Nine major federal resettlement contractors are choosing which towns get refugees; citizens kept in the dark

04/07/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

People ask me all the time, who is targeting our towns?

Frankly, it is the nine major federal contractors (not accountable to the US taxpayer!)*** contracted by the US State Department as you can see from this page at the US State Department website. (Emphasis is mine)

Have a look at Key Indicators for Resettlement “Stakeholders.” This one has FY2014 on the cover but they say it is for FY2015 (I haven’t seen the newest one yet). When the federal govt. and its contractors began to run into ‘pockets of resistance’ they instituted this planning process to try to figure out which states had the best goodies for refugees, so you might find it useful. For example if your state expanded Medicaid under Obamacare, you are a more likely target than a state that didn’t! http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/news/key-indicators-for-refugee-placement-fy2015-report-released

US State Department:

Planning for Refugees’ Arrival in the United States

The Department of State works with nine domestic resettlement agencies that have proven knowledge and resources to resettle refugees. Every week, representatives of each of these nine agencies meet to review the biographic information and other case records sent by the overseas Resettlement Support Centers (RSC) to determine where a refugee will be resettled in the United States. During this meeting, the resettlement agencies match the particular needs of each incoming refugee with the specific resources available in a local community. If a refugee has relatives in the United States, he or she is likely to be resettled near or with them. Otherwise, the resettlement agency that agrees to sponsor the case decides on the best match between a community’s resources and the refugee’s needs.

Information about the sponsoring agency is communicated back to the originating RSC, which then works with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to transport the refugee to his or her new home. The cost of refugee transportation is provided as a loan, which refugees are required to begin repaying after they are established in the United States.

Once in the United States

The Department of State has cooperative agreements with nine domestic resettlement agencies to resettle refugees. While some of the agencies have religious affiliations, they are not allowed to proselytize. The standard cooperative agreement between the Department of State and each of the domestic resettlement agencies specifies the services that the agency must provide to each refugee. All together, the nine domestic resettlement agencies place refugees in about 190 communities throughout the United States. Each agency headquarters maintains contact with its local affiliated agencies to monitor the resources (e.g., interpreters who speak various languages, the size and special features of available housing, the availability of schools with special services, medical care, English classes, employment services, etc.) that each affiliate’s community can offer.

Key points of this brief description:

1) The NON-Governmental resettlement contractors meet every week to talk about who is going where in the US depending on what resources your town has to offer.

2) Refugees must repay travel loans, however what they don’t tell you is that the contractor gives refugees dunning notices and then gets to keep 25% of the money (your tax dollars) they collect. So we often see as much as $2-3 million additional income the contractor pockets from collecting these loans.

3) The sub-contractors (aka affiliates) in 190 towns and cities are monitoring the resources your town has and filtering that information back to the nine major contractors. So why can’t they share that information with you—the citizens of the town? Wouldn’t you like to know the availability of places in the school system for children who don’t speak English, availability of housing, what health care opportunities exist in YOUR town? Etc. How about an impact statement prepared by the contractor and feds and available for public review in your town?

About the Key Indicators: The feds and the contractors hold quarterly “placement consultation meetings.” I have written and asked to be informed of the location of upcoming ones, but have never had my request answered. Also, check the section on “secondary migration” which is when refugees settled in one state pick up and move to another, mostly to be with their own kind of people. Top state for secondary migration is Minnesota.

This post is filed in our category ‘where to find information,’ here.

***Nine major federal contractors which like to call themselves VOLAGs (Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke considering how much federal money they receive:

RRW Monthly round-up for March 2015; Top month ever!

04/02/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to social media expert Kelly, March 2015 is the top month for readers at RRW in our almost 8 years of publishing the only website in the world (that we know of!) focusing specifically on problems with the US Refugee Admissions Program and asylum and refugee problems worldwide.

Our highest number of visitors ever was on March 26th during the same week that our facebook page reached over 200,000!

The Top Posts for the month were these (see our Top Daily posts in the right hand sidebar):

1. Breaking News! Spartanburg, SC targeted to be colonized as next refugee seed community

2. Tensions grow in St. Cloud, MN as more Somalis move in with help of Lutherans

3. Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota is responsible for the Somali chaos in St. Cloud

Honorable mention and not far behind is a post every new reader must read!

Ten things your town needs to know when (if!) welcoming refugees for the first time

Top languages spoken by refugees admitted to the US—Arabic is #1

04/01/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Although I have posted on this before, for all of our new readers, here it is again. This is from the Refugee Processing Center which is the US State Department’s data collection site for refugee information.

