Where are the annual reports to Congress?
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (in the Department of Health and Human Services) periodically sends out a newsletter with some glowing reports about the program.
Here is one item in the recent newsletter that caught my eye and reminded me to ask: WHERE ARE THE ANNUAL REPORTS TO CONGRESS FOR ALL OF OBAMA’S YEARS IN OFFICE-–2009, 2010, 2011 (and soon they will be due 2012) required by law?
There are only two answers why this LEGAL requirement is not being fulfilled—sheer incompetence, or they are hiding something!
The last report filed by Eskinder Negash’s ORR is 2008, here. If you are not familiar with these reports, have a look at that one. They have to report among many things the amount of welfare refugees are receiving and their employment status. I think the numbers are so bad, they are just not doing the report. And, NO ONE IN CONGRESS ASKS FOR IT!
This (below) is from the newsletter. This sure doesn’t look like 100% employment to me!
ORR is pleased to see the national voluntary agencies (volags)* reporting strong outcomes for refugee employment in the 3rd trimester of FY2012, with many affiliates achieving 100% employment for their caseloads.
As the final reports come in, here’s a sample of their successes:
World Relief:
874 clients enrolled
64% self-sufficient @ 120 days
74% self-sufficient @ 180 days
USCRI:
1811 clients enrolled
61% self-sufficient @ 120 days
75% self-sufficient @ 180 days
EMM:
1168 clients enrolled
49% self-sufficient @ 120 days
71% self-sufficient @ 180 days
For more information about ORR’s Matching Grant program, and full program statistics, please visit the Matching Grant page on the ORR website.
Now here is what you need to ask about these facts.
~ Those numbers sure don’t look like 100% to me, do they to you?
~ Where are the stats for the other federal contractors? There are nine right now, here. For their “sample” did they only select the best. Of course they did!
~ No one is keeping track of refugees receiving food stamps (or probably other state-administered welfare either), so when they say self-sufficient, how do the contractors know?
***Update from a reader named ‘tomasrose’***
The volags talk about the number of “self-sufficient” refugees they have placed. You can be in public housing, receiving food stamps, medicaid, free lunches, cell phones plus CASH from SSI and be considered officially “self-sufficient”. The only program that makes you not “self-sufficient” is TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families—ed]
~ How do we know that the contractors don’t just get refugees a little job just in time for the contractor to report that their refugees are working? That is one of their tricks—get the refugee doing anything to collect a pay check even for a very short time.
* New readers, it’s very funny that they call these federal refugee contractors VOLAGS (short for Voluntary Agency). They are contractors receiving in some cases over 90% of their funding from you—the taxpayer. They would like you to think that this was all some sort of private charity, but it isn’t!