Category: Who is going where

Who decides which cities will get refugees next? What are the cities?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As we end the year and begin a new one, we have to get down to work.  Shelbyville, TN and the Times-Gazette have given us lots to write about in the last 10 days or so (see our whole series here), but we need to do some basic research.  Will you help us?

First, who really decides which cities will be direct resettlement cities?  In an article in the Houston Chronicle a few weeks ago this statement intrigued me. 

In the U.S., the refugees are helped by local charitable organizations coordinated by Refugee Council USA, the Washington-based coalition that helps choose their final destinations.

I thought the US State Department was deciding which cities were to receive refugees, but if this is true, then non-profit groups are making that determination.   Are members of the Refugee Council USA just sitting around a conference table in DC with a large map of the USA looking for fresh cities to bring refugees to?   Frankly, I think this is how Hagerstown became a resettlement site a few years back. 

It is our understanding that once a city has been ‘chosen’, the volag (voluntary agency) with the contract for resettlement can then place the refugees within a hundred miles of that site.

Is there any analysis of the sites chosen?  Is there any determination made by anyone in government about the economic and social viability of the site?    Any studies done?   Apparently not.    As I said before, if the residents don’t squack then the site is a good one (“welcoming”) and more refugees are brought in.

Here are some designated resettlement cities we have already identified:

Kansas:  Bowling Green, Garden City, Wichita

Missouri:  Kansas City, Jefferson, St. Louis

Tennessee:  Bristol, Chattanoga, Memphis, Nashville

Help us find more!   If you go to this site at the Office of Refugee Resettlement and choose your state, you will get the name and contact information for your state director.  E-mail or call that person and ask for the cities that have been chosen as designated resettlement sites.  Then please tell us so we can keep an updated list.

BTW, since people can move around in America and refugees are free to leave their resettlement city in only a few months, this information does not apply to secondary migrations such as recently occured in Emporia, KS or Shelbyville, TN.   It’s the first destination site when entering the country that we are looking for in this project.

We have made a new category entitled “Resettlement cities” in which to put the information you report to us. Thanks in advance for your help.

Refugees or displaced persons?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is an article today from the Houston Chronicle; another article about Iraqi refugees—this time in Egypt.  The article jumps back and forth between Iraqis who are happy to learn they are going home to Iraq, happy that Saddam is gone, unhappy with the Americans for not keeping them safe and unhappy because they can’t get to America or Australia this minute.  Frankly, it’s a bit hard to follow.   However, this line caught my attention and made me think about something Judy said the other day.

They do not look like typical refugees found in camps throughout the world. They are clean, well groomed and not starving.

That’s right they don’t look like typical refugees,  but those advocates in the refugee industry (and the liberal press) want you to have that image in your mind—the starving camp image.   These are displaced persons as Judy (and Derbyshire) said in this post yesterday.

Derbyshire notes that many of the people called refugees would have been called displaced persons in earlier years. I am struck by this, because the two terms have different connotations and sometimes call for different solutions. Ann and I have always advocated more emphasis on resettling refugees in their countries of origin or neighboring countries that have offered to take them in (and sometimes been refused by the UN agency). In the past, displaced persons were seen as a group that needed to be resettled in an ethnically similar place. For example, the ethnic Germans who lost their homes in other countries as a result of World War II were taken in by Germany. Nobody suggested that we should take in small groups of Germans and scatter them around our small towns. I’d like to bring back the term “displaced persons.”

But you see, the term ‘displaced person’, doesn’t illicit the same emotional response that ‘refugee’ does.  And, besides, the ‘refugee’ label is important because it entitles the immigrant to a grab bag of American welfare goodies when they get here.

Shelbyville, TN, Part II and the pot starts boiling

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Times-Gazette of Shelbyville, TN published Part II of a five part series on the friction developing as the population of secondary migration Somali refugees grows in this town of about 20,000 (for our local readers, that’s about half the size of Hagerstown, MD).    The culture clash is occuring in the school system.

Gray[Bedford County School Superintendent] also said that the school system has “very definitely” had some culture clashes with the Somalians since they have moved to Bedford County.

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“Out of 11 principals, five of them are female, and we have assistant principals that are female. Their lack of respect for woman causes us a major problem on the front end,” Gray said. He added that “we found it to be the case” that the Somalis have difficulties with women in supervisory roles.

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Gray referred to “unrealistic expectations” in one incident, where the Somalis had apparently been promised service the school system does not provide, such as child care.

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“We had a particular incident at one school where they had been promised it [child care] and they were demanding it,” Gray said. “They are very demanding. Their culture is absolutely different from ours and different from the Hispanics also. I can’t speak for all the Somalians, but their culture is tremendously different.”

Judging by the comments posted already at the Times-Gazette, citizens of Shelbyville are starting to boil.

I just found this link very interesting!  A Somali blog is posting the Times-Gazette (Part I), “Somalis find haven” article.   Humm, do you think they are advertising for Shelbyville?   Better watch out Shelbyville, they might be sending more Somalis your way.    Didn’t Catholic Charities Director for Tennessee, Holly Johnson, have this to say:

“…..so these folks are moving there because of the available jobs, affordable housing, welcoming community, etc.”

Shelbyville Bantu Background

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I missed this article in the Times-Gazette of Shelbyville, TN yesterday when I wrote about Somalis swarming to that city.  The extreme cultural adjustment problems of Somalis are ones we have heard about elsewhere.

The Bantu have enormous barriers to overcome in their introduction to American society. Their status as immigrants, their lack of English skills, illiteracy and the fact they possess no modern job skills, will only make the challenge that much harder.

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The Center [Cultural Orientation Resource Center] also states that resettlement professionals will have to deal with significant health care, sanitation, and social support issues relating to small children and mothers, pointing out that the Bantu use pit latrines and “are unfamiliar with typical American bathroom facilities and common sanitation items such as diapers and feminine care products.”