Second anniversary of Hagerstown public meeting on refugees

09/19/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Two years ago today a public meeting on refugees was held in our county seat, Hagerstown, MD. We actually have a whole category for posts about it entitled September forum here (you may also need to use our search function for ‘Hagerstown’ to get the full story). It was the culmination, as it turned out, of about a year of political turmoil about refugees brought to Hagerstown. I’ve been thinking about that meeting recently as I prepare to give a talk about it at an upcoming meeting in Washington.

I’m not going to rehash the story except to say that the Virginia Council of Churches (VCC) had quietly begun resettling refugees in our rural county, and our local political leaders had no clue about what was going on. Some of us were initially open-minded, but wanted to understand how the program worked. How was it that a non-profit group (from another state!) could just decide to add more poverty to the poverty we already had? Who was going to take care of the refugees? Where would they work? Would the cost of adding to the schools fall on the county (unfunded mandates issue)? Those were the sorts of questions we wanted to have answered. So we supported the idea of holding a public meeting so that officials from Washington, the state of Maryland and the non-profit groups could explain it all.

The public meeting happened on September 19th, 2007. The US State Department sent two women who run the program in DC, the Maryland office that handles refugee issues participated as did Church World Service (one of the top ten government contractors) as well as its subcontractor Virginia Council of Churches—a group almost entirely funded with tax dollars. A couple hundred residents of Washington County attended.

You can read all about what happened in the posts in the September forum category, but the gist of what happened is that many of us felt we did not hear straight answers and the worst part was that the citizens were treated to a condescending tone from several speakers who felt the need to waste time and remind us that we were all immigrants once. The sort of questions I wanted answered are listed in this post. These questions were ones I wanted our local paper, the Herald Mail, to answer for the public. They didn’t, so we have been writing this blog ever since.

The refugee resettlement program of the US State Department needs to be reformed. We will just keep hammering away until it is. I’m not saying there is corruption in the program as deep and profound as the one now being exposed with ACORN, but I believe very strongly that when non-profit groups continue to reach into the pockets of taxpayers there is a very real possibility that waste, fraud and abuse (abuse possibly even of the refugees themselves) is going to happen.

I encourage all of you in communities receiving refugees or about to receive refugees to do research, ask questions and demand a public meeting so that officials can inform everyone of what is happening to your community. If it’s a good program it will stand up to public scrutiny!

So, what happened in Hagerstown after that public meeting where many citizens went away even more annoyed? Ten days later the announcement was made that the Virginia Council of Churches would be returning to Virginia and more refugees would not be brought to Hagerstown. Their parting shot to our city was that we were “unwelcoming.” But, there was a lot more to the story and it’s my contention that the State Department and Church World Service were unhappy with how VCC didn’t take very good care of the refugees they brought to Hagerstown in the first place and that they had royally screwed up the public relations aspect of the program.

Again, the moral of the story is, if refugee resettlement is good for your town or city those promoting it must tell the public ALL THE FACTS and then let the citizens decide, afterall that is how good government is supposed to work!

Johns Hopkins forum sought to explain refugee resettlement program

12/14/2008 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is old news, it happened in November, but as I said before I have piles of backed-up refugee stories to mention.

A forum and panel discussion was held at Johns Hopkins Univ. to explain the refugee program and how it’s going in Baltimore, MD. There is lots of information about the history of refugees arriving in Baltimore, and there is the usual whinefest about not enough money to run the program properly.

The IRC (International Rescue Committee) has been resettling refugees in Baltimore since 1999. In fiscal year 2008 they resettled 480 refugees and 140 asylees, with the majority coming from Nepal, Myanmar and Iraq and various African nations.

The IRC sees Baltimore as a good city to resettle refugees to because the costs of living are lower than many other eastern cities. It is also fitted with accessible public transportation. Refugees also serve to further culturally enrich an already diverse city.

Martin Ford of the Maryland Office for New Americans said that resettlement agencies are under a great deal of pressure to provide comprehensive resettlement services with limited resources.

Limited resources! Readers should know that the International Rescue Committee is an approximately $200 million a year operation. In 2005 (No more recent financial documents would open) the organization received $88 million in taxpayer funding. So when they say that they put up thousands for each refugee family, know that a large portion of that comes from you!

This (IRC responsibility) includes paying for rent and utilities during their fist months here, as well as helping them secure employment. However, these grants total only $850 per refugee. Fikremariam (Worku Fikremariam, resettlement program manager for the International Rescue Committee in Baltimore) estimated that his agency spends $3,000 to $4,000 per refugee family in the first few months they are in the country.

