Month: March 2008

Refugees in Pittsburgh helped, sort of, by college students

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is an article from a college newspaper, “The Pitt News,” that talks about students helping refugees primarily to find jobs.   My guess is that job hunting is going to be a huge problem in coming months and years if the predictions about the economy come to pass. 

A Pitt group that helps refugees from war-torn countries now living in the United States recently launched a program to match students with refugees to help them find jobs.

The group formed by the students at the University of Pittsburgh found out that the refugees are either over-qualified or under-qualified for employment that is available.  

Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment is working closely with Catholic Charities to find clients who need assistance through a Refugee Resettlement Initiative.

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“We tried to figure out what major issues were facing refugees in Pittsburgh and how Pitt students could alleviate them,” said Molly Ferra, FORGE regional director and a Pitt senior.

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Through working with Catholic Charities’ employment specialists, FORGE members discovered that many of the refugees were either overqualified or under-qualified for jobs in the United States.

We have seen this dilemna elsewhere.  Refugees who are engineers or doctors where they came from must literally return to school to be qualified to work in America, so they end up cleaning motels and such.  

It’s good these students are trying to help because, as the students learned, the refugee resettlement agencies are paid to help the refugees for only a few months and once their federal dole runs out, they turn their attention to a new batch of refugees who come with taxpayer dollars attached.

One reason it’s important for Catholic Charities to connect with Pitt is that the organization only has two employment specialists, two caseworkers and limited money for resettlement programs.

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A lot of the money the organization has goes toward new refugee arrivals.

But, darn, don’t those students have a tough job according to the Catholic Charities representative.  They need to keep these refugees from being sucked into our materialistic society.  Imagine that these refugees would want cell phones and cars!  Tsk! Tsk!

“They’re basically being seduced in this western, very materialistic culture. We see people buying cell phones and vehicles, and then what happens is there may be two parents working in the household but one’s job may be cut, and then they’re not able to pay all their bills.”

O.K.  So, I was (mostly) fine with all this.  Afterall, we have been advocating that these agencies reach out to churches and other groups in a bigger way and find refugees more help to become a part of our culture and to be self-sufficient. 

But, then the student leader ruins it all by making this comment.

Ferra said FORGE is trying to acculturate the refugees. “It doesn’t mean assimilation – giving up their customs or religion,” Ferra said.

Heaven forbid we should ask anyone to give up any part of their religion or culture and assimilate!   When did we get to the point where ‘assimilate’ is a bad word?   In this brave new world of cultural relativism, anything one does in the name of culture and religion is just dandy.

Ms. Ferra, is every religious practice equal and acceptible in your mind?  How about if the practice is illegal, can we then request a refugee give it up when becoming an American?   I had in mind polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and honor killings—all are an acceptable part of Islam.

Come and get it! Cash for refugees!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

I’m assuming this site is not a government sponsored site—it’s called Government Grant Search and has an ad for a program called “Cash in on Government Grants that never have to be repaid” on its banner.  Yippee! 

There are a handful of countries that make refugees welcome when they enter the foreign land, and the U.S.A. is one of them. Fortunately, if you happened to be one and stepped on U.S. soil, you’re not only welcomed — you’re treated with sincere care.

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One way that will help you achieve self-sufficiency is through the Matching Grant (MG) program. Services of this program include case management, job development, and transitional support for your first 4 to 6 months of stay. Federal funds per refugee amount up to $2,200. These can also be used for English training in collaboration with employment services, job training, medical support, and allowance. The program is also available for entrants and asylees.

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In 2006,the program achieved 86% self-sufficiency for 25,000 participants. The total program funding was increased to $60,000,000 in 2007.

Wow!  $60,000,000 in 2007, I wonder what 2008’s jackpot will be.

P.S.  I’ll have to pull some information together on the Match Grant program.   We haven’t said much about it but it basically works like this:   Volag (voluntary agency) collects junk (cars, furniture, etc.) and places a value on it, the federal government (you) then matches the volag $2 (cold hard cash) for every $1 of junk.  Money is passed out to refugees through the volag.   Neat huh!   

Asylum seekers on the rise, Switzerland not so eager to take more

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A European born cousin of mine asked me this past weekend about Switzerland.  Does it take refugees and asylum seekers?   I didn’t know, but just today comes a report about the rise in numbers of people seeking asylum in Europe that answers the question.   Iraqis are responsible for the rise according to this article in Swiss.info. 

After falling for five years, the number of asylum applications in industrialised countries rose by ten per cent in 2007, the United Nations refugee agency reports.

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Switzerland, where numbers remained almost static, was in 11th place overall for the number of asylum applications it receives, comparable with Austria and Belgium.

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The overall trend, which saw figures reach a 20-year low in 2006, has been reversed “largely because of an increase in the number of Iraqi asylum seekers”, the UNHCR said.

