I guess at least one state is beginning to see that they can’t manage large numbers of refugees in this economic downturn. From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Several dozen refugee families who were scheduled to arrive in Utah later this year will likely be resettled elsewhere [where?],as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops struggles to help families amid a dire economy.
“It’s a year of extreme difficulties,” said Anastasia Brown, the conference’s director of refugee programs, based in Washington, D.C. “In local offices, they have been doing incredible duty trying to make sure that no refugees go homeless.”
The organization’s decision to limit the number of refugees it helps reflects the state of the nation’s troubled refugee programs.
Refugees have been arriving at a faster pace than expected this year. Worried about the potential strain on the local level, the Catholic organization has alerted State Department officials it will not significantly exceed its original agreement to resettle about 20,000 refugees.
No comment from the State Department.
A five million dollar bailout that will take money from deserving refugees abroad will soon be divvied up among the Top Ten (volag) Government Contractors. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see how that cat fight turns out.
Acknowledging the current challenges, the federal government plans to redirect $5 million toward refugee housing nationwide, an unprecedented move. The funds were previously allocated for refugees overseas.
The Salt Lake Tribune is one of the better papers in the US at looking more carefully at refugee programs, so it was disappointing to see the reporter fall hook, line and sinker for the IRC (we need more money) Report of last week.
And finally, this was interesting. So, Salt Lake City has a Somali Community Center too! Another federal grant? A little ethnic and religious community organizing?
On Monday morning, eight Somali families crowded a tiny office at the new Somali Community Self Management program in Salt Lake City.
It has been my contention all along that these ethnic community-based organizations only continue to divide Americans—but that is the goal we have learned from the bible of community (destabilization!) organization—Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals.’