Sources for State information on Refugee programs

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to the sleuthing of citizens of Emporia, KS,  we are learning more things we didn’t know that should help others of you trying to understand this complicated Federal program called Refugee Resettlement.   We have maintained all along that this program is becoming increasingly contentious because local citizens are not fully briefed about the Federal plans that will change the character of their cities and towns.  Citizens then become justifiably angry because they are not given the facts and have to dig for them themselves.

This information was made available to citizens of Emporia in the last couple of days, we should have seen it sooner.   The Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement, has a division called the Division of Refugee Assistance (DRA) whose mission is described below:  

The Division of Refugee Assistance (DRA) was created to oversee and provide guidance to State-administered programs that provide assistance and services to refugees, asylees, certain Amerasian immigrants, Cuban and Haitian Entrants, and Victims of Human Trafficking (henceforth referred to collectively as “refugees”). DRA monitors program planning, provision of services, and provides technical assistance to ensure compliance with federal regulations governing the delivery of refugee assistance and services, including cash and medical assistance.

_______

MISSION

DRA provides direction to States to ensure that refugees are provided assistance and services through State-administered programs that enable them to become employed and economically self-sufficient as soon as possible after their arrival in the United States.

You can read a summary of social service programs and grants programs for refugees here.

Go here for recent state grant figures, number of cases managed and to find your state’s Refugee office. Our previous post on this database is here.

Will answers be forthcoming in Emporia, KS tomorrow?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update November 29th:  As soon as we get the paper from Emporia we will let you know details of the standing room only meeting last night. 

The citizens of Emporia, Kansas have been asking questions for weeks and hope that tomorrow evening’s meeting and a Thursday meeting with their Congressman will bring some much-needed answers as to why their small city might become a Somali immigrant magnet.   Today’s Emporia Gazette editorial says,

A few people, admittedly, are upset because the refugees are black and because they are Muslims. There is nothing that can be done to make those people happy. The Somalis will stay black and they will stay Muslim. It is who they are.

——

More people are uncomfortable because it seems to them that the Somalis are not making enough of an effort to assimilate into the community. Those folks might find some comfort in a better understanding of the assimilation process. Except in rare cases, assimilation is a process that takes at least a generation. The first generation always has its hands full trying to feed and clothe its families and make some sense out of the strange new culture that surrounds it. It is the children, not the adults, who eventually assimilate.

This last is wishful thinking.  Sure some of the next generation will go on to bigger things and we hope they do, but I think one need only look at Paris burning tonight to see the folly in this thinking.  Those African  Muslim youths rampaging at this moment are the children of  immigrants France brought in for the cheap labor.  They are the next generation!  Isn’t this kind of a crap shoot, what makes us think that this would never happen in America?

But what bothers Emporians most is what seems to be a complete lack of any effort by local, state or federal government or by Tyson Fresh Meats to prepare the community to receive the refugees. When the Somalis arrived, there were no organized support services prepared to receive them and no one with a clear idea of what would be required of the community.

This is the same old story we are hearing everywhere.  I hope the citizens of Emporia get the answers they need in the next couple of days, but I won’t hold my breath.   My prediction is that the government/business/non-profit groups will talk peoples’ ears off and the questions will go largely unanswered.   Please read about the Delphi Technique here so that you will be better prepared for this meeting,  actually it might even give you a chuckle as you watch the strategy unfold before your eyes.

Kind of ironic that this should appear in the Israel News today:  “Judge Sentences Somali Immigrant in US Shopping Mall terror plot.”

For a complete list of all the stories in the Emporia Gazette on this issue go here.

To get an understanding of what the folks of Emporia are saying, go to this unique feature at the Gazette, a public forum exclusively for this topic here.  Kudos to the Gazette for giving citizens an opportunity to speak!

Atlas Shrugs wrote about the Somali refugee issue here today.

Also, we have a new category entitled “Emporia, KS controversy” so that readers can more readily find all of our coverage of this important case.  

Hot off the presses from Emporia, KS

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know we haven’t renamed RRW the Emporia Refugee Watch (yet!), but there is so much interesting news being made there we can’t stay away.   Here is the latest from the Emporia Gazette today.  

