Day: March 3, 2020

Five Months Into Fiscal Year, 6,273 Refugees Admitted; Big Story is Number of Afghans

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

As you all know by now the President submitted a refugee cap of 18,000 refugees to be admitted to the US between October 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020 (FY2020).  Five months into the fiscal year, the number stands at just over 6,000 according to the Refugee Processing Center.

But, not counted in that number is a special category of nationals from Afghanistan and Iraq known as Special Immigrant Visa holders who supposedly worked with us during those two long wars.  They are admitted with their families and are treated as refugees, but rarely mentioned.

(Don’t miss Daniel Greenfield’s piece on the “interpreter scam” where he did a deep dive into the numbers of Special Immigrant Visa holders, mostly Muslims, entering the US.)

Another 6,221 Afghans and 146 Iraqis were admitted (as SIVs) in this fiscal year (so far) bringing the total of those given all the benefits of refugee resettlement to 12,640 in the last five months.

I think we should get used to referring to the refugee numbers that way—adding together the regular refugees and the SIVs.

Here (below) is a map showing where the regular refugees were resettled.

The top ten ‘welcoming’ states are Washington, California, Texas, New York, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Minnesota, and Ohio.

 

How many Muslims?

If you are wondering how many of the 6,273 regular refugees are Muslims, the number is 1,233. There is no Muslim ban!

Top Muslim sending countries so far this year:

Afghanistan: 514

Burma: 143

Iraq: 136

Syria: 115

Somalia: 80

Special Immigrant Visas…

So as I said above, so far this fiscal year we have admitted 6,221 Afghan SIVs.

In FY19 the number was 7,703, FY18 9,651 and in Trump’s first year FY17—a whopping 16,866!

There is no breakdown of religions for SIVs, but I suspect that virtually all of the Special Immigrant Visas are Muslims. If I am right and the vast majority are Muslims then 60% of the refugees/SIVs entering the US right now are Muslim.

There is also no map for SIVs, but there is a spreadsheet at the Refugee Processing Center.

See where most of the Afghan SIVs have been placed since FY07. Out of a total admissions number of 65,916. Five states have taken on most of the financial burden of these special ‘refugees.’

California: 24,307

Texas: 9,913

Virginia: 8,849

Washington: 3,806

Maryland: 3,506

Want to dig into these numbers yourself.  See my post Knowledge is Power IV on how to use the Refugee Processing Center.

 

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Blowback Against Idaho Governor over Refugee Decision was Fierce

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

Rarely do we get any reports on how many citizens take time to contact elected officials about their unhappiness with the refugee admissions program.

Governor Little with Mr. Chobani Yogurt in Twin Falls. Twin Falls is number 10 in the top cities in the nation ‘welcoming’ refugees on a per capita basis.*** Any wonder why the governor jumped on the bandwagon for more refugees for Idaho.

So it was interesting to see that in Idaho citizens took action in a big way to criticize their Republican governor when he encouraged the US State Department to send Idaho more refugees and thus went against the President’s reform effort.

Unfortunately I can give you only a tiny snippet of this story as it is behind a paywall.  Surely some Idahoans will subscribe to the Idaho Press for the whole story.

Records show opposition to refugees, Gov. Little’s work to support resettlement program

Gov. Brad Little’s decision to continue to allow refugee resettlement in Idaho wasn’t out of step with his colleagues elsewhere, writes Post Register reporter Nathan Brown. Nineteen Republican governors told the Trump administration in December and January they wanted to keep taking refugees, with just Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asking to opt out.

Not everyone was happy with it. Facebook comments and Twitter replies on Little’s accounts quickly filled with people angry at his decision, and hundreds of people contacted his office to express their displeasure. Documents provided in response to a public records request show both the scale of the blowback and his administration’s work to present facts to justify the governor’s decision.

Go here for a link to the full story.

I’m excited to see that some publication used the state’s public information law to put some cleansing sunshine on the issue.

***To see if your city ranks in the Top 100 cities welcoming refugees, see my post yesterday.

And, go here for my Twin Falls archive.

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