Category: Who is going where

Japanese refugee resettlement program falling apart already

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago, and after much pressure from the United Nations and the international humanitarian cabal, Japan reluctantly agreed to take some refugees.  Seems things aren’t working out so well as the 16 they planned to take this year backed out (Did they hear that the work was hard in Japan?).

As the program collapses and with a straight face, supporters of bringing the joys of diversity to Japan say ‘Japan will be left behind the international society!’

First consider visiting some of our older posts about Japan being dragged kicking and screaming into diluting its unique culture by typing ‘Japan’ into our search function.  Here is one story you might start with.  One of my favorite stories about Japan was this one where a blogger says he thinks Somalis would get along very well in Japan, and I don’t think he is kidding!

Now here is the latest news from Mainichi:

This year, the third since Japan launched a refugee resettlement system for refugees forced out of their homelands, it appears that the number of refugees applying to come and settle in Japan will sink to zero.

Supporters of these refugees warn that if nothing is done to improve the situation, Japan will be left behind by international society. This prodded me into thinking about what stance the nation should take on the refugees who fill the world.

Since 2010, 45 Myanmar refugees who had resided in refugee camps in Thailand have come to Japan to live under the nation’s refugee resettlement system. In September this year, Japan was due to accept 16 refugees from three families in its third round of the resettlement program. But before they left Thailand, relatives of one of the three families pleaded with them not to go, and that family subsequently made a turnabout and remained in Thailand. Another related family joined them in staying behind, and the remaining family felt uneasy about moving to Japan alone, so gave up on the idea. In the end, the number of applicants is said to have fallen to zero.

No applicants want to come this year!

In 2010, the United States accepted 54,077 refugees for resettlement. The corresponding figures for Canada and Australia were 6,706, and 5,636, respectively. Japan, on the other hand, accepted a mere 27 in its resettlement system. International society, which realized that Japan is not a country built on immigration, hoped that Japan could give birth to a small system that would grow into a large one. In March this year, Japan decided to extend the system for another two years, but the shock of having no applicants is rocking the system’s foundations.

Yikes!  Hard work!  And, this after they have had a “mere” six months of language and cultural orientation training (Imagine that, in the US the volags give refugees the ol’ heave-ho at well under six months and then we are giving publically-funded language and cultural training to Somalis on their culture and language!).

Improvements in the way refugees are accepted once they arrive in Japan are also vital. Two families from the first round of Myanmar refugees that arrived in Japan the year before last underwent workplace adaption training at an agricultural corporation in Chiba Prefecture, but claimed they were forced to work for long hours, contrary to what they had been told, and so they refused to work for the corporation and moved to Tokyo instead. The possibility cannot be ruled out that news of the commotion surrounding these two families eventually made its way to the refugee camp in Thailand, prompting other families to refrain from applying for the refugee resettlement program.

Read it all.  Will the UN pounce on Japan?  Watch for it!

Clarion hotels in Kansas and Missouri harboring Pakistani illegal aliens

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story about illegal aliens, not refugees, but it comes to us from the Garden City Telegram a paper we have often quoted from that generally reports only stories about how diversity strengthens the heartland.*

You know it isn’t just hapless Mexicans coming across our borders, but the numbers of OTMs (other than Mexicans) are on the rise.  What!  Are people like the two arrested hotel owners putting out the word to illegals to come to Kansas and Clarion hotels will hire them?

From AP at the Garden City Telegram:

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City couple could lose their two hotels and their bank accounts and spend decades in federal prison if they’re found guilty of knowingly employing illegal immigrants over the last four years, a federal prosecutor said.

Munir Ahmad Chaudary, 51, and his wife, Rhonda Bridge, 40, both of Overland Park, were charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday with one count of conspiracy to harbor undocumented aliens for personal gain, five counts of harboring undocumented aliens for personal gain and four counts of wire fraud.

The indictment said about half of the employees at the couple’s two Clarion hotels — one in Overland Park and the other in Missouri, near Kansas City International Airport — were neither lawfully in the U.S. nor authorized to be employed in the U.S.