By the way, we haven’t mentioned Asylum much and can only say it differs from Refugee Resettlement in that those seeking asylum arrive in the country in which they request asylum on their own steam (and find good immigration lawyers!).  Refugees are processed abroad and then we pay their travel expenses.  Both groups are treated the same when they get here and are eligible for all sorts of healthcare and welfare.

We’ve heard stories of Africans (others probably too) who get on a plane somewhere in the world with a passport of some sort and dump it in the toilet upon landing in the US where they then ask for asylum.

Back to Switzerland, a Swiss refugee agency says that Switzerland could do more for refugees.  No offense to the Swiss, but I’ve spent a little time there and I was struck by how inflexible many of its citizens are, or at least the ones I knew.    They are complete neat freaks—I knew one girl who ironed her underwear!  They freshen their bed covers out the window every day!   Can you imagine the culture clashes they must have with some refugees.

According to Golay, the Swiss Refugee Council has also been calling on Switzerland to be more generous in admitting groups of refugees.

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“A policy of taking in resettlement groups would have its place considering how few Iraqis are currently being accepted into Switzerland,” he said.

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“Switzerland has not done this on a significant scale since the mid-1990s. We have asked Switzerland to re-adopt this policy, particularly in the case of Iraqis, some two million of whom are living outside their country in very difficult conditions with very little support.”

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The largest single nationality group of asylum seekers in Switzerland in 2007 was Eritreans (1,662), followed by Serbs (953) and Iraqis.

Here are some interesting numbers from the article:

The industrialised countries that lodged the most asylum applications in 2007 were:

The United States: 49,200
Sweden: 36,200
France: 29,900
Canada: 28,300
Britain: 27,900
Greece: 25,110
Germany: 19,160
Italy: 14,050
Austria: 11,880
Belgium: 11,120

Switzerland was in 11th place with 10,390.

RRW reaches a milestone! 50,000 visits!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know.  We aren’t one of the big boys, but we are happy to report we have just a few minutes ago reached our 50,000 visitors mark.   We began this blog back in July 2007 and have to date written 524 posts as part of our mission to inform and to ultimately bring about reform of legal immigration.

Our little graph which shows daily visitors by day, week, and month is climbing steadily and we hope that is an indication that we are bringing useful information to you and that visitors are returning and telling others about us.   We also hope that by challenging your thinking, even if it makes you angry sometimes, we will one day see Refugee Resettlement changed to make life better for refugees, for the communities in which they live,  always mindful of our paramount concern for the future well-being of our country.

“Whoop-de-do” in Waterbury, CT

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is the latest installment of the controversy we have been following in Waterbury, CT where the International Institute of CT has been criticized for not caring for Burmese refugees. 

We don’t get enough money to do a good job is the whining response from officials including the President, Lavinia Limon,  of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) the government contractor that passes funds down to its Connecticut subcontractor.

This is what Limon told the Republican-American reporter:

The government provides a one-time $850 per person stipend to resettlement agencies. Of that, half must be used for the refugees, and half for administrative costs. In 1975, that figure was $500. “Whoop-de-do,” said Lavinia Limón, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. “God help us if our salaries had not kept pace with inflation like that. The capacity of agencies like (the institute) has been severely curtailed. I would really criticize that.”

You can be sure these volags get more funds in addition to the half of $850 for their “administration” and just so readers aren’t mislead and think that these are poor struggling outfits, a little check of USCRI’s 2006 Form 990 reveals the following:

USCRI’s gross income was $18,352,000.   $16,905,312 was from government grants (that’s you the taxpayer) while another $675,868 included government contracts.

Total compensation of officers was $358,587 and other salaries were $2,966,521.  Other pension, payroll and employee benefits amounted to around $809,000.  Rent was $572,367.  Travel $213,680.  Conferences and meetings $168,559.  You get the picture.  You are paying for all this and they complain that it is too little to do a good job caring for refugees.

And as far as Ms. Limon’s “whoop-de-do” comment regarding salaries.  Yes indeed, she didn’t have to worry about her salary which comes out of this same government pot of cash.  In 2006 her salary and other compensation was $195,478.  That is up about $20,000 from the previous couple of years.

Oh, I almost forgot,  they also said they spent $1,000,000 for lobbying.  I guess that was for more refugees and more money.

In defense of Ms. Limon, her salary isn’t as large as another of her peers.  The President of the International Rescue Committee (another of the top ten motherships), George Rupp, received according to Guidestar in excess of $325,000 in salary and compensation in 2005.   But, of course his volag was receiving over $88,000,000 from the taxpayers.

Here is my fix!  US State Department take a smaller number of refugees and be sure each family or family unit has a church or other such group sponsoring them, caring for them, and helping them assimilate and cut these refugee industry middlemen out!