Category: Who is going where

Job hunting? Utah looking for a director of new refugee office

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

 Your tax dollars:

The refugee business is booming in Utah, or so it seems.   According to today’s Deseret Morning News, Refugee services have been coordinated by one guy but now a whole office is needed to handle the flow of refugees to the state.  The new office will be funded by the federal government but it looks like state funds will be thrown into the pot.   Taxpayers of Utah need to look into this!

The state’s first director of an emerging Refugee Services Office could be in place by early next year.

——–

“We’re moving very quickly,” DePaulis (Utah Dept. of Community and Culture) said of organizing the office, which for now will be federally funded under the Department of Workforce Services.

——–

The refugee group also has requested that Huntsman allocate $200,000 in state funding for refugee services in the governor’s budget, which is set to be released Monday, DePaulis said.

But wait, the numbers of refugees are going down in Utah, not up!

“It’s been something I’ve wanted for a long time, recognizing that one person can’t do it all,” Nakamura (the present refugee coordinator)  said. “The needs of the refugees over the last five to seven years are significantly different from the needs … when the program was created.

——-

“In the ’80s we had a huge population coming from a handful of countries in Southeast Asia. Now, we’ve got a handful of people coming from all over the world.”

If you check the number of refugee cases handled by Nakamurra’s one-man office you will see that the number went DOWN from 2005-2006 by almost a third.   But, this is interesting!  The federal funds required to take care of the smaller caseload went up by about $1 million.

Note that the federal funding is coming from the Utah Department of Workforce Services.   This is a handy federally funded (?) state agency.  It’s one stop shopping—employment services and food stamps/medical assistance all in one place. 

Sauerbrey: Refugees become terrorists if we don’t bring them here

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Oh brother!     A couple of days ago we reported to you that Asst. Sec. of State Ellen Sauerbrey visited Louisville, KY, the city that lures refugees.   We’ve heard many explanations about why we are the largest refugee resettlement country in the world, but this is the biggest stretch I’ve seen (so far)!   She told audiences in Louisville that we are bringing them to keep them from becoming terrorists!

We do it because it’s the right thing to do, but we also do it because it is in our national interest,” Assistant Secretary of State Ellen R. Sauerbrey said, telling of how many refugees languish for years in crude camps.

_______

“When you have people in these hopeless situations, this is where terrorism breeds, this is where failed states come from,” she said.

What kind of terrorists Asst. Sec. Sauerbrey?  Christian terrorists?  How about those potential Buddhist terrorists?  Or, could she possibly mean Islamic terrorists?    This idea that the economic plight of Muslims is what drives them to become the world’s leading terrorists is B.S.  This is what is wrong with the entire Bush Administration, Sec. of State Rice and right up to the President himself, they do not understand the imperative of Islam!

Then she made this interesting comment:

Among the most recent waves of refugees: a growing influx of Iraqi refugees, including a disproportionate number of Iraq’s minority Christian population who fear persecution. Sauerbrey said Sunni and Shiite Muslim refugees — who also are coming to the United States and Louisville — face similar fears.

Really?  We have not heard that we are bringing a “disproportionate number” of Christian refugees to America.

Back in October we heard quite the opposite, that Muslim UN employees were ‘discouraging’ applications for resettlement from the desperate Christian Iraqis.   See our post here.

So, what is it?   Give us the numbers Asst. Sec. Sauerbrey!   How many Christian Iraqis have we resettled and how many “persecuted” Muslims have we brought to America?  How many of each are in the pipeline?  Everyone should e-mail the Asst. Secretary and politely ask for the answer.   And, if anyone gets the numbers we will post them here.    Her e-mail address is SauerbreyER@state.gov

Asst. Sec. of State Sauerbrey giving Louisville a pat on the back

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As we write this Asst. Sec. of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Ellen Sauerbrey, is in Louisville, KY—the city that is luring refugees to help big business according to the Wall Street Journal.   We previously wrote about Louisville in a post entitled, “Is big business driving immigration?”   It sure looks like this ‘pat on the back’ visit is right in line with the thinking of her boss, President George Bush and the federally funded “church” refugee employment agencies, otherwise known as volags.