Half of the $850 stays with the volag (IRC here) in addition to many other grants the IRC receives from various federal and state agencies. Again, the $3000 to $4000 is not all THEIR money, but largely your money.

Iraqi refugees are not happy campers!

A substantial portion of this article was taken up with a discussion of the unhappy and often unemployed Iraqi refugees who have been coming to the US at an increased rate in recent months. See our Iraqi refugee category for an abundance of unhappy Iraqi stories.

One Iraqi asylee*, who asked to remain anonymous because he has many relatives still living in Iraq, estimated that he had already spent one year and several thousand dollars studying for recertification as a physician here. He held a high position in the government after the American invasion and supervised 10 Ph.D. candidates in their dissertation research. He estimated that he would not be properly certified to find a job in his field here until 2010. Until then he has found a part-time job as a translator.

Many recently arrived Iraqis have not been so lucky. This asylee recounted that prior to leaving Iraq many refugees did not realize that they would not be able to apply the same skills and knowledge in their new location. He said that a resettlement agency tried to place another refugee who had been a doctor in Iraq in a low skill job.

“They asked him if he wanted to have a job like wiping the floor or washing dishes. This is impossible for our people, a lot of them prefer to go back home and be killed there than do those jobs here; it is like a stigma,” he said.

Where is the unrealisitic expectation coming from? We have heard on several previous occasions that the agency processing refugees overseas has not been doing a good job of sitting prospective refugees down and explaining the cold hard facts about our economic situation.

The Iraqi asylee said that many recently arrived Iraqis feel frustrated by their lack of success in securing suitable jobs. He contended that this is a result of the pre-departure orientation, which is received by Iraqis coming to the U.S. under the special immigrant visa created by Congress this year.

The rosy picture of America needs to go away, says IRC spokesman.

Sometimes they have to go through that for reality to hit and the rosy picture of America to go away,” Fikremariam said.”[In such situations] depression sets in, they are in an existential vacuum. ‘Who am I, why I am I here?’

Good question!

* Asylees are given the same benefits as refugees, the difference is that they got to the US on their own steam and then sought asylum. We bring refugees to the US and pay their airfare. By the way, this is another way agencies like the IRC make money, they act as collection agents to recover the taxpayer funded airfare and then get to keep a cut for their work with only a portion going back to the federal treasury.

Puff piece on Virginia Council of Churches refugee program needs some balance

08/02/2008 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I told you what a great year we have had at Refugee Resettlement Watch—over 100,000 visitors to this site to learn more about the refugee program in the US. You have the Virginia Council of Churches (VCC) to thank for that! I have been meaning to write about them anyway because this time last year we were having a heated public discussion about VCC in Hagerstown, MD (all recorded in the category ‘September Forum’) Now, I can use this article from Harrisonburg, VA to remind long-time readers and to tell new readers how we got here.

A year and a half ago Judy and I knew nothing about the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department, until that is, we started reading about problems refugees were having in Hagerstown (MARYLAND), our county seat. The case that got the public’s attention first involved a sick African woman who sent a child out on the street to find help which was followed by a series of miscommunications that could have been resolved quickly if someone knew how to reach the VIRGINIA Council of Churches. To fire and rescue it was a mystery how this African woman came to be in the worst neighborhood in the city. As a result of the language barrier the incident blew up into a Hazmat situation because medical personel thought the woman (and others in the building) might have some dangerous communicable disease.

Shortly after the incident, Virginia Council of Churches asked our county government for $15,000 for their program—now people wanted to know how this Virginia “church” could be bringing what turned out to be hundreds of refugees to our county without any local say in the matter.

I asked a reporter at our local paper to find out and tell us all how the Refugee program worked. The Hagerstown Herald mail refused and here we are telling you for over a year now how the refugee program works and attempting to balance the news coverage of the program—like this article from Harrisonburg. We believe each community should know the whole story about how refugee resettlement will effect one’s community, we think the coverage has been way too one-sided (everything is just lovely everywhere). I believe that if people are given all the facts, a government program can then be weighed fairly in a city or town. It was very clear to us that facts were being withheld in order to sell the refugee program to Hagerstown.

We also hope that by bringing the facts to you, this program will ultimately be reformed!

To make what is now turning into a long story short, we ultimately had a public meeting (the September Forum) so that federal and state officials, Church World Service and VCC could tell the citizens the facts. I had high hopes for a better understanding through this meeting. The meeting was contentious with citizens once again feeling that they weren’t hearing the full story. A week or so later it was announced that the Virginia Council of Churches was leaving town (State Department pulled the financial plug through its contractor, Church World Service), and we, and Hagerstown were labelled “unwelcoming”. Really what happened is that the VCC had done such a lousy job caring for refugees and working with the general public that they were sent back to Virginia with their parting “unwelcoming” shot at Hagerstown.

