Ho hum, not much here that we haven’t reported over the last couple of years, but thought you should know that the GAO (General Accountability Office) has written a report that basically says Iraqi refugees can’t find work (nor can the other tens of thousands of refugees arriving in the US this year!). Here is CNN’s summary of the report:
Iraqi refugees face steep challenges in resettling in the United States, including homelessness and unemployment amid an economic downturn, government auditors said Tuesday.
According to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday, the dire economic situation has “has made jobs normally available to refugees, such as entry-level jobs with limited English proficiency, scarce and more competitive.”
Even though Iraqi refugees have “relatively high levels of education,” the GAO said in the report, the U.S. resettlement program, in looking for jobs for refugees, does not take into account their prior work experience and education.
“Rather, the focus of the program is on securing early employment for
refugees,” the office said.
Many resettlement agencies say that it is taking as long as six months, and in some cases, as many as 10 months, for incoming Iraqi refugees to find employment, the GAO said.
Citing the International Rescue Committee, the GAO said that there are “high levels of trauma, injury, and illness” among Iraqi refugees.
“Moreover, unemployment and homelessness threaten Iraqi refugees and other populations recently resettled in the United States,” the GAO said, citing non-governmental organizations and resettlement agencies.
Some Iraqi refugees face eviction because they cannot pay rent, the report said.
The report said that the United States admitted 34,470 Iraqi refugees under the State Department’s Refugee Admissions Program between fiscal years 2006 and 2009. In addition, the GAO said, the State Department issued 4,634 special immigrant visas to Iraqis pursuant to two programs that Congress established to help Iraqis who had previously worked for the U.S. government in Iraq.
Most of them are in California, Michigan, Texas, Arizona, Illinois and Virginia, the report said. [many other states too-ed]
See the whole report here. Your tax dollars at work, when we are giving you the same information for free!
Knowing all this for a couple of years as they have and we have, why would the Center for American Progress (Soros-funded outfit and home to Van Jones and John Podesta) have urged that we airlift 100,000 Iraqis to the US? Was that to get more money for the resettlement contractors, or are the refugees just pawns in a larger political game as we learned with Clinton/Gore/Podesta and the Kosovars in 1999, here.