A while back someone raised a concern with me about the possibility that federal refugee contractors were breaking up refugee families in order to get more taxpayer money spread around to the general refugee “community.” I’ll admit right up front that I don’t know a thing about the foster care system, but always thought it was a state and county concern and responsibility and didn’t see how the feds were in on foster care. But, they are…..
It seems the Federal government (Office of Refugee Resettlement) through its “Unaccompanied Refugee Minors” program and with the help of contractors have the power to break up families and pay other families to raise the kids “to assist them in becoming integrated members of our global society.”
I wrote about the Unaccompanied Minors program last year, here, as it related to Catholic Charities scooping up Haitian kids as new “clients.” I also knew that some illegal aliens coming across our southern border were purposefully abandoning kids so that they would then be cared for as “unaccompanied minors,” but I am surprised now to learn that two federal contractors in particular have the power to break up families and spread the kids around—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services—and in 2007 (when the last ORR annual report went to Congress) it was a $95 million dollar a year business (see the most recent annual report, 2007,* available).
Below, in a joint fact sheet published by the two “religious” federal contractors, is one of seven reasons why children might become “unaccompanied minors:”
Family Breakdown Cases: Minors who enter the United States with a caregiver or are placed with them after arriving might experience a breakdown in this relationship and as a result could become eligible for placement into the URM program. Breakdown can occur as result of abuse, neglect, abandonment or an inability on the caregivers part to meet the child’s needs.
Holy cow! So who the heck is deciding whether the caregivers are meeting the child’s needs? Federal “religious” contractors? Federal “religious” contractors who need more clients? Where are the champions of separation of church and state—the ACLU? Or does the ACLU not get involved when the “church” happens to be on the religious Left?
How did it come to be that the federal government and unelected contractors now make foster care decisions that should be a state and county concern?
And, by the way, one huge problem with the supposedly religious federal contractors is that you can’t put your hands easily on their financial records because as “churches” they claim exemptions from some federal tax reporting requirements. If state agencies were involved at least we would have some recourse through our elected officials to complain if we saw something fishy going on.
* The Office of Refugee Resettlement is now three years behind in its legal requirement to report the costs of Refugee Resettlement to Congress. Please complain to your Congressman and US Senators about this flagrant violation of the law.