Category: Refugee statistics

US: resettlement of tens of thousands of UN-chosen Congolese refugees well underway

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Our many new readers may not know that the US State Department has agreed to a UN request to resettle 50,000 or so impoverished, uneducated, (mostly) women from DR Congo over a period of several years.

 

Congolese women and children waiting for their turn to come to America.

 

This is an informative article from Episcopal News Service that basically reports how needy these refugees are.

It is also interesting to me because we rarely see articles about refugee resettlement contractor Episcopal Migration Ministries, one of the top nine.  Apparently they are less media savvy as they rarely turn up in news stories (like this one) intended to be puff pieces on refugees.

We previously reported on the great need for mental health services for women from DR Congo, here.

From Episcopal News Service:

A Congolese refugee, Zaburiya arrived in Tucson seven months ago with five children, aged 10 to 26, after spending 18 years in a refugee camp in Rwanda.

Illiterate and not speaking a word of English, she became a member of a women’s empowerment group operated by Refugee Focus, which receives support from The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’s Episcopal Migration Ministries service through funding from the United States government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.

(The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society is the legal and canonical name under which The Episcopal Church is incorporated, conducts business, and carries out mission.)***

[….]

Through Episcopal Migration Ministries, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society partners with 30 resettlement affiliates in 26 dioceses nationwide. It is one of nine agencies working in partnership with the U.S. Department of State to welcome and resettle refugees to the United States.

For the umpteenth time, the UN is picking our refugees!

In 2014, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society and its partners worked to resettle 5,155 of the tens of thousands of refugees who came to the United States through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) screening process.

[….]

Over the next several years, UNHCR plans to resettle 50,000 refugees from the Congo, with 70 to 90 percent to be resettled to the United States, said Kurt Bonz, Episcopal Migration Ministries’ program manager…

[….]

“Most of the refugees have been in camps an average of 20 years, education is low, and many are single women with children who continue to experience trauma related to living in the Congo, the journey out and living in a refugee camp,” he said.

There is a lot in this story, read it all here.

So who are these refugees from DR Congo and where are they going?

I checked the State Department’s data base for the following dates:  10/1/2012 through 2/28/2015 and this is what I found:

We resettled 9,022 Congolese refugee “seedlings” in that approximate 2 and 1/2 year period.  Most were Christians of some sort, but I was surprised to learn that 356 were Muslims (from DR Congo?).

Then here is a list of the states that received over 200 Congolese refugees over that same 2 and 1/2 year time period (apparently all of these states have run out of American poor people to care for):

Arizona (862)

Colorado (290)

Florida (236)

Georgia (398)

Idaho (303)

Illinois (339)

Kentucky (405)

Maryland (259)

Massachusetts (322)

Michigan (417)

Missouri (301)

New Hampshire (260)

New York (325)

North Carolina (379)

Ohio (288)

Pennsylvania (445)

Texas (1078)  Working hard to turn Texas blue!

Utah (200)

Washington (273)

*** When you visit this post, you will see more about why this structure of the Episcopal Migration Ministries makes it hard to track their finances.  They must be claiming they are a ‘church’ and as such do not have to do a Form 990.

US State Department and resettlement contractors salted Minnesota with over 10,000 Somali refugees since 2005

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In the wake of the terror scare over the past weekend, the Washington Times has published a pretty thorough piece on how the Refugee Admissions Program of the US State Department has changed/stressed Minnesota with the resettlement by three refugee contractors—Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services of MN, and World Relief MN (now Arrive Ministries)—of thousands of Somali refugees.   (For anyone interested in finding the resettlement contractors in your state and city, click here for a handy directory).

Someone should prepare a map showing all of the towns in Minnesota that have ‘welcomed’ refugees of all stripes. Some of the towns we mention are here especially the hottest sites: Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Cloud and Rochester.

We told you here, that Minnesota is the go-to state for the resettlement of Somalis. Generous welfare was the original draw.

