We’ve written about the report from the Asian Pacific Islander Scholarship Fund previously, but thought this article about a recent briefing in Washington, DC added a few points that need to be high-lighted as well as asks the question:
Why, then, has the plight of refugees largely escaped the attention of policymakers?
I can answer the question! When the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy, Biden, Carter) was passed and signed into law, skeptics in Congress were assured we were not importing poverty and life-long users of welfare, but we have and we are. And, more importantly anyone who points that out is immediately called a racist, xenophobic boob. So what member of Congress would dare to open his or her mouth!
The two largest groups of refugees arriving in the US in recent years are from Asia—the so-called Bhutanese (really from Nepal originally) and the Burmese. Here is what this latest article says about the damning study and how it impacts the Maryland, Virginia, and DC region (although really not DC so much since it resettles only a tiny handful of refugees).
From Asian Fortune:
I wonder how many lawmakers actually bothered to listen to the briefing!
In a briefing on Capitol Hill, Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) stated that “…an overwhelming 30% of Burmese Americans live below the poverty line, compared to 13% of the Asian population living in the United States.” Del. Bordallo iterated the need to focus on education, highlighting the fact that 39% of Burmese Americans are high school dropouts, the highest of any Asian America/Pacific Islander group. [Remember those are the kids, the next generation!—ed]
As we have pointed out ad nauseum since 2008, it’s the meatpacking and hotel industry that presses for more LEGAL cheap immigrant labor while taxpayers subsidize the workers’ lives with welfare and pay for their criminal trials/incarceration!
Several key findings may explain the challenges refugee communities face. Limited English proficiency is a socioeconomic barrier in the refugee adaptation process, and older refugees experience the greatest difficulties in educational attainment. Indeed, older refugees typically find work in low-paying jobs in industries such as meatpacking and hotel-housekeeping that offer little or no benefits, and find it difficult to improve their socioeconomic status. Moreover, the report states that those who arrive as teens or young adults also have a more difficult time adjusting.
I love the way news accounts say they ‘find work’ as if they just watched the employment ads in a local paper. They find work because the Refugee Resettlement CONTRACTORS act as head-hunters for BIG MEAT and BIG HOTEL!