San Diego IRC office gets slap on wrist from US State Department

I reported the news here.  The giant New York City-based International Rescue Committee was found to be placing refugee families in housing that violated local codes and surprise! a local reporter investigated the story.

The original investigation was posted on KPBS (not a rightwing news outlet!).

Over the ten years I’ve been writing about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program I’ve rarely seen investigations of any of the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors***.

There were a couple of cases elsewhere in the country where a contractor failed to deliver on their DOS contract, left refugees in the lurch in bug infested housing, and where the story was picked up by the mainstream media, but they are rare.

This update by reporter Tarryn Mento is posted at something called inewsource housed, we are told, inside KPBS.

 

That is where we pick up the story….

The national headquarters of the International Rescue Committee says it has found problems with the way its San Diego branch placed refugees in homes. The announcement follows a KPBS investigation into allegations that refugees were told to sign falsified rental documents to get their large families into apartments.

[….]

In a statement to KPBS Tuesday, the IRC’s national office in New York said: “We unfortunately have identified housing placement practices in San Diego which were inconsistent with the IRC’s policies and code of conduct. In response, we have taken steps to reinforce housing-related policies and practices with local staff and we have engaged with and are supporting families who may have been impacted.”

Of course the arrogant IRC isn’t going to talk! Reporters will learn that secrecy is the watchword when it comes to the placement of refugees.

KPBS repeatedly requested a phone interview with the IRC’s national office to learn more about its findings and how it was helping families, but the agency has not replied. San Diego IRC Executive Director David Murphy has also not responded to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, which awards federal dollars to resettlement agencies, said in an email that the agency was satisfied with the measures taken by the IRC.

“The State Department requested that IRC conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations, and they have communicated to us that they have taken appropriate action to ‎ensure that all refugees resettled through IRC in San Diego are served in full compliance with all relevant programs, guidelines, and codes,” the spokeswoman said.

The State Department simply took the word of its contractor! (I think the contractors lead the DOS around by the nose!).

But, see what the reporter found out when she went back to the families!

Continue reading here.

One of the stories I hear repeatedly is that the refugee contractors have special inside deals with landlords and owners of inner-city housing.  Let’s have some more disinfecting sunshine on that issue!

Tell the President and Congress that the US Refugee Admissions Program should be suspended and the contractors thoroughly investigated!

 

*** For new readers, these are the Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers? paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities listed below.  Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.

The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”

If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again! Big businesses/global corporations depend on the free flow of cheap (some call it slave) labor.  It is for this reason that Republican leaders of Congress are supportive of an uninterrupted flow of refugees into America.

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/Leftwing activists/big business head hunters from the process.