You can read the whole Washington Times article by reporter Kelly Riddell, here.  As of this writing there are 626 comments!

If you are living in small town/suburban Minnesota (or small town America) and are thinking this isn’t happening where you live, it is a big city issue, think again.

I went through the State Department data base again yesterday to see just where in Minnesota Somalis had been resettled over the last ten years (I started my search in February 2005).

I was shocked!

Remember as you look at this list below that the Somalis may not have stayed where they were originally placed, they may have moved to bigger cities in the state or others may have joined the ‘seed community’ in these other towns.

In refugee industry lingo, those who move are called “secondary migrants” and Minnesota is getting the lion’s share of those from across the US.

Do you think all of these towns (over 60 in number!) were consulted before they were expected to take on the financial burden of housing, healthcare and education for the kids?

The total number of Somalis placed in Minnesota, since February 2005 to date, is 10,804. 

(Many more were resettled in Minnesota before 2005, but we only looked at the last ten to eleven years.)

Anoka (2)

Apple Valley (13)

Barnesville (5)

Blaine (5)

Bloomington (124)

Brooklyn (2)

Brooklyn Center (38)

Brooklyn Park (50)

Burnsville (282)

Chanhassen (6)

Chaska (2)

Colombia Heights (112)

Coon Rapids (16)

Crystal (16)

Eagen (38)

Eden Prairie (400)

Edina (27)

Fairbault (10)

Falcon Heights (7)

Faribault (211)  (is this the same town as Fairbault, or is this a typo?)

Fridley (14)

Golden Valley (9)

Hill Top (1)

Hopkins (143)

Hutchinson (5)

Inver Grove Height (7)

Inver Grove Heights (11)  (typo again?)

Lakeville (4)

Mankato (34)

Maple Grove (6)

Maplewood (4)

Marshall (35)

Mendota Heights (1)

Minneapolis (4,868)

Minnetonka (40)

Moorhead (8)

New Brighton (18)

New Hope (80)

Norcross (1)

North Mankato (14)

Norths St. Paul (2)

Oakdale (1)

Owatonna (140)

Pelican Rapids (113)

Pine Island (3)

Plymouth (58)

Richfield (193)

Richville (7)

Robbinsville (4)

Rochester (595)

Rosemount (9)

Roseville (52)

St. Anthony (7)

St. Cloud (1,123)

St. Louis Park (100)

Saint Paul (1,491)

Saint Peter (11)

Savage (30)

Shakopee (18)

South St. Paul (11)

Waite Park (23)

Waseca (6)

West St. Paul (13)

White Bear Lake (1)

Willmor (122)

Woodbury (2)

By the way, Minnesota also ‘welcomed’ many other refugees of many nationalities, but we only looked at Somali numbers because they are dominating the news.

 

Who are the 525 Syrian refugees admitted to the US in recent years; where have they been resettled?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Everybody is talking about the Syrian refugees admitted to the US, including the British press, here at the Daily Mail.  But, let me be clear, most news outlets are reporting that we are going to quadruple the number already here from recent Syrian crisis to around 2,000 in the coming year.

Please remember that the US State Department has 9,000-10,000 in the pipeline created by the UNHCR and in fact until the recent revelation by the FBI, they had every intention of getting the flow up to that level this fiscal year!

The resettlement contractors have been agitating for 15,000 a year!

First Syrian refugee family arriving in Louisville, KY being helped with a grant from an Islamic charity. Hey! Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul—are you paying attention! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/02/15/first-syrian-refugees-arriving-in-louisville-ky-helped-with-grant-from-islamic-charity/ Photo: http://www.wave3.com/story/28105459/first-refugee-family-from-syrian-civil-war-arrives-in-louisville

From the Daily Mail:

More than 500 refugees from Syria’s bloody civil war have already been resettled in the United States, and U.S. officials and members of Congress are becoming increasingly worried that jihadis linked to the ISIS terror army could slip into the country along with them.

