I guess they don’t have their stories straight in Texas. About ten days ago we told you in a post entitled “Refugee Horrors in Houston” that refugees resettled in Houston were traveling as far away as Alabama and Mississippi looking for work. By the way, mostly meatpacker work. This article in the Star-Telegram, says refugees are traveling from overloaded resettlement cities like Ft. Wayne, Indiana, to Texas. What gives?
Catholic Charities Diocese of Fort Worth is trying to help sister agencies by resettling refugees in Texas, where the recession hasn’t been as bad as in states such as Indiana, Michigan or California. Catholic Charities’ Fort Worth operation is helping resettle 650 refugees this year, up from 450 last year. More than 400 refugees had already been resettled as of late August.
“Those areas that were hard-hit began saying, ‘We can’t take any more refugees,’” said Tory Cheatham, director of immigration and and refugee services with Catholic Charities in Fort Worth. “We do want to be there to meet the need.”
[….]
These breadwinners go to other states — typically Alabama, West Virginia and Texas — to work and send the money back to their families in Fort Wayne. Texas’ unemployment for July was 7.9 percent.
Read the whole article and then you might want to use our search function for Ft. Wayne, Indiana a city stressed with refugees needing services. We first became aware of Ft. Wayne in September of 2007 when their health department was overloaded with cases of TB.
Back to Ft. Worth. I found this passage interesting. So, do refugees have inside tracks to job openings that the average American does not?
Amanda Cowart (job developer for Catholic Charities’ refugee employment services in Fort Worth) networks with Tarrant County business owners and managers in a search for jobs refugees can fill.
[…..]
Cowart educates employers about refugees. To cut through the red tape, she meets with a CEO advisory committee that offers a heads-up about possible openings.
So that we understand this clearly, the federal government (you, the taxpayer) funds Catholic Charities and then they have a “heads-up” from employers about job openings. What about other unemployed Texans? No special government-funded employment services? No heads-up for them? Where is the ACLU?