Now to the Harrisonburg article:

Refugee Resettlement functions as an arm of the Virginia Council of Churches, a network of 37 churches spanning 22 denominations in Virginia. The Harrisonburg Refugee Resettlement office helps refugees get resettled in a geographical area from Winchester to Roanoke.

I guess this (above) means that their region has shrunk (no longer jumping across state lines), and note the implication is that the churches are doing the resettling. As for Roanoke, no mention of the BIG problems there between the black American population and the Somalis that these government contractors have resettled in their midst.

According to its Web site, the Council formed the Refugee Resettlement Program in 1962 in response to a large number of Cuban exiles entering the United States. Nationally, the program admitted 70,000 refugees a year until 2001, Sokolyuk said, when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 resulted in tighter security measures for refugees.

After 2001, the State Department reduced the number of refugees allowed in the country annually to 29,000, Sokolyuk said.

Lately, said Sokolyuk, the State Department has relaxed such restrictions.

Doesn’t Mr. Sokolyuk know that the ceiling for FY 08 is 80,000 refugees to be admitted to the US and the number could go higher if special legislation mandating more Iraqis is successful?

After receiving 50 refugees a year from 2002 to 2007, the Harrisonburg Refugee Resettlement already has processed applications for 123 people this year, said Sokolyuk.

The Virginia Council of Churches budgets $1.3 million a year for its three Refugee Resettlement offices to process refugees, said Sokolyuk. Each office receives its share of the budget based on the number of refugees it processed the previous year.

Since VCC is now getting 123 refugees their ‘time out’ inflicted by the State Department must be over. No mention here that almost all of VCC’s budget is from the coffers of the US taxpayer through the primary government contractor Church World Service. Last year a representative of VCC said 90% of their budget comes from government. Of course, one can’t confirm that because they have filed as a “church” with the IRS and are not required to file a Form 990 that other non-profits are required to file.

Sokolyuk is quick to point out that the general public often confuses the terms “refugee” and “immigrant.” There is a huge difference between the two: Refugees leave their native lands with more urgency than do immigrants, who have more time to plan.

“With refugees, the body goes first, and the mind follows,” said Sokolyuk. “With immigrants, the mind goes first, and the body follows.”

What the heck does that mean? You see—this is why we started this blog. Instead of complete straightforward information you get this B.S. —-“the body goes first and the mind follows.” The major difference between other legal immigrants and refugees is that refugees (and asylees) must show that they are persecuted or have a reasonable fear of persecution because of such things as religion, race, nationality, a particular social group or political opinion. Other immigrants seek visas for various reasons and bascially wait in line.

The other huge difference is that refugees receive travel loans (loans from the federal government) to get here, they get help(?) from groups like VCC, they get apartment subsidies, medical exams, ESL lessons, food stamps, SSI, etc. etc. And of course that is why there are so many people in the world trying to figure out how to be refugees.

On the travel loans, go to the article and see the comment by Chris Coen of Friends of Refugees and see how that works. VCC gets a cut of any loan it can collect from refugees. We were told by sources that refugees in Hagerstown could barely speak English and were getting dunning letters from VCC and didn’t understand what that was all about and were frightened by the letters.

This next part, about finding individual church sponsors, is absolutely not true:

First, refugees contact the United Nations, which refers applicants to the State Department. Such volunteer groups as Church World Service and Episcopal Immigration Ministries review applications and contact localities throughout the U.S., seeking churches or other organizations willing to sponsor refugees.

Batches of sometimes hundreds of refugees are sent to a “welcoming” city where a volag (supposedly voluntary agency, but paid by you) is supposed to resettle the refugees. Here in Hagerstown they had maybe 3 churches and a mosque and resettled over 200. The reason so much went wrong is that they didn’t have individual churches taking individual families and the few churches and the mosque ultimately threw up their hands because volunteer church members were completely overwhelmed by the numbers. In other cities, Waterbury, CT comes to mind, the volags actually discouraged individual church volunteers and screwed up so badly the program was halted there too.

One of the reforms we advocate is that we should go back to the old system where individual churches would use their own private charity to sponsor a family and acclimate them to America—the present system of paying groups to resettle masses of people is not working! This blog is filled with stories of waste and abuse by volags.

Sorry this post got way long, congratulations to readers who got this far!

