Top ten languages spoken by refugees admitted to US (2008-2013)

02/04/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

What did convicted murderer Esar Met’s translation services cost the taxpayers of Utah?

Note especially to our Wyoming and Toledo, Ohio readers!

When your “welcoming” community is preparing to open its arms to refugees for the first time, remember it is required by federal law that your local government is responsible for the cost of educating the kids (don’t forget the ESL budget), and for providing interpreters for medical services (refugees come with HIV/AIDS and TB, need costly meds) and for any court proceedings (how much did that recent refugee murder trial cost Utah or the Colorado rape trial cost?).

One huge problem that happened near where I live is that fire and rescue had an emergency involving a refugee they were not aware of, and due to a language barrier an unnecessarily expensive and frightening ‘rescue’ occurred because they thought the woman had Ebola (a disease first discovered in the Congo)!

Here is some useful data for your consideration. Local governments! Better get your translators lined up!

Top ten languages spoken by recent refugees! (from WRAPSnet) Note Arabic is number one!

Rank	Language	FY 2008	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013	Total
1	Arabic	9,767	13,675	15,199	7,372	9,938	17,233	73,184
2	Nepali	5,302	13,450	12,355	14,993	15,114	9,164	70,378
3	Sgaw Karen	7,460	3,331	5,833	6,521	4,148	5,011	32,304
4	Somali	2,403	3,879	4,787	3,057	4,763	7,295	26,184
5	Spanish	4,243	4,831	4,951	2,976	2,075	4,429	23,505
6	Chaldean	2,897	3,783	2,550	1,392	1,790	1,954	14,366
7	Burmese	3,769	2,040	1,414	1,290	1,146	1,523	11,182
8	Armenian	3,625	3,444	1,798	747	387	875	10,876
9	Kayah	0	5,267	1,922	1,179	595	784	9,747
10	Other Minor Languages	1,787	1,913	1,667	673	1,005	1,277	8,322
	Report Total	41,253	55,613	52,476	40,200	40,961	49,545	280,048

Nevada: Chinese “refugee” going to prison for casino scam

01/28/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The headline of the AP piece from CBS Las Vegas, calls her a “refugee” but it’s not clear if she was actually granted asylum. Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers.’

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Chinese woman who says she sought asylum in the U.S. after taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 was sentenced in Las Vegas to nearly four years in federal prison for her role in a multi-million dollar casino baccarat fraud scheme.

Irene Li’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender William Carrico, said Thursday he’s virtually certain his 53-year-old client will be deported to China after her 47 months in prison.

Li pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a plea deal that had other charges against her dismissed.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon also ordered Li on Wednesday to repay $2.2 million in damages to five Las Vegas casinos.

Officials say Li’s husband remains a fugitive in the case.

A more detailed story about the case is here.

Chinese make up the largest percentage of asylum seekers granted permission to stay in the US

Go to Table 6, page 6 of the Department of Homeland Securities 2012 Annual Flow Report. Here are the stats for Chinese given refugee status (after arriving in the US on their own either illegally or as visa overstays).

2010: 6,693 Chinese granted asylum (31% of the total)

2011: 8,585 (34%)

2012: 10,151 (34%)

Astounding!

By the way, a large number of Chinese men are being granted asylum because they tell immigration judges they want to have more than one child and that is grounds for admission! Once asylum is granted, the asylee can access all of the welfare programs open to refugees. See our fact sheet.

CDC: Majority of US cases of TB in 2012 among the foreign-born

11/17/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A Tennessee reader sent me the 2012 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the incidence of Tuberculosis in the US.

It is interesting to note that although the number of cases has dropped slightly from 2011, we still had 9,445 cases in the US and 63% of them are among the foreign-born population. (It sure is a good thing we have Obamacare to take care of the expensive meds for all these people!—right?)

Also of interest is that the states which have the highest number of refugees—California, Texas, New York, and Florida—also have the most TB cases (although the largest number of cases are from Mexico! not from the top-sending refugee countries).

Here is a bit from the Executive summary:

In 31 states, ≥ 50% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
In 8 states, ≥ 70% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
In 3 states, ≥ 75% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
In 10 states, ≥ 75% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).

Scroll to the bottom of Table 34 and note that Wyoming, which takes no refugees! and is likely the least diverse state in the country, has the fewest cases. BTW, Vermont which has here-to-fore been the least diverse state (and still may be) won’t be for long because the refugee contractors are busy resettling refugees there.

Also from the summary:

In 18 states (Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington), ≥ 70% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons

When you visit Table 6, note that Mexico is the top sending country for TB to America. And, of course the Mexicans are not arriving as refugees but as illegal aliens.

Does anyone know if when they do those questionable studies of how much immigrants contribute to the local economy whether they factor in the cost of treating difficult diseases?

And, when refugees and migrants move around the US, does anyone track them to be sure they stay on their TB meds? Maybe it’s in the full report, here (200 plus pages), but I didn’t read the whole thing.

Update: Superbugs could erase a century of medical advances, here.

RRW Progress report for October

11/01/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few months ago we set a goal to attract 30 new followers in a month (an appropriate goal for a narrowly focused blog). I’m happy to report that for the month of October we added 67 followers as subscribers and facebook followers.

Just a reminder, we are on facebook (Refugee Info Resource) and much to my great surprise are reaching thousands with some of our posts. Many posts get 100 or 200 views but, here are some that must have gone around the world in the last few weeks (all posted in October):

4,794 viewed Somalis in South Africa

8,044 viewed UN wants to move 30,000 Syrians to the West

4,604 viewed First Congolese arrive in Lancaster, PA

and 6,504 viewed UK Mirror story about Turkish gangs moving Syrians into Europe.

‘Like’ us on Facebook here! And, send our posts to your facebook friends!

We are also on twitter! Here at AnnC@RefugeeWatcher.

If you don’t want to miss a post, you have three options to receive notification: in your e-mail inbox as a subscriber (see upper left corner of this page), on facebook, or on twitter!

2010 Annual Report to Congress is out (more than two years late)

10/31/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

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.