Even in spite of the fact that the state has had much controversy of late about a possible moratorium on resettlements, Lutheran Social Services is bragging that it is mostly on target to get a full-compliment of refugees into the state this fiscal year (although it appears they won’t be placing too many in Manchester).
It was only a few days ago that we learned (and here) that Minnesota wasn’t going to come close with its goal for the year. So what is the difference? Minnesota continues to be the go-to resettlement site for Muslims (mostly Somalis) and due to those security screenings, their numbers are down. In New Hampshire (at the moment) they are resettling mostly non-Muslims so the numbers aren’t slowing so dramatically.
From the Concord Monitor:
Two-thirds into their fiscal year, the main refugee resettlement agencies in the state say they are on target to reach or fall slightly short of their projected new cases this year.
Lutheran Social Services, which works primarily in Concord, Nashua and Laconia, has settled 145 people so far this year, about 60 percent of the cases it projected to handle between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30.
Most of those people are refugees from Bhutan, and about 65 percent have settled in Concord; the others were settled in Laconia or Nashua. Most of the new arrivals are related to refugees who have already settled in New Hampshire, said program director Amy Marchildon.
“Nationally, we’ve been a little bit slower this year overall,” she said. “There were new security measures implemented in the beginning of the year so it’s taken a while to move refugees” through the system.
As for Manchester and the International Institute, the Institute hired a new head honcho and they hope to get things rolling again there so that more refugees can come in and get their “services.”
The International Institute of New Hampshire works primarily in Manchester, where it has so far this year settled 74 people, mostly Bhutanese refugees with family members in the city, according to site director Nasir Arush.
[…..]
“I had a very good conversation with him [speaking of Mayor Gatsas–ed] when I was in New Hampshire and was very involved in many initiatives in the past ten years for services to enhance the lives of refugees in Manchester,” he said. “I really thought this is a good fit for me and a good opportunity to have someone with my experience and background as someone who is very known in Manchester to take this job.”
Then here is one line in the story that caught my eye!
One exception [when numbers were larger then projected—ed] was in 2004, when a humanitarian crisis in Somalia led the State Department to resettle more refugees nationwide than anticipated that year.
It wasn’t just 2004 that was a good year for Somalis! See this post I wrote years ago and is still every day on the list of most visited posts. I had combed through all the annual reports and noted the numbers of Somalis entering the US through the refugee program. And, yes, 2004 was a big year (remember the then-Senator Brownback involvement) but the years following 2004 were pretty overloaded too! Here are those POST-911 years when we were bringing Somalis to the US in large numbers:
2004: 12,814
2005: 10,101
2006: 10,330
2007: 6958
It was in 2008 that the discovery was made that Somalis were lying about their family relationships and one portion of the program was suspended and the number of Somalis dropped dramatically (links to posts on the suspension may be found in this recent post on Minnesota) Now we are creeping on up again.