I haven’t mentioned the taxpayer-funded subsidiary industry beyond the resettlement contractors much lately, but a story from Rochester, NY reminds me to tell you about it again.

I call these ‘ethnic self-help organizations’ little ACORNS. 

Do you remember the community organizers of ACORN where they ostensibly helped the poor get their services (aka welfare), but also made sure they were properly indoctrinated, registered to vote and were voting for the Dems.

If a problem cropped up, they were also the advocacy media arm for THEIR people!

Well, these ethnic non-profit groups, just for refugees (funded by you), are doing the same. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement shells out about four million of your bucks every year for this.

I contend that this activity of the ORR actually fosters division, setting certain groups of people up as somehow special and separate. Why should any class of immigrant be given special attention and federal grants?

Notice for all the yakking about Trump switching out the word ‘integration’ and replacing it with ‘assimilation,’ the ORR hasn’t gotten the message.

From the Office of Refugee Resettlement website:

(Emphasis below is mine)

The Ethnic Community Self-Help program supports ethnic community-based organizations in providing refugee populations with critical services to assist them in becoming integrated members of American society.

General Background

Throughout the history of the United States, the involvement of refugees and their community-based organizations in resettlement has been critical to integration. Today, these organizations continue to enhance the provision and effectiveness of refugee services. For refugees, their active participation in resettlement is empowering and plays an important role in the integration of the entire refugee community.

Program Description

The Ethnic Community Self-Help program provides assistance to refugee community-based organizations and other groups that:

[Check out this list! They are so good at making it all look and sound so benign!—-ed]

Address community building
Facilitate cultural adjustment and integration
Deliver mutually supportive functions
Information exchange
Civic participation
Resource enhancement
Orientation and support to new and established refugees
Public education to the larger community

Ethnic Community Self-Help programs connect newly arrived refugees to community resources. Ethnic Community Self-Help programs target all ORR populations, and all U.S.-based governmental and certified non-profit organizations are eligible to apply. [Community resources is code for welfare, but isn’t that the job of the contractors we pay millions to each year, for that very same work!—ed]

There is a list of grantees at the ORR website, but it is old. It is not the new list that includes the payola to a Rochester, NY ethnic community group. Why can’t these federal agencies keep websites up to date?

Rochester ETHNIC self-help group gets $200,000 crows Congresswoman! (Take that Donald!)

Here is the news from Rochester, NY where a former Somali group, now supposedly open to all refugees, has been awarded a $200,000 renewable grant to put former volunteers on a taxpayer funded salary!

From the Democrat & Chronicle:

The Rochester nonprofit agency Refugees Helping Refugees has received a $200,000 federal grant to support the various services it provides for newly arriving refugees, Rep. Louise Slaughter announced Monday.

The grant comes from the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Refugees Helping Refugees was founded in 2002 as the Somali Community of Western New York, but since has expanded its reach to help all refugees, not just Somalis.

[Many of the specifically Somali ‘ethnic’ groups (and there are boatloads of them) have had to expand their base because it was becoming unseemly that taxpayer dollars were being directed at one very special group of refugees.—ed]

It offers English classes, job training, benefits assistance and activities for senior citizens, among other things.

The grant will allow the organization to pay salaries for several positions that, until now, had been handled on a volunteer basis, including a case manager and coordinators for its various programs, director Meredith Keller said.

The $200,000 grant is renewable for three years, meaning it could total $600,000. Until now, the agency’s annual budget has been about $150,000, Keller said.

[….]

In a statement, Slaughter, D-Fairport, used the funding announcement to get in a dig at President Donald Trump, who has pushed for policies to trim refugee arrivals and services.

“This federal award for Refugees Helping Refugees is a testament to the inclusive, important work happening right here in our community,” Slaughter said in the statement. “This funding will help further that critical mission at a time when the Trump administration continues to use travel bans and shortsighted policies to prevent refugees from finding safety in our country.”

More here.

I have a category, not used lately, called ‘Ethnic Community Based Organizations.’ That was the official name for them at the Office of Refugee Resettlement when I first started writing about them, but now they call them Ethnic Community self-help groups.  This post is filed here.

You should look around where you live and see if you have a community organizing group where you live specifically for refugees.