Unless the US State Department has made an error in reporting its own data.
This popped up in my alerts just now from the Appeal-Democrat. The editor must be referring to a blog post here at RRW and he tells us that we are wrong.
Here is the editor:
Syrian refugees in our neghborhood? Not likely, but if it were, what ramifications?
A reader sent along links to a website purporting to advise citizens around the country that Syrian refugees were already coming into the U.S. and had settled in several towns.
The list included Plumas Lake. But we asked a member of U.S. Rep. John Garamendi’s staff to help us find out about it, and it was reported back to us that there are no known refugees in Plumas Lake and that’s it’s pretty unlikely there would be Syrian refugees settled anywhere around the Yuba-Sutter area.
Then this that shows the stunning ignorance of the Congressman or his staff:
Garamendi’s message went on to make a couple other important points:
Syrian refugees are likely to be settled in areas with existing Syrian communities — most likely the metro areas of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Detroit.
It is possible some of the refugees could be settled in additional areas, with the assistance of the nonprofits.
All of the cities listed in my original post are receiving Syrian refugees according to State Department data (not just large cities with Arab populations!). (The State Department and its contractors are well known for keeping resettlement sites secret.)
And, apparently the Office of Congressman Garamendi doesn’t know how to access State Department data.
I just rechecked the Refugee Processing Center data base and Plumas Lake, CA is listed as having received 7 Syrian refugees this year and 3 Ukrainians. So, I would suggest that Rep. Garamendi go back to the US State Department and ask if they have an error in their data base, or have they mislead him?
For anyone else who would like to have a look (don’t be shy or lazy!), go to the data base and search for ‘arrivals by destination and nationality.’ You will enter the parameters of your search. I have been using 1/1/2012 as the start date for Syrians entering the US. I usually search by calendar year.
By the way, Plumas Lake is only 30 miles or so from a whole host of federal refugee resettlement contractors so it is no surprise if they are moving the excess out to surrounding towns. (Affordable housing is often a limiting factor in cities like Sacramento!).
You can also use that same data base to learn the religions of the refugees entering the US and we found that 97% of those who have entered from Syria in 2015 are Sunni Muslims.
Go here to see the map of all resettlement contractors operating in the US—including those near Plumas Lake.
To the editor of the Appeal-Democrat, when the US State Department reports the truth—either there are Syrians in your community, or that their database is wrong, let us know!