His “clients” are refugees admitted to the US in recent months.
Yes! for resettlement agencies paid by your tax dollars, the ‘refugees’ they resettle are “clients.” I think that is a better word than ‘refugee’ since most aren’t legitimate refugees in the first place.
US Together is a subcontracting resettlement agency of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, see here.
Here is a bit of the interview at IdeaStream (All things considered) entitled: Uncertain Future Remains For Northeast Ohio Refugee Resettlement Agencies.
After you listen, I want to give you some facts about what the US Together employee is talking about and on resettlement to Ohio in general.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer yesterday said President Trump’s travel ban order is fully lawful, and he was confident the order would be upheld by an appeals court. The comments came after a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle heard arguments in Hawaii’s challenge to the ban. [As is the case with most reporters, they don’t know the difference between the ‘ban’ and the President’s lawful power under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set refugee admission numbers each fiscal year.—ed]
After the first executive order in January affecting travel from mostly Muslim countries, Northeast Ohio refugee resettlement agencies feared lay-offs and uncertain finances [because they are paid out of the federal treasury!—ed].
Yesterday I spoke with Evan Chwalek with agency Us Together, about how things were going:
CHWALEK: “The way I like to think about it is, there are the things that the judiciary can affect, and the things they can’t affect, and we’ve been able to continue the resettlement process, but because the President has essentially cut the number of refugees admitted to the country in this fiscal year in half, we have fewer refugees to resettle, and unfortunately because of that we had many lay-offs.” [You see how they do this, “cut…in half!” From what, from Obama’s 2017 dream number of 110,000 for a year he would be in the WH for only 3 and a half months!—ed]
GANZER: “How many would you say?”
CHWALEK: “Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10, I would say, across the Cleveland office, and then we have offices in Toledo and Columbus, as well.” [Chwalek identifies the employees let go as “contractors.”—ed]
GANZER: “And you personally were affected by this. You were laid-off, right?”
CHWALEK: “That’s correct. I was laid-off in February and because of the changes in staff, they actually brought me back on as a full-time employee just three weeks ago.”
GANZER: “Not knowing many of the things that will come through the courts, or what the Administration might do next, what is the mood would you say around Us Together? Is it one of fear, or panic, or optimism?”
CHWALEK: “Fear isn’t the word I’d use. Resiliency comes to mind. Despite the uncertainties of the future, we have to continue offering the day-to-day services to our clients: getting them from medical appointments, applying for Social Security, making sure they understand how to use the bus on the way to work.” [If only poor Americans knew ‘refugee’ “clients” get such “services!”—ed]
[….]
GANZER: “How many families do you think will come to Cleveland this year, projected, would you say?”
CHWALEK: “I don’t really know the answer to that, but I would say somewhere around 175 individuals by the end of this fiscal year, which ends in September.”
GANZER: “In a pre-Trump Administration era, can you compare how many families we can look at?”
CHWALEK: “I look at the arrival sheets, and they are almost completely blank now. We probably had 400 resettled in the last fiscal year, individuals that is.”
[….]
CHWALEK: “We recommend that our clients don’t leave the country.
Chwalek goes on to say they are waiting to see what Trump does for the next fiscal year after admitting that Trump can change the numbers within a fiscal year (either up or down). We too are waiting to see what the Trump State Department does in September when the Presidential Determination is sent to The Hill for FY18.
First, on this last point I snipped above, if a ‘refugee’ is truly a persecuted person, why would he/she leave the safety of America to risk the danger they supposedly escaped?
I went to Wrapsnet to get a feel for the numbers that Chwalek is talking about.
Look up data for Ohio and you can readily see how deceptive they can be to reporters who don’t have their facts in advance.
I went back to FY12 (in the Obama Administration) and found that the average number of refugees admitted to the whole state of Ohio for FY12, 13, 14 and 15 was 2,709 per year. Then the numbers jumped in Obama’s last year as he pushed for the huge increase in Syrians. Ohio “welcomed” 4,194 in FY16 (obviously well above the previous average for 4 years).
So far in FY17 (about 7.5 months) Ohio has received 2,274 refugees. Again the pre-FY16 average for Ohio is 2,709 for the whole year, so they will likely hit their average this year (excluding the anomaly year FY16).
As for numbers for Cleveland/Cleveland Heights, the average resettlement there was about 75 per month during that anomaly year of FY16 and at this moment Cleveland/Cleveland Heights is getting an average of 60 per month—clearly not so far off the FY16 banner year. Chwalek was rehired because the numbers are not that drastically lower and paying “clients” are still coming in, but they don’t want reporters like this guy Ganzer to know that! The story line they are selling is that Trump is bad and the agencies need money (so please give!).
(There are several resettlement contractors in addition to US Together vying for paying “clients” in Ohio so some of those going to Cleveland are clients of other federal contracting agencies.)
For new readers, in 2013, I alerted Ohioans that the big push was on to diversify Cleveland by seeding it with ‘clients’ of federal contracting agencies like US Together and its parent organization the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.