…and they seem especially pleased to announce that they are getting them from those terror-producing countries—a flow that the Trump Administration was trying to curtail.
From Buffalo News:
WASHINGTON – President Trump’s promise to cut in half the number of refugees coming to America – and therefore Buffalo – has turned into a dream unfulfilled.
Buffalo offers proof of it. State Department figures show the city welcomed 376 new refugees between Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and last Wednesday. That’s a 32 percent reduction from the 554 who arrived a year before, but nothing close to a 50 percent reduction.
What’s more, 149 of those new arrivals come from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan or Syria – nations subject to Trump’s travel ban before the federal courts ruled it was unconstitutional.
And now, the city’s refugee resettlement agencies are gearing up for a growing wave of refugees under a new State Department announcement that further undercuts Trump’s promise.
“We had a very busy May, and we will have a very busy June,” said Karen Andolina Scott, executive director of Journey’s End Refugee Services, one of Buffalo’s four refugee resettlement agencies.***
Church World Service, the national refugee agency affiliated with Journey’s End, “was able to send us more people than we thought,” Scott added.
[….]
Now Buffalo stands poised to welcome a growing number of refugees in the next few months. That’s because the State Department last month quietly abandoned the weekly refugee admission quotas that had been in place earlier in the year.
[I’m highlighting this (above) because I have readers who still don’t believe this happened.—ed]
Congress fully-funded refugee resettlement for the remainder of FY17 and Trump signed it!
Budgetary constraints previously limited the number of refugees coming to America in the current fiscal year. But a State Department spokesman said the temporary budget bill that Trump signed on May 5, which funds the government through Sept. 30, includes full funding for the nation’s refugee resettlement program.
That returns the annual cap for refugees coming to America the same as the one Obama set: 110,000 for the year ending Sept. 30. [This part is still up in the air, however, a reminder that this number—110,000—is a ceiling not a target!—ed]
Refugee resettlement advocates doubt the nation will receive that number. They said it appears the Department of Homeland Security, which vets prospective refugees, slowed down that process in several countries in wake of Trump’s earlier actions, which in turn could slow refugee arrivals in the United States.
Still, local resettlement agencies expect the pace of new refugee arrivals to grow in the coming months.
Yippee! Their paying “clients” are arriving!
More here.
I have a fairly large archive on Buffalo (here) and its problems (similar to Utica).
*** Go here for the list (not sure if it is complete) of resettlement contractors working near you.
Update: Refugee admissions picking up in Twin Falls, Idaho too! See here.