Texas Sees Major Cuts in Refugees from Iraq, Syria in 2018

Texas welcomed 67 percent fewer refugees in fiscal year 2018 than in 2017, down to 1,697 people from 4,768.

Some of the starkest drops in refugee arrivals were from Iraq, Iran and Syria, majority Muslim countries.

Iraqi refugee resettlement dropped from 949 to 25 in Texas. The number of Syrian refugees went from 455 to just one in fiscal year 2018.

Sobia Siddiqui, CAIR TX https://cairtexas.com/about-us/who-we-are/

Sobia Siddiqui, communications coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations Texas Chapter, said the cuts are discriminatory.

“Our president ran his campaign and one of his strongest and most vocal points is that he called for a ban on all Muslims,” said Siddiqui.

She said there are refugee families in Houston who can’t be reunited with family members facing dangerous situations abroad because of the ban.

“There’s a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about if people will be able to have their families rejoin them back here in the United States or even in Houston,” said Dan Stoecker, CEO of The Alliance, which offers refugee services in Houston.

The Alliance is a subcontractor of the Ethiopian Community Development Council, the smallest, and likely most vulnerable to a federal budget cut, of the nine refugee contractors that monopolize all resettlement to the US.

In 2016, I excitedly reported that the State of Texas withdrew from the US Refugee Admissions Program, but you can see that without a follow-up legal challenge by the state it was a meaningless move. The contractors now run the program in the state!

A week ago it was Cargill in Ft. Morgan, CO recalling beef that was believed to be responsible for at least one death and scores of illnesses from E.Coli. (See here that a Tennessee family is suing Cargill!).

We recently told you about Cargill here when they settled a religious discrimination suit with Somali refugee workers.

jbs-greeley — JBS Swift is headquartered in Greeley, CO. I took this photo in the summer of 2016 on my tour of refugee-overloaded towns. See here how worried JBS was when Trump lowered the refugee cap. Big Meat braces for refugee shortage: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/09/bloomberg-trumps-refugee-ceiling-of-50000-could-hurt-big-meat/

This week it is JBS Swift headquartered in Greeley, CO that is recalling even more than Cargill.

Both JBS and Cargill hire extensively from the refugee population with the help of the nine federal resettlement contractors*** and the US State Department.

From Food Safety News: (hat tip: ‘ManxCatsRule’):

JBS in massive beef recall over 16-state Salmonella outbreak with 57 illnesses

Raw ground beef is the probable source of a new 16-state Salmonella outbreak involving 57 illnesses, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced Thursday, along with a massive recall.

The recall is for more than 6.5 million pounds of beef products from JBS Tolleson Inc. in Tolleson, AZ. The traceback investigation by FSIS, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state health and agriculture agencies have identified JBS as the common supplier of the various raw, non-intact beef products.

[….]

Consumption of food contaminated with Salmonella can cause salmonellosis, one of the most common bacterial foodborne illnesses. The most common symptoms of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within 12 to 72 hours after eating the contaminated product. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days. Most people recover without treatment. In some persons, however, the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. Older adults, infants, and persons with weakened immune systems are more likely to develop a severe illness. Individuals concerned about an illness should contact their health care provider.

[….]

Greeley, CO-based JBS USA is the American food processing company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of JBS S.A., a Brazilian company that is the world’s largest beef producer.

A Brazilian meatpacker is changing America!

More here.

See my file on JBS Swift by clicking here.

***Don’t miss this 2017 post! Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is one of the nine federally funded resettlement contractors.

Foreign-owned Big Meat hires Lutherans to help them find and retain refugee labor

That is the crux of this story and not in my wildest dreams did I think that money was directly changing hands between the meat industry and a federal refugee contractor, in this case Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service headquartered in Baltimore, MD.

Also see my ‘health issues’ category here.