For our previous posts on Springfield, Massachusetts where Mayor Domenic Sarno asked the US State Department to halt resettlement of more refugees to the greater Springfield area until the ones already resettled had assimilated and dug their way out of poverty, go here.
This is the latest from The Republican, which had been thoroughly covering the controversial issue. It never ceases to amaze me how arrogant the resettlement contractors are and how unwilling they are to release even the most basic information about how the Refugee Resettlement program operates. You can see that as you read through the full story. Here is how it begins (emphasis mine):
SPRINGFIELD — Two months after Mayor Domenic Sarno urged the federal government to stop sending new refugees to Springfield, a local task force will meet Thursday to respond to the mayor’s concerns about hardships faced by the refugees and the city.
Sarno said the meeting, along with documents provided last week by the two refugee resettlement agencies in Western Massachusetts, seem to be a positive first step.
“Hopefully, this is the beginning of an open and honest dialogue with the resettlement agencies,” Sarno said Thursday, after receiving 14 documents that further explain the refugee resettlement program and the assistance received by refugees. “While we are an open and caring city, we cannot keep concentrating poverty on top of poverty.”
Sarno said he continues to have serious concerns that too many refugees are being placed in Springfield, straining city services such as schools, code enforcement, and police because of cases of substandard housing, claims of inadequate services by some refugees and their advocates, and challenges refugees face pertaining to language, education and employment.
The two resettlement agencies — the Lutheran Social Services of New England and the Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts – said they were unable to release information sought by The Republican last week regarding the numbers of refugees resettled in Springfield and the region in the past fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. In addition, they did not respond to a question if the refugees have continued being resettled.
There is more, read it all.
They say they can’t get the numbers easily?
They know how many were resettled in previous years, and here is where you find the number for FY2013 Arrivals by Destination City by Nationality by FY as of Sep 30, 2013
Holy cow! They resettled 1,771 refugees in Springfield just this year! (Update! The more I think about this, it can’t be right, something is missing at the data table. Maybe this is for the last ten years!)
Also, remember this may only represent a portion of the refugees who arrived in Springfield over the years because others may have come from other cities to join their relatives and friends there, so no one has the complete number of secondary migrants (they are not tracked).
Here are the countries from which they came (the highest number, 368, were Somalis):
Afghanistan
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Bhutan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Burma
Burundi
Dem. Rep. Congo
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Iran
Iraq
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Liberia
Moldova
Russia
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
I don’t know the names of surrounding cities and towns, but a local reporter could visit the site and put it all together for the area surrounding Springfield.