Day: January 26, 2015

Office of Refugee Resettlement planning ‘RefugeeCorps’ to employ refugees at contractor offices

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The new RefugeeCorps will be patterned after AmeriCorps and and in partnership with AmeriCorps’ parent government agency.

It makes me laugh, they are very clever—very good at working all the angles!

Eskinder Negash is the outgoing Director of ORR. I wonder if they have picked his replacement yet, does anyone know?

The former refugees will be working for the refugee agencies (the federal contractors!) that operate in 180 plus cities across America.  So, rather than the resettlement agencies using some of their government money to employ people they will be getting access to another pot of government money to hire refugees who can’t find work otherwise.

So tell me why we don’t just open federal refugee offices in those 180 cities and quit this charade where non-profits pretend to be non-governmental (charitable!) agencies.

They still spend our tax dollars, but as non-profits they are unaccountable to those of us paying their freight!

This is more news from the ORR outgoing Director Eskinder Negash’s annual review.  We posted previous information from that document—58,000 unaccompanied minors entered the US in 2014 and were distributed to 124 locations around the country.

Here is the information on the RefugeeCorps (emphasis is mine):

ORR is pleased to announce the establishment of a new partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)—the agency that supports the AmeriCorps program, the RefugeeCorps. An entirely new initiative, this program places former refugees in positions at resettlement agencies to work directly with new arrivals. The goal is to improve the self-sufficiency and well-being of refugee populations and promote successful local integration.

Programs will focus on three key areas:

Economic Opportunity: improved economic well-being and security; improved access to financial literacy-focused services; safe, affordable housing; and, improved employability;

Education: improved educational outcomes for economically disadvantaged children; improved school readiness and educational outcomes for children; and, post-secondary education, and

Healthy Futures: improved access to primary and preventative health care; increased physical activity; and, improved nutrition in youth and reduction in childhood obesity.

This new RefugeeCorps will begin in late Summer/Fall 2015 with nine agencies, with a plan to expand the program to every refugee resettlement site in the U.S. over the next few years. Participating RefugeeCorps members receive the same benefits as a traditional AmeriCorps member, including a stipend, post-service educational benefit, health insurance and other benefits. ORR will provide the funding for this program to national voluntary agencies through the Preferred Communities grant.

Yippee! Money! Money! Money!

Are all Africans xenophobes, or do they just want to live with their own kind of people?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Protestors run after soldiers open fire on January 20th in Kinshasa. 40 were killed. AFP photo.

 

 

Yesterday I mentioned the latest African black on other African black crime and discrimination. Today there is a story at the Mail & Guardian Africa which lays out other, what some would call “xenophobic” or “racist,” unhappiness with “foreigners” in Africa.

I find this so amusing (sort of!) that we are expected to welcome the new African refugees to America and accept them into our communities without question (with no demands that they accept our heritage, history and culture), yet they, in their own country resent “foreigners” who prefer to keep their own culture and language.  And, I am sure this same attitude, as this one described in DR Congo, can be found (and largely accepted) the world over.

From Mail & Guardian Africa:

THE last week has been a bad time to be a foreigner in some parts of Africa. Clashes between Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) police and political protestors that left some 40 people dead last week also revealed the level of hostility towards the Chinese in the capital Kinshasa.

[…..]

The Kinshasa residents also resent what they see as the Chinese preference for sticking together in segregated communities, retaining the customs, habits, and language in their native land. The same sentiments are played out in other African countries not just with the Chinese, but Indians, Somalis, and Lebanese.

Read it all!

By the way, for readers who don’t know, we are in the early stages of resettling 50,000 or so “refugees” from DR Congo to your towns and cities.   We have resettled a whopping 1,390 from DR Congo in the first three months of FY2015!  (Don’t ask me why the State Department has not colored the map of DR Congo, but the numbers may be found in the list that follows the map.)

Editor:  I’m trying something new, not writing such long posts (but maybe more of them), what do you think?

Malta Independent: Europe ‘seriously underestimating possibility of IS militants infiltrating Italy or Malta’

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No surprise….

At Davos, former Libyan finance minister warns that IS fighters may be in the refugee flow to Europe.

  News from Davos! at the Malta Independent:

 

“Islamic State militants have taken over practically the whole area from where migrant crossings are launched and are effectively running the whole show, a prominent Libyan politician has warned.

Speaking to Italian journalists during the Davos World Economic Forum, former Libyan Finance Minister Ali Tarhouni, who now serves as President of the Constituent Assembly of Libya, warned that the EU is underestimating the risk of IS militants infiltrating Europe’s shores hidden among refugees.”

Read on, there is much more.

 

Remember readers!  The US State Department each year takes hundreds of the illegal alien boat people who arrive on Malta from Libya and other places in North Africa to the US as refugees.  See the latest here.  See our entire seven-year-old Malta archive here.

Editor:  The Malta Independent must be having some issues, be persistent, the link will eventually work!

Amarillo, TX: Meat cleaver-wielding man arrested

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story from last week that I never got around to posting and now this morning don’t have time to do it justice.  Regular readers know that Amarillo has had its share of problems with refugees, go here, for all of that news.  We don’t know whether the meat-cleaver man who attacked an apartment door with the meat cleaver, broke a window and cut phone lines of complete strangers is a refugee, but his resettlement agency would know for sure.  I’m guessing he is Burmese.

From Connect Amarillo (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers’):

Naisikenyan Pha. Isn’t diversity beautiful!

AMARILLO, TEXAS — The man accused of aggravated assault on a police officer early Sunday morning has been arrested.

Amarillo police said he also tried to break into an apartment before resisting arrest. He was armed with a meat cleaver, police said.

Forty-one-year-old Naisikenyan Pha is now facing charges of Attempted Burglary of a Habitation, Aggravated Assault on a Public Servant and Resisting Arrest.

It was at about 2 a.m., Sunday when officers were called to the 800-block of North Evergreen Street on the report of a burglary in process.

The resident told police that a man who had a knife was trying to get inside the apartment. Three children were inside the apartment.

The first responding officer saw a man crouched in the yard, repeatedly and aggressively striking the ground with a meat cleaver, police said. The man was asked stop but police said the man did not comply.

After repeatedly being asked to stop, police said the man stood up and started walking toward the officer with a meat cleaver in his hand at chest level.

Two attempts to bring him down with a stun gun failed before several officers forced him to the ground. It is believed that “his behavior was consistent with heavy narcotics use.”

Poor Amarillo!  No wonder it is becoming a ‘Pocket of Resistance’ to more refugee resettlement.