Friends of Refugees organization launches website, asks for answers

We  told you about Friends of Refugees back in March of 2008, here and how it had originally come into existence.  Christopher Coen and those who work with him have been indefatigable defending refugees across the country who have been left in the lurch by certain government contractors, some of them ‘church’ groups, who continually lobby for more refugees, are paid to resettle them, and then seemingly abandon them, which of course harms the refugees and the communities in which they have been placed.

*Reminder to our diverse readership:  At Refugee Resettlement Watch our goal is to encourage an open and honest discussion about the refugee resettlement program of the US State Department.  The public should know how this program works and be involved in the decision-making regarding the future of your community.  Additionally, we should have a national debate about how many refugees America will take and from what cultures they will come.  In the meantime, your tax dollars are paying for this business (yes, it is a business!) and the agencies contracted with your money should be held accountable for their work.  That is where Friends of Refugees comes in.

Here is their new site and a bit about what they do:

Friends of Refugees (FORefugees) is a nonpartisan citizens group monitoring the U.S. refugee resettlement program. We serve as an ethical watchdog, promoting refugee resettlement agency and government accountability. We are an all-volunteer citizens group composed of people, some of whom formerly were volunteers at refugee resettlement groups, who are concerned about the state of the U.S. refugee resettlement program – in particular, the welfare of refugees, who are often neglected and who fall through the cracks in the system. We are primarily focused on refugee resettlement agencies abiding by the requirements of the program, although we are also concerned about inadequate government oversight of the resettlement program. We are also concerned about publicly-funded services and material items being provided to refugees.

Be sure to check out the contact information on the above mentioned ‘about’ page.

In a new post today, Mr. Coen addresses the increased funding that was announced last week for what is known as the R & P program (that is the initial resettlement program) that the State Department funds.  FOR has further clarified some of the sketchy information on the doubling of the funds paid to contractors, but many questions remain.  Here is how Mr. Coen opens his inquiry:

Friends of Refugees has had some concerns about the recently announced increase in refugee program funding (see our recent post on this announcement). We wanted to know who made this recommendation and what criteria was used? We understand that President Obama ordered a comprehensive review of the refugee resettlement program by the National Security Council (NSC), but who is on the NSC’s Interagency Task Force and who is the Task Force consulting with?

Read it all!   Note that one of the most important questions he asks is:  Why throw money at the program and reward the contractors when the problems the review was supposed to address have apparently not yet been resolved?

One more thing:  I look forward to reading the State Department monitoring reports FOR is making available on its website.

Comment worth noting: Manchester and Cloward-Piven

Last night we heard from reader Thomas in response to the Manchester Somali story I posted yesterday.  He confirms for us that the Cloward-Piven strategy* to overload the welfare system with poor and angry people was well-established in radical leftwing circles 40 years ago!   Thank goodness we are all catching on, I just hope it’s not too late for us.

Thomas, thanks for the kind words (and don’t apologize, many of us who are the most vocal, and can see the truth, also came from the Left in our youth).  Readers, check out all the comments at the Union Leader.  So far this morning I don’t see Thomas’s, but be sure to follow the instructions to get to the full list of comments which have indeed been moved.

Thanks for the attention to my hometown of Manchester NH. I made a comment on this UL article and referenced your website, if that is all right. Someone there mentioned Cloward and Piven, and boy– that set me off! I first learned of them in the late 60s when I was pretty radical in certain Democrat student organizations while at NYU. (I am not proud of that, by the way, and I am truly trying to make amends for my past embracing of twisted social experiments). Somehow I don’t think my comment will be allowed to post at the UL, though.

I have been visiting your website much in the past year as refugee developments in the United States (specifically in my neighbor state of Maine) have peaked my curiosity. Here in the UK the refugee mess (shoveling tax money toward so-called refugees who very often scam the govt system) has spiralled out of control in the last 3 years and I see the U.S. is following suit. This horrifies me to no end.

I will be moving my family back to New Hampshire in about 10 weeks after my contract is up here. I will no longer be employed, as my department has been transferred to Asia. But that is another story; Perhaps I can be classified as a refugee from the UK?

Thanks Thomas, good luck in Manchester.   The way things are going in that “welcoming” city you will feel like you haven’t even left the UK!

* Please visit or revisit our discussion of Cloward-Piven in our Community destabilization category and when you read this post consider my assertion below:

When you read the Nation article, note that Cloward and Piven were very conscious of the concept of the ‘presumption of good intentions.’ In other words, they knew that this political strategy would go undetected for a very long time because it would be hidden from their average do-gooder minions by the presumption that this was all about aiding the downtrodden.