Now to Maryland…our home state

05/25/2008 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For the last few days I’ve written about immigration hot spots around the world (Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, and shortly I’ll tell you about Scotland), but now to Maryland, my Maryland.

This is part of a story from a man who demonstrated recently at one of several Motor Vehicle Administration offices in the state. Here is part of what he says:

I’m at the rally because Maryland is one of only four states that give drivers licenses to foreign nationals who are illegally in the United States. An illegal alien can get a Maryland driver’s license simply by having a foreign driver’s license – that’s all! Or, an illegal alien with merely a foreign birth certificate, an auto registration card, and an apartment rental contract qualifies for a Maryland driver’s license. There’s no requirement to prove legal presence in the U.S.; and needless to say, I’ts relatively easy to forge an apartment lease.

Maryland MVA is giving drivers licenses to foreign nationals as fast as it can – 1,700 a week according to officials (if we can believe them they have the authority to give as many as 5,000 a week)! Maryland even pays Spanish translators to help illegal aliens apply for driver’s licenses and offers a Spanish version of the driver’s test to license applicants all at taxpayer’s expense!

Now 5,000 a week totals 1.3 million in 5 years about of the State’s population! Why on Earth does Maryland’s government want to give drivers licenses to that many foreign nationals?

I bet you are thinking he is some rightwing xenophobic racist redneck. He isn’t! Here is the opening paragraph of his narrative:

This morning, I participated in a citizen’s rally at the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) facility near my home in Maryland. A group called Help Save Maryland had arranged these rallies at three different MVA sites for the same day – May 17th. Now you have to understand, I am 57, a professional manager, and haven’t participated in a demonstration since college. I’m politically progressive and adopted my son from Guatemala.

I’m not saying we are going to end up in flames like France, or Italy or South Africa, but I am saying that the heat is turning up. Just this last week when Senator Diane Feinstein successfully attached an amendment to give amnesty to farm workers on an Iraq funding bill those of us concerned about uncontrolled immigration got in gear and defeated it (again!). I can’t tell you how furious people are getting over these maneuvers by many in government to defy the will of the majority of Americans.

When 50 year-old self-described progressives like this fellow, Bob Fireovid, are willing to stand outside a Motor Vehicle office holding a handmade sign things are getting bad.

So what does this have to do with refugees? You are saying refugees are legal! The demonstration was all about illegal immigrants. Yes, and so far that has kept the spotlight off refugees for the most part. Most of those active in pushing for border control readily say, “I’m not against legal immigration.” That is going to change as time goes on and there is growing resentment about out of control immigration shoved down our throats by governments.

To prove my point check out the agenda for a meeting coming up in Maryland in which a government supported agency teaches participants how to sell refugees and immigrants on communities or how to find an asylum lawyer or how to get a drivers license.

Read about this June workshop of the Maryland Coalition for Refugees and Immigrants (MCRI) and see what your tax dollars are doing for you.

Frederick, MD meet Ft. Wayne, IN

04/20/2008 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For our local readers from Frederick, MD where Burmese refugees have begun to arrive, please read about the issues facing Ft. Wayne, IN which has the largest Burmese population in the country.

More than 100 people, many already serving new residents from other countries, packed a room at the City-County Building to discuss how to help 800 or more Burmese refugees who will resettle this year in Fort Wayne through Catholic Charities, which operates the region’s U.S. State Department-sanctioned resettlement program.

Last year 613 Burmese refugees resettled here, spurring a call to action to identify which agency is doing what, where gaps exist in services, and where and how to seek funding.

Much of the discussion at this public meeting revolved around how to find jobs, teach English and provide services such as translation services to the hundreds more refugees expected this year. You should know that the cost for translating anything important for refugees falls on the agency responsible. Local Health Departments, Fire Departments, even the local court are all required by Federal law to provide translators. A refugee gets a traffic violation that sends him or her to court and the county pays for an interpreter.

Here is a post I did way back in July 2007 about the cost to Montgomery Co. of translators to the court system there. A Liberian refugee charged with raping a little girl was let off because an appropriate interpreter was not found within a reasonable time period.

Much to my surprise this new article from Ft. Wayne does not discuss the cost to the Allen County Health Department, an issue plaguing the Ft. Wayne area for the last year. See our many previous posts on Ft. Wayne here.

If the citizens of Frederick wish to welcome refugees and asylees, then knowing in advance what to expect and what responsibilities will be placed on the community is the only sensible approach.

NOTE: I am so bad, I don’t even have Maryland in our “your state” page at the top of RRW. I’ll work on that today.