Your tax dollars:
That’s how I look at this program of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. When you check the list of counties receiving the grants, you will see according to how much federal support the counties are getting where the refugees are congregated. It is not a perfect correlation because I bet some politics are involved too, I don’t know for sure, just a guess considering the way Washington works these days.
We hear all the time in the mainstream media that refugees only get that measly $450 or so when they arrive in the US, but there is so much taxpayer money sloshing around, one just needs to find it all! And, frankly most of the money doesn’t go to the refugees—salaries and programs eat it up.
Targeted Assistance is federal grant money that goes through states to counties experiencing the worst refugee overpopulation and where refugees are not economically self sufficient and are relying heavily on public assistance (aka welfare).
Here is how it is described at ORR’s website:
The Targeted Assistance program (TAG) is part of the Division of Refugee Assistance and allocates formula funds to States that qualify for additional funds due to an influx of refugee arrivals and a high concentration of refugees in county jurisdictions with high utilization of public assistance.
TAG services are the same as Refugee Social Services and are intended to assist refugees obtain employment within one year’s participation in the program and to achieve self-sufficiency. TAG service priorities, however, are distinctive in that they prioritize (a) cash assistance recipients, particularly long-term recipients; (b) unemployed refugees not receiving cash assistance; and (c) employed refugees in need of services to retain employment or to attain economic independence.
One question I have after reading the lengthier discussion, available apparently only as a pdf file, is that it appears that Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs) can receive some of these dollars as pass-throughs from their county government. ECBOs can be nothing more than a few folks of a particular ethnicity filing a $50 incorporation with a state and presto they are legit groups to receive your money. They don’t even have to be federally designated 501(c)3 charities!
Here are the top counties in the US receiving this extra money for FY2009 (FY2010 will be the same) Total funding is $43,731,000 for the year. I’ve only selected those counties that received over $1 million. These then are the hotspots for refugees not finding work and trying to survive on public assistance:
Arizona, Maricopa County: $1,232,374
California, Los Angeles County: $2,276,525
San Diego County: $1,053,907
Florida, Maimi -Dade: $12,176,596 (jackpot!)
Georgia, DeKalb County: $1,004,721
Illinois, Cook/Kane/Dupage: $1,005,683
Minnesota, Ramsey/Hennipin: $2,389,647
New York, NYC: $1,400,675
Texas, Dallas/Tarrent County: $1,025,330
Harris County: $1,142,247
Washington, King/Snohomish: $1,137,988
If you would like to see if your county is receiving this funding, write to me at Ann@vigilantfreedom.com and I’ll send you the pdf. Or write or call the contact person at the bottom of this page at ORR. The table with the counties is actually a very cool list because it will even tell you how many asylees are in the county.
Endnote: Two cities we have talked about lately with refugee overload in Kentucky (Bowling Green) and Maine (Lewiston) don’t get any extra money.