugees are cost-neutral,” the report stated.

The report also noted that refugees who enter the United States before turning 16 graduate college at similar or higher rates than their US-born peers. Two factors help explain poorer results for refugees 15 and older, the first being limited English, and the second that older child refugees are more likely to be unaccompanied by parents or an adult.

While opponents of refugee resettlement twist the narrative to say refugees take jobs away in Fargo, nothing could be further from the truth, James Gartin, president of the Greater Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corp., said.

A Regional Workforce Study reported Fargo had 6,500 unfilled jobs in 2005, a number that will grow to 30,000 by 2020.

“This inability to fill jobs has been a major contributor to the slowdown in our local economy, and the refugee resettlement program has an important part to play in addressing this workforce shortage,” Gartin said. “Cutting back on the refugee resettlement program will not benefit the Fargo-Moorhead economy. It will do the opposite.”

For those who feel refugees are prone to become criminals, think again, the Fargo Human Relations Commission reported in January 2017. Immigrants are 1.7 times less likely to become involved in crime than native-born people, according to information from the U.S. Census Bureau and reported on by the American Community Survey.

“Many are threatened by the mere fact that many of us own our homes, businesses, and drive new cars,” Abdullahi said. “It’s possible because we work hard, harder than many imagine. This haunts such people because they have always thought of us as less deserving. If it were up to them, they would not hesitate to throw us in cotton fields and strip away our rights.

“We are a minority and it will remain that way for a long period of time. I strongly believe one day, this negativity is going to go away once people start realizing we are a part of this community, just like they are. I urge former refugees and immigrants to be patient, but speak up when you see acts of racism and discrimination.

“There is nothing to be concerned about at this time, because we are legal residents and citizens and have rights, and rights to be united with our family members, as allowed by the U.S. Constitution.”

North Dakota’s 100-Year War 

A mirror image of racial tensions from the 1920s and today in the Peace Garden State

Alt-White: The Siege of North Dakota. Part Three in the series on racism in North Dakota. Inescapable comparisons between the political, racial, and economic sectors of the 1920s and 2010s. Local resident hunts Fargo’s Nazis, posts alert advertisements around Fargo. 

By C.S. Hagen
FARGO – The day North Dakota women marched on Bismarck, a lone vehicle flying a Confederate flag cruised down Broadway, according to Fargo emergency dispatch. The pickup truck was stopped at Fourth Avenue when a middle-aged man jumped onto the back and attempted to take the Stars and Bars away. 

A fight between three white males ensued. Police responded, but late; all parties had already fled, according to Fargo Police Department Deputy Chief Jospeh Anderson.

“A car drove by and a male took the flag off the car and tried to run, comp [Pete Tefft] confronted him about it and he tried to fight him,” dispatch personnel reported. 

Tefft, who has been anonymously identified as a Fargo Nazi in alert posters stapled to telephone poles around the Downtown area, decided to stop the flag-stealing assailant, according to dispatch personnel reports. Tefft called 911 at 12:13 p.m., January 21, 2017. 

The Fargo Nazi alert poster printed and posted by Luke Safely-photo by C.S. Hagen

Tefft made reference to the incident in a letter he wrote pertaining to the Women’s March on the InForum on January 30. He explained the women’s march was more of an anti-Trump march, and anyone with differing ideologies was shunned. “From muttering curse words and insults like ‘white-supremacist’ at anyone holding even a subtle pro-life banner to a deranged middle-aged man stealing a confederate flag from three jovial teenage counter-protesters, participants did nothing and sometimes were complacent to the point of accessory to what could be categorized as terrorism.

“Stealing someone’s property, a child’s, because they have an opposing political ideology is not an argument but an admission you lost the argument. Everybody that stood by, watched, or attempted to thwart actions to stop the theft, participants and store owners alike, should be ashamed of themselves.”

In Facebook posts Tefft’s political views were made clearer. “I’d oppress anyone that wants to stop me from preserving my race and culture, wouldn’t you?” Tefft wrote in a January 29 Facebook debate. 

Soon after the Confederate flag incident, Moorhead resident Luke Safely started putting up alert posters throughout town naming Tefft a Nazi. He found out about the incident on Broadway, and began research, which led to him naming Tefft a “super Nazi racist. 