Since war broke out in Syria nearly four years ago, America has welcomed 524 people from the rapidly disintegrating country with open arms. U.S. intelligence agencies lack the resources to vet them properly, but the Obama administration plans to admit a few thousand more this year.  [My stats beginning January 1, 2012 indicate 525 Syrians have been admitted—ed]

‘The United States has admitted 524 Syrians since 2011,’ State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Feb. 13.

‘We’re likely to admit 1,000 to 2,000 Syrian refugees for permanent resettlement in Fiscal Year 2015 and a somewhat higher number, though still in the low thousands, in Fiscal Year 2016.’

You can read the rest of the Daily Mail article.

As I said yesterday when I told you where Somalis have been resettled in the US in recent years, I’m doing a series of posts on facts the media (and you!) need to know.

The vast majority of Syrian refugees entering the US right now are Muslims (89%)

Here is how the religions of our newest Syrians break down (from Refugee Processing Center data).  Arrival dates between 1/1/12 and 2/23/15.   These are the exact category names used by the State Department:

Atheist (1)

Bahai (2)

Catholic (1)

Christian (36)

Jehovah Witness (8)

Moslem (20)

Moslem Shiite (8)

Moslem Sunni (437)

No Religion (2)

Orthodox (3)

Other Religion (6)

Yazidi (1)

So where did the US State Department resettlement contractors*** send them?

Arizona (19)

Arkansas (1)

California (72)

Colorado (8)

Connecticut (3)

Florida (21)

Georgia (15)

Idaho (9)

Illinois (50)

Indiana (25)

Kansas (5)

Kentucky (5)

Maine (1)

Maryland (19)

Massachusetts (21)

Michigan (20)

Missouri (1)

New Hampshire (3)

New Jersey (17)

New Mexico (6)

New York (8)

North Carolina (33)

Ohio (6)

Oregon (1)

Pennsylvania (30)

Tennessee (8)

Texas (79)

Utah (5)

Virginia (16)

Washington (16)

West Virginia (1)

Wisconsin (1)

*** For reporters and other interested media, here is a list of the federal contractors and the percentage of tax dollars they use to do their work of distributing refugees around the country via their approximately 350 subcontractors.

Where have all the Somalis been resettled in the US? Minnesota takes the prize!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

My plan (ha! ha! if I don’t get distracted!) is to try to do a series of posts to answer the many questions I’m getting from the media in recent days.  The US State Department has an extensive data base called the Refugee Processing Center.  Sometimes you can access the data and sometimes you can’t!

First a few basic points:  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees chooses most of our refugees.  The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for screening them.  The US State Department sends them out via contractors they euphemistically call Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGs).  They are not voluntary—you pay them through your tax dollars to place the refugees through their offices in 180 cities across America.  The nine major VOLAGs have 350 subcontractors to form an extensive network.   The contractors spread the refugees out to surrounding towns if the main resettlement city gets overloaded (especially if ‘pockets of resistance’ form).

Reporters!  Find the resettlement contractor contact information in your city by clicking here.

The Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) makes sure the nine contractors are well paid for myriad activities.

Back to the data…

Minnesota ‘welcomed’ 17% of all Somalis resettled in the US since 2005. Three resettlement agencies were responsible: Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services of MN, and World Relief MN (aka Arrive Ministries).

I searched this morning for Somali refugees resettled to which states from February 1, 2005 to February 1, 2015 and here is what I learned:  The US State Department distributed Somalis to 45 states and the District of Columbia basically establishing “seed communities” or colonies.

Remember though that this is America and people can move without permission so some originally resettled in one place may have long-since moved.  The professionals in the refugee industry call those who move “secondary migrants.”   The state receiving the most secondary migrants is Minnesota-–why? because Somalis want to live with their kind of people.

Here is the link for the data base I used for the following information.  You will need to put your own search parameters in.