Assistant Secretary Sauerbrey will meet with newly resettled refugees and with officials of the city’s resettlement offices: Kentucky Refugee Ministries and Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services. Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Inc. is the refugee resettlement office in the state of Kentucky for two national church-based programs: The Episcopal Migration Ministries and Church World Service. Catholic Charities is an affiliate of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

______

In the last 12 months, Louisville has welcomed approximately 637 refugees from some 18 different countries, including Iraq.

______

During her official visit, Assistant Secretary Sauerbrey also will meet Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Read more here.

Burundian Hutus settling in Chattanooga, TN

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The first handful of  African Hutus celebrated Thanksgiving in Chattanooga,  TN a few days ago according to a report in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.    This is one of those template stories about how everything is going great with refugees in their new home town.    Did you know we were bringing 10,000 Burundian refugees from camps in Tanzania this year?

As many as 10,000 Burundian refugees from a Hutu camp in Tanzania are being resettled in the United States this year. About 40 of them, 14 families with 17 children, have moved to Chattanooga, according to resettlement officials.

______

“Considering that they didn’t know any English when they came to the U.S., or modern technology, I think they are doing great in resettling,” said Angel Berry, case manager with Bridge Refugee Services.

______

The refugees have had to learn how to use things most of them never had seen before such as a television, a stove and a refrigerator. Ms. Berry said finding employment for the refugees has been the biggest challenge so far, “but it seems to be getting better.”

The resettlement agency mentioned here, Bridge Refugee Services is a subcontractor of Church World Service and is the same agency that joined the ACLU and CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) in a lawsuit against the Federal govt. over the Patriot Act.

Church World Service administers an agency in Africa with funding from the US State Dept.; it’s called the Joint Voluntary Agency and its  job is to find refugees to bring to America.

Tennessee has been the resettlement site of 21,135 refugees between 1983 and 2005 according to the 2005 ORR Annual report to Congress.  When you go to this Appendix note that through 2005 we hadn’t admitted any Burundians, so this is a new group of Africans coming to a town near you. 

Jacksonville, FL refugee: why are we here?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Burmese refugee quoted in the Florida Times-Union today asked the 64 thousand dollar question:  Why Jacksonsville?  Indeed, why Utica, NY, or Manchester, NH, or Erie, PA, or Emporia, KS?  

But what Thaw Ray, 34, doesn’t know is why, of all the cities where the federal government’s refugee resettlement program could have sent him, he ended up in Jacksonville.

_____

It’s a question that thousands of refugees from Afghanistan to Zaire could be asking themselves, local and national refugee experts said.

_____

The answer is partly speculation and partly a complex calculus of politics involving the United Nations, about 20 other host nations, the U.S. State Department and a group of 10 nonprofit refugee resettlement agencies. Employment, housing and climate factor in, as does a diversity that helps make the First Coast one of the most welcoming places for refugees from around the world.

_____

“It’s … a hit-and-miss kind of thing,” said Patricia Madrid, director of refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities in Jacksonville.

It’s hit or miss alright, or that’s how it appears to those of us asking that question.   There appears to be absolutely no rhyme or reason for the resettlement of refugees in this city or that, because there is apparently a total lack of leadership from the Federal government on this critical community-changing program. 

 In my opinion the program is simply run on the ‘Squack factor’—the what?  You know, the city that is silent is “welcoming” and the city that squacks is “unwelcoming”.    That is how the decision is made, or so it appears, because we have no other evidence that there is any advance planning and analysis.

Having exhausted the original gateway cities, the volags (voluntary agencies) are scurrying around the country bringing refugees here and there, hoping to “hit” on a “welcoming” place.   I’ll reiterate my recommended reform:  We need an ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT STATEMENT prepared in advance of refugees being resettled in any community.   The way it is now, it appears that the Volags are running this show to the detriment of  both community harmony and the well-being of refugees.