“I told Tefft if you want to go out and practice your culture, then go out and practice your culture,” Safely said. “But don’t oppress other cultures. I hope that when people see all this information, and see Pete Tefft for who he is, they can see other people in the community.” 

Luke Safely talking about his decision to publicize what he says is a Fargo Nazi – photo by C.S. Hagen

He first shared the information online, but the “liberal bubble” was not enough. “I thought maybe the community should know.” He alerted Tefft to his intentions, to which Tefft said he defended himself by saying he was merely pro-white. 

Some of Safely’s friends say that the exposure is simply spreading Nazi rhetoric, which will help the likeminded solidify. “But right now, that rhetoric is mainstream,” Safely said. “Look at Breitbart, look at Steve Bannon, the rhetoric is already out there, and the funny thing is we don’t admit that it has spread. 

“That’s willful ignorance, and it’s North Dakota nice.”

Other friends think that since no physical violence has been initiated by white supremacists, he should wait. 

Racism, Safely said, creates emotional and social violence, which leads to physical violence. 

“By not telling someone what they’re doing is wrong, you’re pretty much telling them that what they’re doing is right.” 

There are other verbose white supremacists in the Fargo Moorhead area, Safely said. So far, he’s watching three who claim to be Nazis and have online presences. He’s also not afraid of a civil lawsuit, Safely said, because the evidence behind his claim is overwhelming. 

“I get that people are scared,” Safely said. “The Christians are scared, the Muslims are scared, everyone is scared. I get that the Muslim ban makes people feel safe, but it’s only replying to our fear with more hatred.” 

Tefft refused to comment saying only, “I’ve been consulted by my church elders to not speak with you.” 

Pete Tefft and Nazi salute – online sources

Safely has been threatened by one person online, he said. “I realize that by doing this and by putting my face on it that I was totally going to put myself in a situation of danger, because outing a Nazi like that a lot of other Nazis are going to be scared about it. The thing I realized is that a lot of the direct action against Nazis these days are done anonymously. We need to start putting our faces to it. These “alt-rights,” these neo-Nazis are starting to publicly come out and say ‘look it, hey, I’m brave I’m proud of this’ and we’re sitting here doing this anonymously because we’re scared of them.”

Broadway’s altercation resembles a similar era in North Dakota’s history; a time of national tumult, fear mongering, intensifying racism, purity laws, and the threats of wars. Deep in Fargo Public Library’s microfilm vaults, still available after nearly a hundred years, newspaper stories at the time reflect a mirror image of the 21st century’s second decade. 

The Roaring 20s were an age of plenty for the growing middle class, and of sorrow for many agrarian workers. Newspaper advertisements displayed diamond rings for $12.50, society shirts – mostly with collars attached – for $1.29. Ostrich plumes were back in style. Dances at Island Park featuring Harry Smith and his Red Jackets were the bee’s knees on weekends for drugstore cowboys. A brand new Hudson Coach automobile went for $1,250 on the open market.

Skip past the advertising sections and the headlines are striking. Stories frequently feature the “Chinese problem,” as the Chinese people were banned from immigrating to the United States by the Chinese Exclusion Act. “Aliens blamed for liquor violations,” was another common headline. In January 1923 one story took the front page of the Fargo Forum announcing “Blacks Run Out of Indiana Town” after an anonymous attack on an 11-year-old white girl. 

North Dakota wheat prices were slashed in half. Farmers placed blame with outsiders claiming carpetbagger-types rigged elections from Minnesota hotel rooms. Conspiracy theories alleging grain operators shorted scales, inspectors rigging the system with unfair regulations, became truth. 

Political parties polarized. Corruption ran rampant. Farmers began losing lands and profits. 

Rising urbanization, the influx of immigrants, stirred angst in Fargo and elsewhere, prompted fraternal organizations like the Elks Lodge, the Oddfellows, and the Sons of Norway for like-minded people to oppose big business. 

Isolated. Desperate. Fearful. Deemed an ugly stepchild by Washington D.C.’s politicians, North Dakotans split into two powerful camps: the left’s Nonpartisan League (NPL) and the right’s Independent Voters Association (IVA). The differences between the two parties increasingly left a widening gap, into which walked the Ku Klux Klan. 

