Longtime readers know that the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is required by law to produce an annual report to Congress about the status of the Refugee Resettlement Program within three months of the close of the previous fiscal year. ORR is chronically late—over two years in this case. The report should have been made available to Congress by January 31, 2011.
The last we checked for an annual report was back in March. I’m not sure exactly when the 2010 was submitted to Congress because they don’t put dates on them. Dates disappeared back in the Clinton Administration, here. Prior to the reign of Lavinia Limon as director of ORR, the reports were done on time.
These annual reports are a treasure-trove of information on the entire program. Although bear in mind when you look at stats on welfare use by refugees etc., remember that they haven’t a completely accurate way of getting that data because they hire someone to call refugees and ask them what social services they receive and one has to wonder if they get completely truthful answers in the small sampling they do.
Here is the 2010 report, it is 139 pages, so it might be awhile before I say more.