Chain migration to Ft Wayne has resumed after a hiatus for Burmese refugees living in camps in Southeast Asia. More Tuberculosis coming too?
Why was the program called “family reunification” suspended for years? Fraud! Lying! Cheating!
From the Journal Gazette (hat tip: Robin):
FORT WAYNE – Fort Wayne might see a larger influx of Burmese refugees this year than in any year since 2009.
The U.S. State Department says that Catholic Charities of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese has been approved to resettle as many as 170 refugees here during the fiscal year that began in October. That would be the highest number since 297 arrived in calendar year 2009. Only 54 came to town in calendar year 2012.
The figure is on the rise because family-reunification refugees have been reinstated for fiscal 2013. U.S. authorities suspended those Burmese resettlements in 2008 after a rash of fraudulent applications, but authorities have begun requiring DNA tests for applicants who claim to have immediate family in America.
“Most of the Burmese who are coming to this community are coming because of family,” said Holly Chaille, director of Catherine Kasper Place, a local ministry that assists immigrants and refugees.
Other refugee categories include ethnic minorities and individuals needing protection. Allen County was home to about 3,900 Burmese in the 2010 census. Only four U.S. metropolitan areas counted more Burmese at the time.
But things are improving in Burma! Didn’t Obama just visit there. This is what is so confounding about Refugee Resettlement. We bring hordes of “refugees” here at enormous cost to the taxpayer, not to mention the social upheaval for American towns and cities (cultural upheaval for the immigrants too), and then the situation improves in the country from which the refugees left, but then most don’t go home.
About 140,000 Burmese reportedly live in refugee camps in Thailand, thanks to decades of repressive military rule in neighboring Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Gradual democratic reforms in Myanmar are expected to lure many expatriates back home eventually.
For new readers: We have many many posts here at RRW about problems in Ft Wayne/Allen County. The difficult situation there first came to our attention in 2007 when the county health department was trying to cope with all the TB cases* coming in (“…50 percent of refugees arrive with TB infection and must be tested, treated and tracked.”). Eventually the Health Dept. got a little extra funding from Washington to help them cope.
Then who can forget the laundromat spitting/urinating episode, here.
Go here for our entire archive (dozens of posts) on Ft. Wayne. All of the problems in Ft. Wayne pushed former US Senator Richard Lugar to ask for a GAO study which was very critical of the program here. No sign that that study changed a damn thing!
* Speaking of TB cases, there has been a run on this old post in the last few days about a refugee dying from TB in a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant. Readers, this is no joke! We are bringing in refugees with active multi-drug-resistant TB!
One more thing! Citizens of Ft. Wayne should be watching for the arrival of Rohingya (Burmese Muslims) in the mix with the Christians. They hated each other in Burma and in the camps but somehow the resettlement contractors think that since they are going into the magical American melting pot they will come out liking each other. Remember what happened in Utah.