Category: Where to find information

Fun with numbers! How many Somali refugees have come to your city in FY 2015, so far?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Minneapolis Somali women angry with sentencing in 2013 terror-funding case. More fun on the way! http://www.komonews.com/news/national/2-Minnesota-women-sentenced-in-Somali-terror-case-207813961.html

In the previous post we gave readers the tiny Syrian resettlement numbers (so far!), but check out the Somali numbers—2,801 new Somalis have arrived in America in just the first three months of Fiscal Year 2015!   At this pace they will surely be approaching the high George Bush Somali “welcoming” years!

Once again, see the very cool data base maintained by the US State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.  (I use the fiscal year, but you might find it more understandable to use the calendar year option).

Somalis were resettled in about 115 cities large and small, but here are the top ten with the numbers in parenthesis.  Again, these numbers are for three months (October, November and December 2014, the first three months of Fiscal Year 2015).  And, it is possible that all December data has not yet been entered.

1.  Minneapolis, MN (148)

2.  Columbus, OH (127)

3.  Phoenix, AZ (123)

4.  Portland, OR (108)

5.  Buffalo, NY (103)

6.  Salt Lake, UT (100)

7.  Louisville, KY (92)

8.  Erie, PA (89)

9.  Nashville, TN (81)

10.  Three-way tie with (77) each

Seattle, WA

Houston, TX

St. Cloud, MN

(You might want to check my numbers, go to the data base, and see if I missed some top ten city and see if your city ‘welcomed’ Somalis!  By the way, Anchorage, Alaska got 30 more mosque worshipers).

New readers:  See ‘Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis?’ our top post of 2014 (even though it was written in 2011)—thank three ‘Christian Charities’ for flooding Minnesota with Somali Muslims.

Fun with numbers! How many Syrian refugees have come to the US in FY2015 so far?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Once again readers pushed this post through the roof yesterday (What! you were spending your holiday reading about Syrian refugees coming to your cities?).

Recently I came across this very cool data base maintained at the Refugee Processing Center (a US State Department data collection center).   I just tried it for Syrian refugees who entered the US from October 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014 (that is three months of the fiscal year that ends September 30th, 2015).

The number is still small (164) so if the State Department plans to get to 9,000-10,000 (mostly Muslims by the way) by September 30th, they will soon be opening the spigot pretty wide.  Also, it is possible that all December arrivals are not yet entered in the data base.

Right now the top three states “welcoming” Syrian refugees are Texas, North Carolina (they are really working hard to transform NC!), and Illinois.

Here are the numbers (just refugees, not asylum seekers or any others who found another way into the US):

California:

Oakland (4)

San Diego (1)

Florida:

Jacksonville (6)

Georgia:

Atlanta (3)

Idaho:

Boise (8)

Illinois:

Chicago (14)

Wheaton (3)

Indiana:

Indianapolis (12)

Maryland:

Baltimore (7)

Massachusetts:

Beverly (2)

West Springfield (6)

Worcester (1)

Michigan:

Ann Arbor (4)

New Jersey:

Elizabeth (5)

New Mexico:

Albuquerque (6)

North Carolina:

Greensboro (10)

High Point (8)

Pennsylvania:

Erie (7)

Harrisburg (6)

Tennessee:

Memphis (4)

Nashville (1)

Texas:

Austin (1)

Dallas (5)

Houston (7)

Utah:

Salt Lake City (5)

Washington:

Seattle (5)

Spokane (7)

Go to the data base now and have some fun!  Check out nationalities who came to your city over a given time period.  The data is available back to 2002.

Endnote: I hope those single Syrians arriving in some cities aren’t single young men!

Abbreviated weekly round-up of top posts on refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since, in just a few days, I’ll be doing an end of the year round-up on what interested readers most at RRW over the last year (our best year ever, by far), I didn’t do a weekly one for this last week.

However, I found it very informative (and wanted you to know) that the top posts of the week all involved readers looking for more information about where refugees are being resettled in the US.  Here are those which were most clicked on during the week ending December 27th:

* List of ORR “preferred” communities has some additions

* Handy directory for US Resettlement Offices in 180 cities

* Syrian Muslims headed to North Dakota, Nebraska, and Kentucky

* So where might those Syrians be going? (US site map)

I’m glad to see that thousands of you are looking at information about where the contractors are placing refugees and I hope you are beginning to educate your fellow citizens about what is happening in your city.