Just remember! When your town “welcomes” refugees, you will receive refugees from many places. You cannot choose your refugees by saying, only send me the nice Christians from Burma or the Congo, for example.

And, since the Clinton Executive order (which Bush refused to rescind), your local and state government (you, the taxpayer) are responsible for supplying translators for all sorts of problems that crop up in schools, health departments, hospitals, the criminal justice system and anywhere else federal money is involved.

Translation services are becoming one of the most significant (and costly) cottage industries orbiting within the refugee resettlement industry.

Here are the top ten languages spoken by refugees entering the US (from Fiscal Year 2008 to the end of the first quarter of FY 2015 (December 31, 2014))

		Arrivals
Rank	Native Language	FY 2008	FY 2009	FY 2010	FY 2011	FY 2012	FY 2013	FY 2014	FY 2015	Cumulative Total
1	Arabic	9,767	13,675	15,199	7,372	9,938	17,230	17,859	4,430	95,470
2	Nepali	5,302	13,450	12,355	14,993	15,114	9,164	8,484	1,304	80,166
3	Sgaw Karen	7,460	3,331	5,833	6,521	4,148	5,011	4,115	1,046	37,465
4	Somali	2,402	3,879	4,787	3,057	4,763	7,295	8,449	2,664	37,296
5	Spanish	4,247	4,831	4,951	2,976	2,075	4,429	4,305	778	28,592
6	Chaldean	2,897	3,783	2,550	1,392	1,790	1,954	1,328	204	15,898
7	Burmese	3,769	2,040	1,414	1,290	1,146	1,523	1,066	233	12,481
8	Armenian	3,625	3,444	1,798	747	387	875	1,190	263	12,329
9	Kayah	0	5,267	1,922	1,179	595	784	637	136	10,520
10	Other Minor Languages	1,788	1,913	1,667	673	1,006	1,277	1,124	242	9,690
	Total	41,257	55,613	52,476	40,200	40,962	49,542	48,557	11,300	339,907

Do you see that low Somali number for 2008, that is the year that the US State Department shut down the Somali family reunification program when they discovered wide spread fraud—-Somalis were lying on their applications and found not to be related at all to those they claimed were kin. Surprised? You shouldn’t be!

US immigrant population reaches record level

03/24/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was looking for something else and came across this informative article at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). I’ve written critically, here in 2011, about MPI which advances an Open borders agenda sandwiched between articles like this one entitled: ‘Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.’ I assume their statistics are accurate. Check it out!

Building the Democratic Party voter base!

Table 1: Numerical Size and Share of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1970-2013

Source: Migration Policy Institute tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 and 2013 American Community Surveys, and 1970-2000 decennial Census data.

They have another report with just Refugee and Asylee data updated last year, here.

This post is archived in our ‘where to find information’ category.

How many refugees did your state “welcome” in FY2014? Where were they from?

03/16/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Sorry readers, after being away from the computer these last three days, I am woefully behind—lots of stories have passed me by. Going to try to catch up!

If this looks familiar it is! But, we have so many new readers it bears repeating.

Just before I left, reader P.K. sent me this link for data at the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement that I hadn’t seen in such a handy fashion. We did previously give a year-end wrap-up last October here where the numbers were slightly different, but close.

We are repeating this news for the many new readers who have joined us since then.

By the way, although we resettled 69,986 refugees in FY2014, that is not the complete story. The Office of Refugee Resettlement was responsible for over 30,000 asylees and another 58,000 ‘unaccompanied alien children’ being treated as refugees as well (and, cared for with your tax dollars!)

Top resettlement states for FY 2014 are as follows:

Texas (7,214) Turning red states blue? Someone needs to tell Ted!

California (6,108)

New York (4,082)

Michigan (4,006)

Florida (3,519)

Arizona (2,964)

Ohio (2,815)

Pennsylvania (2,739)

Georgia (2,694)

Illinois (2,578)

Also three other states topped 2,000: Washington (2,483), North Carolina (2,443) and Minnesota (2,232).

Be sure to visit the Office of Refugee Resettlement here to see where in the world your refugees came from.

What is a fiscal year? For the purposes of refugee resettlement, a fiscal year runs from October 1 of the previous year to September 30th of the present year. So, that means we have now completed 5 months of fiscal year 2015.

This post is archived in our ‘Where to find information’ category as well as in ‘Refugee statistics.‘