Kansas U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Tuesday’s arrests should send a message to companies that try to gain a competitive advantage by hiring illegal workers, paying them less than other employees and failing to pay income taxes or Social Security for them.

[…..]

A third person, Syed Naqvy, 34, of Overland Park, was charged with one count of making a false statement to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and one count of failing to deport from the U.S. as ordered. Two companies owned by the couple also were named in the indictment.

Prosecutors said Naqvy, a Pakistani national, worked as a desk clerk at the Overland Park hotel and lived there as part of his compensation.

* Just for fun, I typed ‘Garden City’ into our search function and found lots of previous posts on the multicultural mecca the city has become thanks primarily to meatpacker Tyson Foods.   Here is one 2010 post where local Somali Muslims asked the town fathers for a special taxpayer funded cemetery because even in death they don’t want to be near infidels.  And, here , one year ago this month I posted that Finney County, KS where Garden City is located is one of the first counties in the US where people of white European heritage are now in the  minority.

Texas: Catholic Charities bails out on Congolese family, so empty nesters take them in

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…. Americans are good-hearted people, but I would like to see where this family is one year from now!

From My San Antonio (emphasis mine):

SEGUIN — Leonia Espe, a Congolese* woman who fled her village in Africa five years ago after Hutu rebels destroyed her home, imprisoned her husband and raped and murdered her two teen daughters, is finally catching a break.

She and her eight surviving children were brought to San Antonio last September by Catholic Charities, but recently the agency’s assistance ran out. Espe, who has chronic health problems, was about to be evicted from her shabby apartment, along with her kids. The situation looked dire.

More than 20 readers responded to a story in last Sunday’s San Antonio Express-News with offers of help — food, money, clothing.

But Nancy and Scott Hagerup, empty nesters and devout Christians who live in Seguin, took things a step further.

They looked at the three empty bedrooms — each with its own bath — that have stood vacant since their four grown kids moved on to lives and families of their own, and made what seemed like the only decision their faith directed them to make.

They invited the Espes to move in with them.

Abandoned by their refugee resettlement agency?

“I was so surprised,” said Leonia in her native Swahili. “The people who I had known seemed to have abandoned us, and people I didn’t know at all opened their home to us. I have such a sense of joy and peace now. This seems like a miracle.”

They won’t stay with the Hagerups forever.   Some people are working now to get them a Habitat for Humanity house (because we have run out of poor Americans needing homes), and they need to get Social Services lined up because no one is going to take care of the large family’s medical needs, housing needs, food needs, education needs, etc. except the Texas and US taxpayer.  In Seguin, TX, 17% of the population is below the poverty line.

Akhahenda [a minister] said he and his wife, Margaret, a nurse, will help connect the family with social services in Seguin, such as subsidized housing, since they won’t be able to live with the Hagerups forever.

* Check out the numbers here at the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.  Texas has “welcomed” 1479 refugees from the Dem. Republic of Congo and 222 from the Congo in the last five years.  The article doesn’t tell us from which country this family came from.

Study: Iraqi refugees not working and in poor health; need more costly health care

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I came across this interesting report just now entitled, Mental and Physical Health Status of Iraqi Refugees Resettled in the United States.

When you open the report, be sure to see the 4th frame with the map of the US depicting where the 63,000 or so Iraqis resettled (at the time of this undated report) to the US have been sent.  Of course, Wyoming shines like a bright light having received zero refugees, but look closely—VP Joe Biden’s Delaware is among the handful of states receiving only small numbers of refugees.  I find that so amusing since ol’ Joe helped create the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 with ol’ Teddy (Kennedy), yet Delaware gets only a tiny number of the neediest immigrants.

Back to the study and its results.

