Although this is probably not news for most insiders in the refugee resettlement industry, we just learned about it yesterday. Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr who had been President of one of the largest of the monopolistic Top Ten federal government contracting resettlement agencies since 1991 said back in April, here, that he was resigning with some gobbledegook about the intersection of ‘one’s joy and the world’s need shifting.’ Huh? Maybe he figured out that his agency has a terrible track record when it comes to caring for refugees it resettles and he wants out. Who knows?
For whatever reason, it sounds like he is saying it stinks working at LIRS.
Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr., president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) since 1991, will resign from his post Sept. 1. According to an LIRS news release, Deffenbaugh, 57, said the “organization needs new gifts of leadership.”
“As LIRS president I have always understood myself as standing on the able, solid shoulders of all those who have gone before me,” Deffenbaugh said. “I believe that my gifts have been well used in my tenure at LIRS, that the agency has grown to a degree that no one could have imagined 18 years ago, and that it is now time for a new kind of imagination to light the way. I’ve long been influenced by the adage that our calling is the intersection between our joy and the world’s need. For me and for LIRS, that intersection has shifted.”
During his tenure, LIRS and its partners have resettled more than 100,000 refugees, many from Africa (including the “Lost Boys” from Sudan), Burma, and Bhutan. The organization has revived the international system of resettlement and care for unaccompanied refugee children through collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Deffenbaugh helped form the Refugee Council USA*, which focuses on refugee protection, and served as its first chairperson from 2000 to 2001. He is the longest-serving head of LIRS since its founding in 1939.
LIRS was one of the five government contracting resettlement agencies in that White House meeting two weeks ago here. LIRS has obviously joined up with powerful unions (SEIU among them!), big businesses looking to keep wages low, and advocacy groups wanting to wipe out our borders altogether. Maybe this guy got a conscience. I know wishful thinking!
For more on egregious refugee care cases use our search function for ‘Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services’ and see how many times they have come up in the last couple of years.
*Refugee Council USA is a consortium of refugee industry groups that get together to multiply their power in Washington. I wrote about them here when they sent a report to Obama asking him to double the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the US for 2010. Of course at least half of those we are bringing now are unemployed and living on various forms of welfare. By the way, it won’t be long before we know what the refugee ceiling for FY2010 will be when Obama sends his Presidential determinination letter to Congress. The new fiscal year begins October 1.