Office of Refugee Resettlement entangled in TX lawsuit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I meant to report this to our readers some weeks ago when I first heard about it,  but there is so much going on it slipped by me at the time.    In a nutshell, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) contracts for unacompanied illegal immigrant minors to be cared for in a facility in TX.   Some of those minors have filed a suit alleging abuse by employees of the facility and local police officers.  

Eight immigrant youths from the Hector Garza Treatment Center, a facility for unaccompanied minors, have filed a lawsuit against a number of agencies, including the Houston-based Cornell Companies, a private company that runs the treatment center.

Cornell Companies entered in a contract with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in September to use the Garza facility to house and treat immigrant minors who are determined to be mentally ill. According to Watson [attorney who filed the lawsuit], most of the children traveling across the border suffer from some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

If there is abuse those responsible must be found out and punished. 

However, this issue is not a simple one, there have been stories that illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border purposely separate from their children so that the children are assured residency in the US even if the parents are caught and returned to their home country.   I find it interesting that ORR runs these facilities since these are young illegal aliens not refugees.

Read the whole article here.

Somali refugees in Amarillo, TX, Tyson’s too, what a coincidence

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those chicken and egg stories, you know, which came first?    Did Somali refugees just happen to be resettled in Amarillo and conveniently a nearby Tyson’s Food meatpacking plant needed employees, or did Tyson’s bring the refugees to Amarillo with the help of friends in the US State Department and Catholic charitable organizations?     I don’t know, but I do know that wherever you find Tyson’s Food you find Somali refugees. 

“This is completely legal. The president sets a number of refugees who are invited to the country every year. They are given travel loans. So, the state pays for their travel, but they are expected to pay that loan,” Benita Medlock, with Refugee Services of Texas, said. “After they’ve been here a year, they get their green card and when they’ve been here for five years, they can become U.S citizens. “

Yup, travel loans to get to the US (which are rarely repaid) and on a fast track to citizenship.

Refugee Services of Texas and Catholic Family Service make sure they have their vaccinations, housing, ESL (English as a Second Language) classes and make sure they are able to enroll their kids in school. Most of them have adjusted, but others have hit some roadblocks. 

Yup, vaccinations, housing, and ESL lessons paid for by the taxpayer (while Tyson’s benefits with cheap “legal” labor).

“The biggest problems have been some of the children adjusting in school because a lot of children come in and they have never sat in a classroom. They have no idea what going to school is like,” Medlock said. “Most of the refugees are working with Tyson and the Cactus Swift plant. They like that because it’s a place that they can work and don’t have to speak English. They can make good money too.” 

Yup, good money and they don’t have to learn English.  Wait?  Then why are we paying for ESL lessons?

For regular readers of RRW, you know all about the Somali refugee issues that have plagued other US cities.  For new readers check out Emporia, KS and Shelbyville, TN posts.

 

Shock and awe: Huffington Post publishes article critical of Islam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I saw this a couple of days ago but just now read it more carefully.  I’m talking about an article written by Sam Harris critical of Islam that I would expect to see on Jihad Watch, not the Huffington Post.  What is the world coming to?  Hopefully to its senses!

Harris, author of The End of Faith, calls himself “an equal opportunity offender critical of all religious faith” so what he writes cannot be dismissed as driven by Christians and Jews. 

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for “racism” and “Islamophobia.” 

Here Harris discusses a question we have wondered about at Refugee Resettlement Watch.  Why the double-standard?  Why are we offended and thus eager to go after a fundamental Mormon sect for polygamy and alleged abuse of women, but chicken to go after the same practice by Muslim immigrants in the US.   See Judy’s post on the topic here.

The Muslim world can match the FLDS sin for sin–Muslims commonly practice polygamy, forced-marriage (often between underage girls and older men), and wife-beating–but add to these indiscretions the surpassing evils of honor killing, female “circumcision,” widespread support for terrorism, a pornographic fascination with videos showing the butchery of infidels and apostates, a vibrant form of anti-semitism that is explicitly genocidal in its aspirations, and an aptitude for producing children’s books and television programs which exalt suicide-bombing and depict Jews as “apes and pigs.”

Any honest comparison between these two faiths reveals a bizarre double standard in our treatment of religion. We can openly celebrate the marginalization of FLDS men and the rescue of their women and children. But, leaving aside the practical and political impossibility of doing so, could we even allow ourselves to contemplate liberating the women and children of traditional Islam?

 See the whole Huffington Post article and especially the comments here.

