Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSS) was reported as a national security risk in 2010.
On November 2, 2015, KVLY 11 filed a special report regarding refugee resettlement in the Fargo-Moorhead area by LSS and the impact it may have on the presidential election of 2016.
In 2009 and 2010 Timothy Charles Holmseth, owner, Write Into Action, was employed by LSS at their Grand Forks location.
In 2010, Holmseth reported criminal activity within the organization to the Grand Forks Police Department.
Holmseth also reported the activity to LSS CEO Robert Sanderson during a meeting called by Holmseth at the LSS office in Fargo.
Employees at New American Services in Grand Forks were being forced to forge signatures of refugees on documents and fabricate case notes to pass inspections.
Holmseth refused to do either.
Holmseth was greatly concerned because the immigration documents involved the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and other agencies of consequence that could affect national security.
Management was accused of stealing cash from a church fund, as well as simply keeping the best home furnishings and trendy clothing that were donated to refugees.
The service provided to the refuges was abysmal due to insufficient staffing numbers.
Holmseth emailed KVLY 11 news reporter Bradford Arick on August 11, 2015.
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Bradford Arick
Valley News
Valley News
August 11, 2015
Bradford,
I read your recent article entitled: Email Obtained by Valley News Live Shows Hundreds More Refugees Coming
“According the LSS website, the federal government
decides where refugees will go based on housing and job availability, among other things. The Director of LSS New Americans Program then decides how many new people to accept based on the agency’s capacity to manage their affairs. Thomasson said this area already has the resources in place for this bump in resettlement numbers”.
I have some information that might be of interest to you.
I was employed by New American Services in Grand Forks from approximately the fall of 2009, through the summer of 2010. I was a part-time Employment Specialist and part time Social Worker, which are essentially merged together as a ‘resettlement specialist’.
The New American Services program through LSS at the time I was employed there was nothing less than a perpetual fraud and cover-up that went all the way up to the CEO – Robert Sanderson.
The Director at the facility in Grand Forks was Dawn Barwin, Thompson, ND. She worked under a man from the Fargo office named Sinisia and a woman named (Sheila ???). She was eventually fired. However, she was the proverbial scapegoat.
Editorial Note: The aforementioned female that worked under Sinisia was actually named Darcy.
The social worker I was working with at the office was named Nicole (Suchawacki ??.) She finally quit, as did most that preceded her.
There was no possible way under the sun this was a job for two people. We were setting up refugee’s apartments; picking up refugee’s from the airport; setting up and taking entire families to doctor appointments; arranging job interviews; conducting orientation; conducting initial intake, etc. etc. etc. (all of this with individuals that have little to no English).
It seemed that cheating, scamming, and fudging was actually incorporated into the basic NAS business model from the very beginning, which I will explain.
Nicole told me Dawn Barwin made her forge clients’ signatures by placing prior documents up against the window and tracing their signatures. Nicole was crying her eyes out when she told me about that. I knew it was true because Dawn Barwin wanted me to go into old case files that pre-existed my employment and make case notes, so they could pass the test when the government auditor came (the case notes were empty) (I refused to do it).
Dawn Barwin was stealing money from the Christmas fund and/or monies received from Sharon Church. She was moving money from the NAS checking account into her personal bank account. She also wrote in hours that she never worked, including overtime. She also took a really nice set of home furnishings (among other things) from the public donations that people gave for the refugees’ apartments. She took it and furnished her son’s apartment when he moved away to college.
At that time, I was a witness, as a journalist/author, in the national profile federal child kidnapping case of HaLeigh Cummings, and was interviewed by the FBI in February, 2010. I did not want to be part of any of this fraud and deception going on at New American Services.
I reported the thefts I learned about to the Grand Forks Police Department; I reported all extended matters to CEO Robert Sanderson at Lutheran Social Services in Fargo. When I met with Mr. Sanderson, he was visibly angry that I had sent him a letter and reported everything I had been witnessing. In my opinion, Mr. Sanderson’s reaction to me was the exact opposite of what it should have been.
After Nicole was gone, I was the only employee at NAS in Grand Forks. NAS is an organization that deals with real, live, breathing human beings, yet they just acted like it was no big deal. There was no way one person could service the needs off all these clients that were now in a new country with one person to help them - “Mr.Tim”. My cell phone rang constantly.
The church where NAS was located was privately angry about all the fraud and deception going on and NAS was essentially shuffled out.
I remember Nicole telling me there was a girl that once worked at NAS as a social worker. While she (the girl) was in college they were required to do a project on fraud, or something to that nature. She did her entire fraud project on NAS/LSS.
I began to express concerns to the newly hired local Director (Tara ??) and upper management that many NAS clients had nearly no English skills and it was posing an actual danger to them on the job. I had a problem with that, because my job was to finesse and schmooze employers into hiring clients. However, I knew it was not safe because they could not understand safety instructions. There was an employee at Job Service of North Dakota (I can’t remember his name) that was furious about what was going on (I can’t remember all the details anymore). I remember talking to him. He said he was extremely angry about something going at Northland Community College and an instructor teaching English there (if my memory serves me). I think he went out there to talk to the instructor and she called security on him.
LSS officials began to get very upset with me about this. Not a short time later, a client that I had secured employment for, was severely burned by hot tar at a construction company because he didn’t understand the instruction about the machine (Tony Anderson Construction). I believe I still have a photo of the burned client. I felt terrible because I was using my savvy and skills to get non-English speaking clients jobs, so money did not have to be spent on English courses, etc.
Basically – NAS clients were being brought into the City of Grand Forks and just dumped off on one or two employees making $12.00 an hour. The employees would work insane hours until they were completely burned out from the exploitation - and then LSS would just hire new employees and burn them out, etc.
Valley News should investigate New American Services and Lutheran Social Services at the financial level. How much money is coming in from the government and/or private donors to LSS? How much money is going out, and, where is it going out to?
I hope this helps anything you’re looking into.
Timothy Charles Holmseth
320 17th Street N.W.
Unit # 17
East Grand Forks, MN
56721
218.230.1597 (cell)
218.773.1299 (land)