Here is the summary:

23% not covered by health insurance

67% not currently working ***

63% rated physical health as fair or poor

23% married to their first cousins

Chronic Diseases

60% ≤1 condition

37% ≤2 conditions

Mental Health Conditions

50% reported emotional distress

31% at risk for PTSD

Then here are some comments the refugees made during a forum:

* I will submit a request for social security pension because this will ensure having Medicaid…

* I am worried they will stop the Medicaid and I still have many operations to do…

* Medicaid will be canceled if my husband income exceeds a certain limit,….I feel that I am a burden to my husband because if he worked for extra hours, they would cancel my Medicaid. I need it for my psychological and physical health problems…

* We can handle stopping the food stamps but not the Medicaid…

* The more honest you are in explaining your medical problems, the less they will believe you……

* Please tell the Medicaid staff that when I am smiling in their face, that does not mean I am fine, nobody knows what I am going through and the pain I have……

It sure is a good thing that Obamacare will soon rescue these unhealthy refugees.

*** What do you make of that—67% not working.  Didn’t we just hear a couple of days ago that over 80% (almost 90%!) of the refugees living in Manchester, NH have work?  Maybe we should send more Iraqis to Manchester?  (Just kidding!)

New readers take note:  We have a health issues category, here, with 130 posts covering many very important topics involving immigrant health.

An afterthought:  When you look at that map and notice that the largest number of refugees are assigned to California, think about that when you read that some California cities may soon “cease to exist.”

NH refugee contractor says it is on target for NH resettlements

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Even in spite of the fact that the state has had much controversy of late about a possible moratorium on resettlements,  Lutheran Social Services is bragging that it is mostly on target to get a full-compliment of refugees into the state this fiscal year (although it appears they won’t be placing too many in Manchester).

It was only a few days ago that we learned  (and here) that Minnesota wasn’t going to come close with its goal for the year.  So what is the difference?   Minnesota continues to be the go-to resettlement site for Muslims (mostly Somalis) and due to those security screenings, their numbers are down.  In New Hampshire (at the moment) they are resettling mostly non-Muslims so the numbers aren’t slowing so dramatically.

From the Concord Monitor:

Two-thirds into their fiscal year, the main refugee resettlement agencies in the state say they are on target to reach or fall slightly short of their projected new cases this year.

Lutheran Social Services, which works primarily in Concord, Nashua and Laconia, has settled 145 people so far this year, about 60 percent of the cases it projected to handle between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30.

Most of those people are refugees from Bhutan, and about 65 percent have settled in Concord; the others were settled in Laconia or Nashua. Most of the new arrivals are related to refugees who have already settled in New Hampshire, said program director Amy Marchildon.

“Nationally, we’ve been a little bit slower this year overall,” she said. “There were new security measures implemented in the beginning of the year so it’s taken a while to move refugees” through the system.

As for Manchester and the International Institute, the Institute hired a new head honcho and they hope to get things rolling again there so that more refugees can come in and get their “services.”

The International Institute of New Hampshire works primarily in Manchester, where it has so far this year settled 74 people, mostly Bhutanese refugees with family members in the city, according to site director Nasir Arush.

[…..]

“I had a very good conversation with him [speaking of Mayor Gatsas–ed] when I was in New Hampshire and was very involved in many initiatives in the past ten years for services to enhance the lives of refugees in Manchester,” he said. “I really thought this is a good fit for me and a good opportunity to have someone with my experience and background as someone who is very known in Manchester to take this job.”

Then here is one line in the story that caught my eye!

One exception [when numbers were larger then projected—ed] was in 2004, when a humanitarian crisis in Somalia led the State Department to resettle more refugees nationwide than anticipated that year.

It wasn’t just 2004 that was a good year for Somalis!  See this post I wrote years ago and is still every day on the list of most visited posts.  I had combed through all the annual reports and noted the numbers of Somalis entering the US through the refugee program.  And, yes, 2004 was a big year (remember the then-Senator Brownback involvement) but the years following 2004 were pretty overloaded too!   Here are those POST-911 years when we were bringing Somalis to the US in large numbers:

2004:  12,814

2005:  10,101

2006:  10,330

2007:  6958

It was in 2008 that the discovery was made that Somalis were lying about their family relationships and one portion of the program was suspended and the number of Somalis dropped dramatically (links to posts on the suspension may be found in this recent post on Minnesota)  Now we are creeping on up again.