Due to cyclone, Thailand and Malaysia urged to allow more illegals

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thailand and Malaysia have been having problems recently with illegal immigrants, mostly economic migrants such as the Burmese Rohingya Muslims, attempting to enter those countries.   We reported that the Prime Minster of Thailand just last month said that country would send the illegal Rohingya to a deserted island.

Now nature has handed those immigrants a great excuse to pressure Thailand and Malaysia to open its gates to them.  A news story from the Malaysian National News Agency begins:

BANGKOK, May 6 (Bernama) — With over 10,000 people feared dead and millions made homeless by the Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, neighbouring countries like Thailand and Malaysia have been asked to provide humanitarian support by easing immigration rules to possible refugees, an exile leader said Tuesday.

Soe Aung, the spokesperson of the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) based in Thailand, said he could not rule out the possibility of thousands of people seeking refuge in other countries following the tropical cyclone that struck the military-ruled country.

“The people who are already suffering will be hard hit by this cyclone. This is a very very big devastation and the government is not prepared at all to undertake relief works,” he told a press conference here Tuesday.

Even before the cyclone, hundreds of Burmese had been seeking better life in neighbouring countries, including Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

The April issue of the Burma Bulletin produced by activists here claimed that the departures of Rohingya boat people to Malaysia has ended as the monsoon season begins while excodus of people from Arakan State to Bangladesh continues.

“We hope Malaysia and Thailand will ease restriction on these people who want to escape the devastation by not arresting them. We hope there will be some mechanism to help them,” he said. 

Note on the Rohingya.    We have been receiving correspondence (in addition to comment no. 8 at this post) from the Rohingya rights groups who are looking to third country resettlement for these fundamentalist Muslims who are being pushed out of Burma (Myanmar).   I have written to their leadership asking for more information, but they have not responded. 

I am going to create a new category called “Rohingya Reports” and instead of attempting to make heads or tails out of their case in order to post on them, I’ll put up everything I get so that at some point we will have an archive on this situation.  I predict this case will be a bellweather case for how the US government through the US State Department will treat Muslim immigration going forward. 

Refugee children arrive with health problems: follow-up spotty

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I came across a press release from the Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Rhode Island.   Several of their doctors prepared papers on the health of refugee children for presentation to a Pediatric Conference on-going in Hawaii.   

The first paper says that refugee children are arriving in greater numbers to the US with a large burden of disease and other health issues requiring followup by medical specialists.   Additionally the paper discusses the variability in screening. 

ABSTRACT: Newly arrived refugees are an increasing presence in the American health care system. Research has shown that newly arrived refugee children have an appreciable burden of disease. Little is known, however, about subspecialty referral for identified morbidities.

The objective of this study was to describe the health status and the subspecialty needs of a pediatric refugee population in the first year after resettlement. The results of the study demonstrate a high disease burden in a population of newly arrived pediatric refugees, with rates of disease similar to those found in other studies of refugee children. Although the burden of disease justifies screening at arrival, there was variability in the specific screening tests performed. The study also highlights the common subspecialty needs of this population. More than half of the patients were referred to a subspecialist, and they interfaced with a wide variety of subspecialists. A medical home that includes primary care and subspecialty providers who have an understanding of the medical needs of refugee children will likely improve health care for this vulnerable population. 

The second paper reports that vaccination schedules for preventable disease is often not followed up.  Although this abstract doesn’t say it, I suspect this is the fault of the volags who resettle refugees and in many cases do not even know where the families are in 4-6 months after arrival in the US.    For instance, the Somali refugees are nomadic and I doubt they are reporting in to the health department as they move from city to city.

ABSTRACT:

Newly arrived refugee children are at risk for vaccine preventable diseases due to incomplete immunization. Catch-up vaccination requires multiple visits to a primary care provider. There has been little research addressing vaccination status of refugee children after resettlement.

 

The objective of this study was to assess immunization rates for refugee children who have been in the United States for at least one year. Findings showed that low overall rates of complete immunization were found in a population of pediatric refugees after resettlement. These low rates were mostly due to children who were lost to follow-up within the first year. For those refugees attending a primary care clinic throughout the first year of resettlement, immunization rates were comparable to rates in the general population. The creation of a medical home for refugee children will likely increase immunization completion rates. 

Our attention was first drawn to this issue in reports from Ft. Wayne, IN last September where its health department was stretched to the max by the large numbers of refugees arriving in that city.   See our whole Ft. Wayne archive here and learn how one city has struggled to pay for this health care burden. 

To learn more about health related problems with refugees see our “health issues” category.