Since I was just telling you that we (the Department of State) jumps when the UN says ‘jump!’ I thought it might be a good time to show you the numbers of refugees we are now taking from the DR Congo after Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Anne Richard (formerly a VP at federal resettlement contractor International Rescue Committee) agreed here in 2013 to take 50,000 refugees from the DR Congo off the UN’s hands.
By the way, the Republicans did this too when the UN wanted to clean out its Bhutanese camps on the border of Nepal and then Bush Administration Asst. Secretary Ellen Sauerbrey agreed to invite 60,000 Bhutanese to the US over a five year period—they are still coming!
Here in 2014 we learned the Bhutanese numbers to the US were up to 80,000. But, surprise! Some of them want to go home.
Since fiscal year 2012, we have placed 33,212 from the DR Congo in all but five states (see map below).
The vast majority are Christians of some sort, but there are 1,240 Muslims in the bunch. In FY2012 we resettled 1,863, but by FY2016 we took 16,370 in one year. Expect 2017 to be even higher as the drive is on to get as many refugees in to the US as possible before Obama leaves office.
Our interest in reporting the Congolese numbers was stimulated by the mysterious death this week of an 8-year-old Congolese boy at O’Hare Airport. His family was bound for Texas.
These are very poor people, mostly with limited educations, who will need a couple of generations of care by the US taxpayer before they can return anything to the US economy.
Early reports are that the women are especially traumatized and will need costly mental health treatment.
Here is where the Congolese (DR Congo) refugees have been placed between FY2012 and FY2016 (inclusive). Map from the Refugee Processing Center. Hawaii got zero (didn’t fit on the map), but it rarely gets any anyway.