From February 1, 2005 to February 1, 2015 we brought a total of 64,332 Somalis to the US from all over the world!

By the way, our Somali refugees don’t come directly from Somalia, but we pick them up all over the world including from Kenya, South Africa, Malaysia, Malta and even it appears Saudi Arabia (more on that later).

The states not (yet!) getting Somali refugees resettled directly are:  Delaware (LOL! Joe Biden was one of the original sponsors of the Refugee Act of 1980), Arkansas, Montana, Wyoming, and West Virginia.  We know that ‘secondary migrant’ Somalis are going to Wyoming.

(Any state over 1,000 is in red)

Alabama:  207

Alaska:  224

Arizona: 3,727

California:  2,375

Colorado:  1,803

Connecticut:  696

District of Columbia:  1

Florida:  274

Georgia:  2,720

Idaho:  733

Illinois:  1,284

Indiana:  374

Iowa:  395

Kansas:  254

Kentucky: 1,631

Louisiana:  118

Maine:  1,181

Maryland:  371

Massachusetts:  1,936

Michigan:  1,316

Minnesota:  10,804

Mississippi:  3

Missouri:  2,132

Nebraska:   322

Nevada:  331

New Hampshire:  270

New Jersey:  41

New Mexico:  161

New York:  3,721

North Carolina:  1,212

North Dakota:  690

Ohio:  5,439

Oklahoma:  76

Oregon:  1,492

Pennsylvania:  1,053

Rhode Island:  136

South Carolina:  94

South Dakota:  635

Tennessee: 2,091

Texas:  4,716

Utah:  1,990

Vermont:  368

Virginia:  939

Washington:  3,182

Wisconsin:  813

That should total:  64,332

If you are visiting RRW for the first time, you might want to visit this 2008 post where we did an original accounting of the Somalis resettled in the US going back to the early 1990’s.

Somalis colonizing Nacogdoches County, TX; internationally-owned Pilgram’s Pride meat packer drawing them there

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Meat packers (chicken processors in this case) are changing small town America by working closely with the US State Department and its refugee resettlement contractors.***

While internationally-owned companies (75% Brazilian-owned in this case) get the cheap captive laborers in the refugee stream to America, American taxpayers get to take care of those workers every other need—education for the children, subsidized housing, health care and the list goes on.  Great business model—right!

Meanwhile the colonization of small towns continues….

The State Department and its refugee contractors appear to be busy at work demographically changing Rep. Louie Gohmert’s district just as they changed the St. Cloud, MN, heart of former Rep. Michele Bachmann’s district with the resettlement of Somalis.

From WAVE3.News (hat tip: Pungentpeppers):

NACOGDOCHES COUNTY, TX (KTRE) – Nacogdoches, Center, and Lufkin are home to about 150 Somalis refugees.  [May seem like a small number, but it won’t be in another five years—ed]

Some have lived here for over five years, learned English, and even obtained their US citizenships.

Others are struggling to learn American ways.

Somalis are seen in and around Nacogdoches. The women are recognized by their brightly colored native dresses. A distinct accent is heard from the men.

They’re here to learn American ways.  [While working for Pilgram’s Pride!—ed]

Abdirahman Guled wants East Texans to learn his people’s ways.

That last line is the real truth!

Then this!  They are turning red states blue!

According to the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, more international refugees were living in Texas in 2012 than in any other state.

Concerned Texans might like to have a look at the large number of resettlement contractors working in your state.  Go to this handy list (p.32-34 lists all the contractors in Texas).

More Somalis on the way to America!

The numbers are in at the Refugee Processing Center for the first 4 months of Fiscal Year 2015 and the Somali numbers are huge—3,536 new Somali refugees have entered the US in the last 4 months!  That means this will be a banner year for Somalis with likely well over 10,000 to be admitted by September 30th, 2015.

***We have a very extensive archive on how meatpackers demographically change America, click here for more.