On January 26, 1923, one of the first headlines referring to the Klan was splayed above the Fargo Forum’s masthead: “K.K.K. Operating in Cass County, Say Witnesses in Fargo Courtroom.” 

“America First” became their rally cry, and within two years the Klan was buying ads in the paper. 

“The Klan capitalized on isolationist trends, times of increasing hostility to foreign institutions and influences,” Trevor M. Magel wrote in his 2011 “The Ku Klux Klan in North Dakota” dissertation for the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. The Klan brought nationalism, Prohibition and purity laws, the “Red Scare” portraying their enemies as communists, anti-Catholicism; they also supported high tariffs and legislated unceasingly for immigration restriction.

“People felt uneasy about the direction the nation was going.”

Some of the Klan’s meetings were known at the time to be the largest in the nation, attracting thousands as they burned crosses and marched in their white robes, without hoods. North Dakota politicians at times fought the Klan, banning masks in 1923. In 1925 Arthur Sorley, accused of being a Klan member, won the race for the 14th governor by a wide margin. Any allegiance the Klan felt toward Sorley soon broke, however, as his stances softened.  

The Klan eventually had enough of niceties, and launched what the Forum called a “Reign of Terror,” bringing baseball bats to marches, beating those thought to be socialists, kidnapped a Casselton man. A meat market vendor in Minot received death threats and K.K.K. signs were pasted onto his shop windows. 

Although Fargo lacked a charismatic leader for the Klan’s cause, they found a Presbyterian minister in Grand Forks named Rev. F. Halsey Ambrose to preach the Klan’s rhetoric. 

On February 27, 1926, the Kass County No. 57 Klavern Finance Committee in Fargo, Chairman Harry J. Divine, initiated a $10,000 fund drive to purchase the Elks Hall as a meeting place.  In a letter currently at the North Dakota Historical Society, Divine raised $3,700 in one night, and up to 400 more members pledged an additional $6,000. 

“This is a real He Man’s Organization,” Divine stated of the Ku Klux Klan. “Standing for everything that is good, namely our Flag, public schools, Protestant churches, sanctity of the home and respect for law and order. 

“The Kass County Klan No. 5 now has a splendid organization, we have made a nice growth, and we are just rounding into a position where from now on, the organization should be of vital interest to each one of us with so many big things confronting the Real Americans of today.” 

By the end of 1927, the Klan in Fargo and most of North Dakota, fizzled into obscurity. Its demise was brought about by its decision to use violence, which came in the forms of kidnapping, sexual assault, corruption, cross burnings in New Rockford and Fargo, and anti-Catholic rhetoric. Its lack of agreement on a political agenda left followers confused. Infighting followed. The Klan threw a final parade during its 1927 Konklave, complete with a cross with red electric lights attached to an airplane, but only about 1,000 people attended. 

“It tried to be both a secretive and public organization at the same time,” Magel said. “It tried to be both open and exclusive.” 

Some of the Klan’s tenants had a lasting impact in North Dakota. Morality campaigns incited fear and normalized hatred of minorities, which continued long after the Klan was gone. Dueling parties, IVA and the NPL, adopted parts of the Klan’s doctrine they agreed with, such as the IVA adopted the Klan’s reverence for free market capitalism, while the NPL adopted the Klan’s rhetoric about social benevolence, according to Magel.

In time, the IVA merged with the North Dakota Republican Party, and the NPL would go on to become the basis for the contemporary North Dakota Democratic Party. 

Grainy photograph of Klansmen in North Dakota – provided by Wes Anderson, director at the Barnes County Museum

Today, the “Tumultuous Teens” in the Peace Garden State have undergone similar upheaval. Prices for oil has been slashed in half. City, state, and national politicians are vying for immigration restrictions. Local news stations claim immigrants carry tuberculosis and encourage long-term residents – naturally primarily white – to steer clear. A new scare has swept the nation, although this time not directed at Soviets but at Muslims, and more recently potential nuclear war with China. 

