There are a spate of stories like this one in my alerts today. Obviously the US State Department has put out the word, for media consumption, that there are many boo-hoo stories of families not being reunited thanks to those evil Congressional Republicans. [The Administration has apparently worn out the National Park Service closure hardship theme and moved on to other sob stories like the refugee hardship story line!]
Here is one from the St. Louis Post Dispatch (emphasis is mine). I bet most readers of RRW don’t even know that we are still resettling Cubans*** to America (they don’t have to get on a boat for a dangerous journey, just sign up to come)!
Today, Santos Landazury was to be reunited with his wife and their young son.
But as the Cuban refugee to St. Louis puts it, the “political problem” in Washington is preventing him from enjoying the land of freedom and democracy.
“The situation makes us feel like the government has let us down,” Landazury, 47, said Monday through an interpreter. “This is a government in which I put my trust …”
Because of the federal government shutdown, the U.S. refugee resettlement program has been suspended, leaving 34 people from six countries who were to arrive in St. Louis this month in limbo, including Landazury’s wife, Elizabeth, and their son, Ernesto, 9.
Other refugees whose arrival has been delayed include Burmese, Bhutanese, Iraqis, Eritreans and a Somali.
Landazury arrived here June 28 with his daughter, Rosmeri, 20. His wife and their son stayed behind so Elizabeth could care for her ailing mother. The plan was to arrive in St. Louis today.
But when the government shut down on Oct. 1, so did the resettlement program run by the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
Resettlement agencies throughout the country including the International Institute of St. Louis get federal funds to help the new arrivals get acclimated to their new home. The money is used to pay for a few months of rent, utilities and food.
[Of course the resettlement agencies could use their own money during the shut-down, right!—ed]
Lawrence Bartlett, the director of refugee admissions for the bureau, said in a letter to resettlement agencies that because of the shutdown, “it is unclear whether certain federally funded services and benefits will be available to arriving refugees.”
Read it all, the article goes on to blame Congress for not giving money to Obama so that he can give it to the contractors. And, it tells us that some security clearances may expire and thus subject the refugee to yet another security check.
***How many Cubans? 3,801 Cuban “refugees” have arrived in the US in the first 11 months of FY2013 (see those numbers here).
For new readers, we have a lot of stories on refugee problems, especially crime stories, in our St. Louis archive, here.