The International Institute of New England (also a Limon family enterprise) says they never intended to slow the flow of refugees to overloaded Manchester beyond one year. Readers new to Refugee Resettlement should know that resettlement occurs on a fiscal year basis that begins on October 1 and runs to September 30th of the following year.
That means that there will be a big push from now to the end of September to get large numbers of refugees distributed to your towns and, then starting October 1, they will be working to fulfill the President’s determination (his wishlist!) for the number to be resettled in FY 2014. (Remember when so many of you testified to the State Department back in May, that was to get your input, which will be generally ignored, to the plan for 2014.)
From the Manchester Union Leader (hat tip: Joanne):
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Another 200 refugees will be resettled in Manchester in the coming months, a number that Mayor Ted Gatsas said breaks an agreement he had reached with a refugee resettlement organization.
However, the International Institute of New England said the agreement was only for a 12-month period that lapses next month. And the projection for the coming 12 months — 200 refugees for Manchester — is the same as the current period. An additional 50 will be placed in Nashua.
Carolyn Benedict-Drew, the director of the Boston-based International Institute of New England, said the refugees entering New Hampshire starting in October will most likely be Bhutanese and Iraqis.
They are really brazen about it—-turning refugees into VOTERS and turning red states blue!
Benedict-Drew said Bhutanese started settling in Manchester in 2008, and the first wave are in the pipeline to become citizens, about 300.
“These are going to be voting members of our community who will be building the economic base in New Hampshire,” Benedict-Drew said.
Report from USCRI (Lavinia and Peter Limon) says Manchester has lots of taxpayer supported health-care goodies for refugees including mental health and HIV/AIDs treatment:
A recent report by the International Institute of New Hampshire prepared for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said that the state’s two largest cities have a favorable economic forecast, medical clinics and facilities to treat refugees with mental health and physical problems, including HIV/AIDs, and access to state funding for English classes.
Mayor Gatsas says he still wants a moratorium and is following what is going on in Springfield, MA.
The abstract report described Gatsas as neutral on the additional 200 refugees.
But Gatsas said that’s not the case, and he continues to favor a moratorium on refugee resettlement. He noted the Democratic mayor of Springfield, Mass., has asked for a moratorium.
Benedict-Drew: We call the shots, not the duly-elected Mayor
Benedict-Drew said the agreement only covered the current year.
“There was never an agreement for more than one year,” she said. “We honored it for one year.
So why are the contractors so unwilling to give Manchester a break.
First, they are driven by an agenda that includes diminishing the role of states (under the 10th Amendment) and bringing immigrant voters to traditionally conservative cities and states. But on a practical level, they are paid by the head to resettle refugees and the various contractors are competing against each other to get their share of the clients (aka refugees). If an agency can’t resettle a certain number of refugees, they will have to close offices and reduce staff.
Once they find a community into which they can pour the poor, they are reluctant to give it up. Additionally, they are paid by the head to bring family members to join the relatives already in the ‘seed’ community. Last year’s resettled Burmese, Somalis, etc. want to bring their extended family to join them and the contractors want to oblige them by placing them in the same town.
That’s why, if you don’t have refugees yet, but there is some word you might get some, raise questions in the local media right away. I call that the squawk factor, if the feds and the contractors get the idea that the squawking (really the questioning) is not going to stop they will move on to a more “welcoming” target city.
Oops! Update! One more thing, go here Arrivals by Destination City by Nationality by FY as of July 31, 2013 to see what nationalities and how many refugees Manchester (or your city) has taken since 2001.