North Dakota legislature proposed new laws in January to target refugees and outsiders – primarily activists involved with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. They’re attempting to ban ski masks, authorize the running over of pedestrians on public highways, and the killing of people running away or resisting arrest for violent crimes. Recently, “purity” legislation laws were introduced to turn Internet routers into “pornographic vending machines,” a service the state would charge $20 per device to use. Legislators also debated the blue laws, some saying Sunday mornings should be spent at home, with a wife serving breakfast in bed.  

The 65th Legislative Assembly of North Dakota further proposed House Bill 1427, which effectively states that the Peace Garden State would abide by President Trump’s executive orders and not allow refugees into the state. To disregard the President’s executive order would have an “adverse impact to existing residents of the state,” the house bill stated. Due to hours of testimony against the bill, HB 1427 was slated on February 3 for further research.

After fire debate and hours of testimony last week, the bill was not passed, but an issuance to study the matter further is on the menu. If passed, local governments could impose temporary moratoriums on refugee resettlement and Governor Doug Burgum would have the authority to impose moratorium across the state through executive order. It is a bill that would give communities the ability to evaluate and determine how many refugees it can take in, and stipulates strict requirements for refugee resettlement organizations. 

In Grand Forks, Jamie Kelso, director and membership coordinator for the American Freedom Party – formerly known as the American Third Position, a political party initially established by skinheads, is a well-known figure with political ambitions.

Kelso is a bullhorn for white supremacy ideals. He claims he is not a racist, but a “red-blooded American,” and he hosts “The Jamie Kelso Show” for the American Freedom Party. He was once the personal assistant for Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, and served as a moderator for hate-web guru Don Black’s forum Stormfront, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit hate crime watchdog.

People today, as in the 1920s, are afraid about the direction the nation is going. 

Nationally, President Trump has signed more than 14 executive orders pertaining in part to immigration restrictions, penalizing protesters, halting communication of federal agencies. He has also recruited known fascists into the White House’s inner circles, and is cutting trade relations across the world. 

“America first,” Trump said during his inauguration speech. “America first. America first.” 

Trump – POTUS Revealed with Kevin R Tengesdal – photograph for a wet plate series by Shane Balkowitsch

Last week, Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, was discovered to have been leader of a student group called the “Fascism Forever Club” in elite high school Georgetown Preparatory, according to the Daily Mail. Trump’s top advisor and chief political strategist, Steve Bannon, is a known white supremacist and former executive chairman of Breitbart News, the main news site for America’s “alt-right” movement. 

On February 2, Trump’s Administration reportedly changed the name of the Countering Violent Extremism initiative to Countering Radical Islamic Extremism, effectively reclassifying the initiative’s goals, which according to analysts would remove national attention away from neo-Nazis and white supremacists and focus solely on Islamic terrorism.

“Donald Trump wants to remove us from undue federal scrutiny by removing ‘white supremacists’ from the definition of ‘extremism,’” the largest neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer reported. “Yes, this is real life. Donald Trump is setting us free.” 

Today’s white supremacists are not dressed in sheets, but in suits and ties. They are eyeballing North Dakota’s small and seemingly forgotten towns as big oil funds line political pockets. Known as Pioneer Little Europe, a hit list of eleven towns are being targeted by white supremacists, according to the group’s Facebook page.

Supporters of the Pioneer Little Europe come from all the corners of the white supremacist world, and have been threatening takeovers of small towns since 2015. 

The towns of Leith and Antler are permanently marked for takeover under the self-titled Honey Badger Principle. “The Honey Badger Principle states that once an area is marked as PLE-friendly, we will pursue it until we get it no matter what,” page organizers for Pioneer Little Europe North Dakota said on the group’s Facebook page. “In other words: Once we bite, we will never let go.”

President Trump’s use of the phrase drain the swamp, is not a new slogan, Safely said. The phrase was used by Benito Mussolini, Italy’s dictator and leader of the country’s fascist party during World War II. Safely studies World War II history, frequently mentioning similarities between the 1940s and today. He’s never called out a Nazi before, and he took a few days to think about the possible repercussions of his decision. 

Symbols used to create the word Coexist

“‘We all need to be talking about this, and thinking about this, hopefully one day we will say enough is enough and put our foot down,” Safely said. “I would much rather be scared of a Nazi hurting me than being scared of a Nazi controlling me.”

“Trump – POTUS Revealed” with Kevin R Tengesdal – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

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