….as refugee arrival numbers drop!
Well, I can envision something worse as we are hearing rumors that the major Lutheran contractor (the one responsible for moving cases to Nebraska and elsewhere) is having some internal strife.
That would be Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (headquartered in Baltimore) the same one that contracted with major meatpacker, the foreign-owned JBS Swift, to provide refugee labor and training to retain that labor.
In the summer of 2015, I traveled from Greeley, CO (JBS home away from home) through Nebraska—I saw the big meat plants greedy for cheap immigrant labor!
Back to my story from the Omaha World-Herald where of course there is no mention of the connection between refugee labor and BIG MEAT!
Refugee resettlements in Nebraska have slowed from a trickle to a drip.
Advocates lamented the resettlement numbers at an Omaha Refugee Task Force meeting Wednesday.
“It’s as bad as it can get,” Jaleel Oladipo, the state’s reception and placement manager for Lutheran Family Services, said at the meeting. The task force meets every other month to review incoming refugee numbers and share ways to better serve refugees. [By the way, this is a meeting that should be open to the public. Is it?—ed]
[….]
Statewide, LFS resettled 43 refugees in Omaha and Lincoln in September, the last month of the 2017 federal fiscal year, and 31 in both cities in October. Four are expected for November. Oladipo said LFS could resettle as few as 20 to 30 total statewide from now until March.
During the same period last year, LFS resettled 224 in September, 140 in October and 512 between Nov 1. and March 31.
In 2016, Nebraska accepted 1,441 refugees, becoming the nation’s top refugee resettlement state per capita.
Karen Parde, Nebraska’s refugee resettlement coordinator, said at Wednesday’s meeting that refugee resettlement numbers are “very much down.”
[….]
“We need to re-look at how we do our business,” Parde said. “It’s going to be a very small year.”
What she means by that is that they receive their funding on a per head basis. Each NEW refugee is a paying client who comes with federal money attached. No new clients means dwindling income and that means staff reductions. Their whole “business” has been built on a house of cards!
See my Nebraska archive by clicking here.
Concerned citizens in Nebraska are encouraged to pin down Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Is he all for bringing in cheap immigrant labor and more Democrat voters?