All of our previous weekly round-ups can be found in our ‘blogging’ category, here.

 

List of ORR “preferred” communities has some additions

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
WTH! A preferred resettlement site? More waiters needed?

Update April 15, 2016: There is a more up-to-date list of preferred communities in the 2014 ORR report to Congress. Click here and go to page 51 for the list.

Since everyone (thousands of you) really liked the map of America with the 180 or so cities where the US State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) are resettling refugees, I thought it might be a good idea to update the “preferred” communities list.

The ORR says these 82 (or so) preferred communities offer the best chance for refugees to find jobs and become self-sufficient, but really they are the cities with overload problems and with especially challenging and needy refugees (cases needing “intensive case management”).  So to help ameliorate the problem, the feds throw more grant money to the contractors!

Here are the contractors receiving grants now for “preferred” sites.  By the way, this program is only open to the big nine contractors that monopolize the program.  Then they funnel your money to their subcontractors (here).  See on the “affiliates” list that there are addresses in cities involved that are not on my list below, so I would look to those cities too as now in refugee overload or getting there.

This possibly incomplete list of cities is cobbled together from information in the ORR’s 2012 Annual Report to Congress, p. 47 and a previous post we wrote, here.  There may be some new “preferred” communities I’m not yet aware of.   And, note, if comparing lists, that I inadvertently left out Wichita, Kansas on my earlier list.

Recently added in red (or ones I missed in a previous review).  Again this is not a complete list of where refugees are being resettled, it merely highlights those where the contractor has over the last few years received additional money from the US Treasury in order to cope with problems there:

Arizona:  Tucson, Phoenix

California:  San Diego, Sacramento, Modesto, Walnut Creek

Colorado:  Denver, Greeley, Ft. Collins, Loveland

Connecticut:  Derby/Bridgeport, New Haven

Florida:  Orlando, Clearwater, Palm Beach

Georgia:  Atlanta, Savannah

Idaho:  Boise, Twin Falls, Treasure Valley

Illinois:  Chicago, DuPage/Aurora, Moline

Indiana:  Indianapolis

Iowa:  Des Moines

Kansas: Wichita

Kentucky:  Louisville, Lexington, Owensboro

Maryland:  Baltimore, Silver Spring

Massachusetts:  Springfield, Jamaica Plain, Worcester, Malden

Michigan:  Dearborn, Ann Arbor, Lansing

Minnesota:  Minneapolis, St. Cloud, St. Paul

Missouri:  Kansas City

Nebraska:  Omaha

Nevada:  Las Vegas

New Hampshire:  Manchester, Concord

New Jersey:  East Orange

New Mexico: Albuquerque

New York:  Syracuse, Buffalo, Utica, Albany, Manchester (this tiny town is listed on p.49, but it must be a typo, NH maybe?)

North Carolina: Raleigh, New Bern, Wilmington, Durham, High Point, Charlotte, Greensboro (lucky NC!)

Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, Dayton

Pennsylvania:  Lancaster, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Erie

Rhode Island:  Providence

Tennessee: Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis

Texas:  Fort Worth, Houston, Austin

Virginia:  Charlottesville, Hampton Roads

Washington:  Seattle, Richland, Tri-Cities

Wisconsin: Milwaukee, Madison

So where might those Syrians be going?

~ Ann Corcoran

Update January 2, 2015:  Here is where 164 of them have gone so far in the last couple of months.

Yesterday we learned that the Obama Administration committed the United States to take 9,000 Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees  in FY 2015 which is already two months underway, and place them throughout America at some of their 180 cities where federal contractors are waiting to sign them up for social services, give them employment counseling, take care of their health needs and sign the children up for school.

Here is a map of where they could be placed.  Is your city on it?

See the legend on the right hand side of the map.  Those are the initials for the nine major contractors:

What you should do is go to this list of federal refugee contractors (listed by city) and call them.  And, by the way, don’t assume that if your city doesn’t have a colored dot you are off the hook.  They can place them within a hundred miles of a contractor’s office.  When you call, ask how many Syrians are coming to your town?  Then contact your local newspaper, your local elected officials and your representatives in Washington and let them know what you think!

Direct your ire at refuge contractors and elected officials at all levels of government, not at the refugees who are only taking advantage of a good deal.

Please send us anything you learn and send links to news stories about their arrival.