I know there is a lot occupying your minds in these challenging times, but just thought some of you might like to know where the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program is these days.
In mid-March the UN stopped, or so they said, refugee travel worldwide due to the Chinese virus crisis, but obviously our US State Department is still admitting refugees although way below the normal numbers.
This morning I checked the data base at the Refugee Processing Center and was surprised to see that since the moratorium was announced in the middle of March we admitted 382 refugees.
134 of those came between May first and today, June first. 79 of the 134 are Muslims (THERE IS NO MUSLIM BAN).
There has been no official word that the travel restrictions have been lifted, or none I have seen I should say.
The top sending countries for May were Burma (22), Iran (18), Pakistan (16), Sudan (14) and Syria (14). 21 of the Burmese are Rohingya Muslims.
Of the 18 Iranians, only 2 are Muslim. Of the 16 Pakistanis, 11 are Muslims and all of the Sudanese and Syrians are Muslims. 6 Somali Muslims were ‘welcomed’ too.
Here (below) is a map where the 382 refugees, who have been admitted since we supposedly weren’t admitting refugees, were placed.
I’ve never seen Idaho in the top ten ‘welcoming’ states, but at the moment it is 5th.
I know the print is small so here are the top ten states which are adding refugees to their already COVID-stressed communities.
Texas (is always number one!)
Massachusetts
Illinois
North Carolina
Idaho
Maryland
New York
Georgia
Tennessee
Utah
As for the Special Immigrant Visas from Afghanistan, I see that we admitted only 40 in the months of April and May when the number for March was 1,594. After admitting 67,731 since 2007, is it possible we now have ‘rescued’ them all?
COVID in the camps?
One more thing, if you have been waiting with bated breath to hear whether the COVID “wildfire” has arrived in the big refugee camps worldwide, I can report this morning that no, the media is still waiting in anticipation of the “catastrophe” that has not materialized so far.