Since this article is chock full of information, I’m going to focus on a couple of points we need to make over and over again, especially because we have hundreds of new readers every day.   This is what caught my eye in the piece today (the discussion is about direct resettlements from  foreign countries vs. secondary migrations within the US of previously resettled refugees):

Direct resettlements typically occur in metropolitan areas that can absorb diverse populations, she said, citing St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit as examples.

_____

“That’s why places like Emporia would never be considered,” Lewis said.

_____

Lewis said that Catholic Charities receives no payment for helping refugees resettle.

Ms. Lewis is the director of Catholic Charities in Kansas City and I am sure she is not misspeaking on purpose. As a matter of fact,  in my reading lately (piles on the floor and over my desk), I learned that many of the agencies both government and non-profit, international and within the US have no idea what some of the others are doing and it is causing internal concern and strife.

On Ms. Lewis first two points, we reported to you just a few days ago that in fact we are resettling refugees in medium and small cities throughout the US.  See our post on the Brookings Institution report.   I wouldn’t call Hagerstown, MD, Cayce, SC, or Erie, PA “large metropolitan areas.” 

Then on her last point that they receive no payments for resettling refugees.   Her organization is a subcontractor of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops which according to this information compiled by Gringomalo’s blog (see also our post on his research) received 89% of its funding ($39 million) from the federal government in 2005.  And, according to its own annual report Catholic Charities of Kansas City received 46% of its annual budget in 2006 from government grants.    Is none of this money used for refugees in any way?

We have had an “Open Invitation” page on the top bar of RRW from the beginning on which we ask for corrections from anyone in the refugee industry for anything we post.  We never get any corrections, thus we can only assume  that our facts and figures are accurate.

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. 

Somali former refugee charged in scam, imam skipped country

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

 Correction!   I am so sorry to have misread this story earlier, it is not the Somali charged in this government case who slipped out of the US, it’s the imam hired by Hassan (the Somali) who skipped town when the heat was turned up. 

This is a story that has everything from taxpayer rip-offs to terrorism.  Emporians especially take note!  Although this was reported way back in April by Channel 4 News in Nashville, TN, we are just seeing it now (news still does travel slowly).  Somali refugee gets federal grants, has legal problems and an imam connected with the case skips out of the country.   Here is a part of the account, but every bit of it is interesting, so read the whole thing here.

According to annual reports, the Somali Center in south Nashville receives $400,000 per year in taxpayer dollars from federal, state and local governments.

_____

But what has some asking questions is how the center’s executive director, Abdizirik Hassan, is still getting grants after pleading guilty to making false statements during a government investigation.

_____

In 2001, Hassan’s Nashville bank was shut down by counter-terrorism investigators because they said the bank was linked to Al-Barakat. Al-Barakat is a bank and wiring transfer service that is linked to al-Qaida, according to investigators.

_____

Hassan was arrested and charged with felony illegal banking.

_____

While out on bond, Hassan and the Somali Center were awarded a grant in the amount of nearly $500,000 by the same federal government that indicted him.

_____

The grant came from the U.S. Office of Minority Health.

______

The grant was intended to help African refugees with mental health, to help stop domestic violence and to stop the practice of female genital mutilation, which health officials said is still happening in the U.S.

What does Imam Ibrahim have to say about all this?  As of this report in April no one could ask him.

Second-hand sources said that Ibrahim now lives in Kenya and there are no answers for his sudden departure from Nashville.

Additional thoughts on Nov. 25th:   A few days ago we had a guest post suggesting that Muslim refugees were coming to certain cities drawn by imams who practice the salafist form of Islam, that is the Sharia law-loving form.  Refugees are free to move from their original resettlement cities within a few months of arrival in the US and the assumption has been that they move for jobs or to be with more of their countrymen, maybe there is more to it.   This Nashville imam (above) sounds like he might have had something to hide.

Remember Imam Hendi:  30 Muslim mayors by 2015!

For another scam involving a volag (non-profit group) and federal money,  see our coverage of Nikki Tesfai in California.