Here’s a story I didn’t see in the nightly news.   A dozen Iraqi refugees resettled by the International Rescue Committee (IRC)  in Arizona protested outside State government offices saying they have been left in the lurch by the IRC—gosh where have we heard this story before!

Demonstrating Tuesday outside the State Capitol, Marwan Eldosari said the United Nations promised him decent housing, a job and the American dream when he decided to leave Iraq following the U.S. invasion.

Instead, Eldosari said he is unemployed and unhappy with the central Phoenix apartment complex where he and other Iraqi refugees live. He said a group responsible for helping refugees hasn’t come through on its promise of help.

b Many people will be homeless because there is no support for them, b he said. [Edit:  I don’t know what this lone letter ‘b’ is throughout the text] 

Eldosari and 12 others carried signs including “Real hell in Iraq better than false paradise of America.” When they tried to enter the lobby of the Executive Tower, a police officer told them they could march outside the House and Senate buildings.

For new readers, the IRC has been lobbying for months saying they need more taxpayer money for refugees.  But, as I have pointed out on many many occasions the president of this organization, former president of Columbia University. receives an an annual salary  and benefits package of over $400,000 and has at least a half a dozen VPs and staffers in the 6-figure salary range.   That would be o.k. if it were a truly private business, but since a large portion of their funds are from the taxpayer, those salaries are outrageous.  How about if they redistribute a little of their wealth to the people they say they care for instead of lobbying to take your wealth, through taxation, to redistribute.  Oops!  Their salaries are your wealth too!

Back to the protest story:

The refugees said they are supported by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a refugee-resettlement organization that according to its Web site is calling for an overhaul of the U.S. system for admitting Iraqi refugees because many are in poverty here. 

The IRC’s telephone number in New York rang through to a voice message saying the office was closed.

[…..]

But Eldosari and other demonstrators said the group hasn’t lived up to its mission.

b When you go there, ask them many times for to find job, they didn b t find any jobs for us,” he said.

Why are only Iraqis protesting when we hear similar problems with other ethnic groups admitted to the US under the US State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program?  This is my theory.  The Iraqis are better educated and had pretty good lives in Iraq and know how to speak up.  The Burmese and the Bhutanese aren’t speaking up (yet) because they come from a camp life where they didn’t have a culture that encourages speaking up.  The Somalis, on the other hand, have learned how to work the system, set up community organizing groups (ECBOs) and protest for Islamic accommodation—more important to them then how they are living. 

See our Iraqi refugee category with more than 400 posts at this point.  We have so many posts on unhappy Iraqi refugees that I have lost track.   At one point I had identified 20 states where Iraqis had protested their plight.

Here we go, yet another Iraqi refugee suffering-in-America story.  You know!  They had a good life, good job, servants, a BMW, nice house and all until the US invaded Iraq and religious extremism was unleashed.  Now, they are refugees in America living on welfare with no job and it’s all our fault.  That is pretty much the gist of these stories.  I really don’t care if this sounds heartless.  I do agree the refugees are suffering. 

But, the heartless ones are the bureaucrats at places like the International Rescue Committee (IRC) who, on the one hand, complain bitterly about having no money to properly care for the refugees they contracted to resettle,  and on the other continue urging the US State Department to bring more and more refugees.

I finally get it—this is about creating a crisis to bring about change, the refugees are the pawns in all this, the fodder for stories like this one in the Los Angeles Times planted by PR people employed by “struggling” (IRC got $104,622,578 from the US taxpayer in 2007) refugee agencies and spoon-fed to gullible (or worse, complicit) Leftist mainstream reporters.   The end goal is to expand the refugee program and send more taxpayer money to the federal contractors like the IRC.

Here is one section of this article I’m posting just so American citizens can see the full range of support refugees receive.

“It’s very much an up-by-your-bootstraps approach,” said Vice President Robert Carey. “I don’t disagree with that approach, but you need to give people an opportunity to get an adequate foothold.”

These days, the financial aid does not go far. Resettlement agencies receive State Department grants of $900 for each refugee, an amount that has gone up only $400 since 1975, according to the IRC. At least half of that is supposed to be used to procure and prepare an apartment — to pay the deposit and first month’s rent, buy furniture and food. The rest is meant to cover the services the agency provides in the first month, such as doctor appointments and registering children for school.

Some refugees qualify for a program funded by the Department of Health and Human Services and a matching grant from a private aid agency. That program provides four to six months of additional financial and other help to those looking for work. But the program has funds to assist only about 30% of resettled refugees, the report says.

Because Anwer and Avan have children, they can get the same help available to needy American families through CalWORKS and Medi-Cal. They were granted $850 a month — $130 less than the rent for their modest apartment.

The help is available for up to five years, but the amount will soon be reduced because of state budget cuts. Medi-Cal will no longer cover the parents’ dental and some other costs, a fact Avan discovered only after having two root canals. She will be on a mostly liquid diet until she can raise the money to replace the temporary fillings with crowns.

Refugees who do not qualify for any other help can apply for Refugee Cash Assistance and Refugee Medical Assistance. Shifa and Ann each were granted $350 a month plus medical coverage under this program. But the coverage lasts for only eight months. When the program was established in 1980, it was available for 36 months.

“People are being brought into the U.S. below the poverty level,” said the IRC’s Carey.

Indeed they are being brought in in poverty and that suits the goals of the Alinsky/Cloward-Piven/Obama community organizers just fine.   It’s creepy isn’t it to think that this is all part of a huge scheme, one that actually hurts people, that the average decent American can not comprehend.   For Alinsky and friends–the ends always justify the means!

By the way, go back and read the LA Times story and note that the IOM is warning Iraqis now that life will be tough in the US—that is a heartening thing to learn.