Minnesota demographers scratched their heads trying to figure out where all the Ethiopians were coming from. This was from an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune over a year ago, but I thought it was worth mentioning. (The July 16, 2006 article will not link).
“We scratched our heads about this,” Tom Gillaspy, the state demographer, said Friday. “It was a number that sort of stood out to us. There has been a steady, noticeable immigration from Ethiopia to Minnesota, but it’s larger this year.”
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Ethiopians began coming to the United States a few decades ago to escape famine and civil war in their Horn of Africa nation. But their population in Minnesota has remained relatively small compared with groups such as the Hmong and Somalis.
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The state says an estimated 7,500 Ethiopians were living in Minnesota in 2003 — the last year with complete figures — though immigrant leaders believe there are far more, perhaps as many as 20,000.
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……secondary migration — in which refugees move here after first living in other states — might explain the increase. Ethiopians are coming to Minnesota for low-skilled jobs and to join their families, he said.
It shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise. According to the 2005 ORR report to Congress (Appendix A), Minnesota was the recipient of the 2nd highest number of Ethiopians resettled in the US (only California received more).
We’ve also previously mentioned that one of the ten major volags (voluntary agencies) resettling refugees is the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the mothership of the Los Angeles based African Community Resource Center whose director, a former refugee (refugees set up their own non-profits and bring in more refugees), was recently indicted for allegedly helping herself to federal grant money designated for refugee programs. Not only do these volags resettle newly arrived refugees but they help facilitate family reunification and secondary migrations. Here the African Community Center advertises for its services to help refugees bring over the family.