This is an incredibly revealing story yesterday in Mshale (The African Community Newspaper) entitled, “Why are African Immigrants Settling in Minnesota?”
Speaking at a conference, Africa Today, Wynfred Russell, the director at the Center for Multicultural Services at Normandale Community College had this to say about the volags (supposedly voluntary agencies) contracted by the federal government to resettle refugees:
Russell attributes the large settlement of refugees to the presence of ten refugee humanitarian organizations in Minnesota who settle refugees here through the American Refugee Resettlement Program. These organizations he asserts are aggressive in resettling refugees in Minnesota: “they ambulance chase refugees.”
The cycle, he says, continues because these organizations need to continue receive funding to stay in business so they settle refugees in Minnesota so that they (the organizations) can offer services, such as trauma therapy, cultural adjustment among other social services to these new Americans.
Russell observed that “unfortunately, many people make money in the name of helping poor people.” He also said that not all humanitarian organizations and people were out to make money out of refugees.
Once refugees are settled through the American Refugee Resettlement Program, they bring in their families and soon a thriving community begins to establish itself; another reason explaining the large number of refugees in Minnesota.
I hope the editor of the Ft. Morgan Times, who doesn’t get the connection between volags and the federal government sending more refugees to Ft. Morgan, is taking note.
Interestingly, in another link on the same page of Mshale is a story about the high rate of unemployment among black Americans, but the article has not one word about the high immigration numbers from Africa and the fact that immigrants are getting relatively high paying jobs in food processing plants. Are those jobs American born blacks won’t do?
We have written on several previous occasions about tension building between American born blacks and African immigrants (archive here).