Somali comes in 3rd place!
Every few years or so I post this page from the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) and readers find it of interest.
It should be of great interest to elected officials, school officials, health/hospital administrators, and the criminal justice system (any agency getting federal money!) in ‘welcoming’ communities because those agencies are required to provide translation services thanks to a Clinton-era Executive Order that is still in place.
In fact the translation services are an increasingly big cost for state and local taxpayers. And, the refugee contractors make money on the side providing interpreters—sweet deal!
You can see that the percentage of Arabic speakers jumped from Bush’s last year (’08) to Obama’s last full year (’16).
I have a category entitled ‘Where to find information’ and another called ‘Refugee statistics‘ that new readers might find useful. This post is filed in both categories.
