Each year the Office of Refugee Resettlement prepares an Annual Report to Congress about the refugee program for that fiscal year. The most recent report available is for FY2006. It is a gold mine of information about the program: who came, where they went, what grants and programs were available, and much more.
So, just as I said about that report I posted earlier today, this document will give you many hours of informative reading.
A couple of things that caught my eye on a quick skim of the 124 pages was a $1 million grant to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to do a “marriage education” program. There was over $7 million awarded that year divided among 45 multicultural groups to “enhance ethnic community organizing” (see page 34).
And then one of my favorite charts is the one on Welfare Usage on page 75. For the 5 years prior to 2006 all forms of welfare usage have increased dramatically. The four categories of usage include any type of cash assistance, Medicaid, Food Stamps and Public Housing. For Food Stamps, 54.9% of refugees were using food stamps in 2006 while 35.8% were using them in 2001. You can just imagine what the number must be now!
And with more food stamps available comes more opportunity for Food Stamp Fraud.