Maybe because they want more Haitian children to come to the US, kind of a backdoor approach by the Catholic Church?
Time magazine this week has a story about the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement program for so-called “unaccompanied minors” and how the feds are seeking to expand the program.
The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has 700 refugee children in foster care, has asked states to prepare to foster more international refugee children like Majok, whose parents either have disappeared or been killed by war or natural disaster. The need is heightened by continuing armed conflicts in Africa and recent events such as the earthquake in Haiti.
The request means that Massachusetts and other states must ask more households to open up their homes for foster care or ask existing foster families to take in another refugee child at a time of economic downturn.
[…..]
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services says 14 states and the District of Columbia, participate in the federal Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
Visit Friends of Refugees!
Although Time magazine not surprisingly gives us wonderful uplifting stories about refugee foster children, Friends of Refugees tells us a shocking tale of how things went wrong with one case involving Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota. Read it here!
Note that Time reports that these kids are put into foster care with the help of the USCCB and LIRS. Here is my question: Why do we need these church middlemen? You know they are also being paid for whatever role they have. Why can’t this program be run completely by the feds and the state agency?
In the U.S., states license foster homes with the help of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The federal government reimburses states for all costs of the children’s schooling, health care and related expenses. [How much are the church middlemen paid?-ed]