In response to our post earlier about the unhappy Bhutanese refugees in America, commenter CW suggested we establish a fund to repatriate them.
It is a brilliant idea! The Bhutanese are not the first who came to America with ideas about how wonderful life would be here only to become disillusioned. It must be an awful shock for these quiet (mostly Hindu) people who have been born and raised in camps to be dropped off in rough American cities, expected to work at the most menial jobs, maneuver through the welfare system, and learn how to avoid the thugs they are often settled alongside.
This idea was one I thought about when a lot of Iraqis who came here a few years ago were so unhappy. I advised some to contact the Iraqi embassy in Washington to see if the embassy could finance their way home.
Here is CW’s tongue-in-cheek comment that is actually a really good idea for reforming the Refugee Resettlement Program:
Gives me an idea! How about we apply to the State Dep’t for grant to establish Repatriation Services? Sort of like a revolving door: Catholic Charities brings them in, and Repatriation Services escorts them out! RS also could take all those poor illegals who “were brought here through no fault of their own” and repatriate them, too!
How about it, Comrade?!?!
For those of you who say this would be expensive, I say, no it wouldn’t! It would be cheaper to provide a plane ticket and maybe a little start-up money then to provide years of social services (including the mental health services the unhappy Bhutanese are requiring).
By the way, the Bhutanese are really Nepali people, so we might work a little deal with Nepal (a little foreign aid perhaps) to take them there. (I wonder what we are paying the countries who are taking the Guantanamo prisoners—a bundle I bet!).
Do you know that right now, the refugees who are flown here are loaned the airfare money and must begin paying it back almost immediately. The contractors do the dunning letters and the collecting and get to keep a cut for themselves. Thus it is almost impossible for an unhappy refugee to ever gather the necessary money to buy their own ticket home.
Come on Congress, how about a Repatriation Fund and a little start-up money!
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