Your tax dollars!
Note especially to our Wyoming and Toledo, Ohio readers!
When your “welcoming” community is preparing to open its arms to refugees for the first time, remember it is required by federal law that your local government is responsible for the cost of educating the kids (don’t forget the ESL budget), and for providing interpreters for medical services (refugees come with HIV/AIDS and TB, need costly meds) and for any court proceedings (how much did that recent refugee murder trial cost Utah or the Colorado rape trial cost?).
One huge problem that happened near where I live is that fire and rescue had an emergency involving a refugee they were not aware of, and due to a language barrier an unnecessarily expensive and frightening ‘rescue’ occurred because they thought the woman had Ebola (a disease first discovered in the Congo)!
Here is some useful data for your consideration. Local governments! Better get your translators lined up!
Top ten languages spoken by recent refugees! (from WRAPSnet) Note Arabic is number one!
| Rank | Language | FY 2008 | FY 2009 | FY 2010 | FY 2011 | FY 2012 | FY 2013 | Total |
| 1 | Arabic | 9,767 | 13,675 | 15,199 | 7,372 | 9,938 | 17,233 | 73,184 |
| 2 | Nepali | 5,302 | 13,450 | 12,355 | 14,993 | 15,114 | 9,164 | 70,378 |
| 3 | Sgaw Karen | 7,460 | 3,331 | 5,833 | 6,521 | 4,148 | 5,011 | 32,304 |
| 4 | Somali | 2,403 | 3,879 | 4,787 | 3,057 | 4,763 | 7,295 | 26,184 |
| 5 | Spanish | 4,243 | 4,831 | 4,951 | 2,976 | 2,075 | 4,429 | 23,505 |
| 6 | Chaldean | 2,897 | 3,783 | 2,550 | 1,392 | 1,790 | 1,954 | 14,366 |
| 7 | Burmese | 3,769 | 2,040 | 1,414 | 1,290 | 1,146 | 1,523 | 11,182 |
| 8 | Armenian | 3,625 | 3,444 | 1,798 | 747 | 387 | 875 | 10,876 |
| 9 | Kayah | 0 | 5,267 | 1,922 | 1,179 | 595 | 784 | 9,747 |
| 10 | Other Minor Languages | 1,787 | 1,913 | 1,667 | 673 | 1,005 | 1,277 | 8,322 |
| Report Total | 41,253 | 55,613 | 52,476 | 40,200 | 40,961 | 49,545 | 280,048 |