Tag: 2013 Annual Report to Congress

Local and state taxpayers do contribute to refugee welfare

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Over and over again we hear from political leaders and grassroots organizers looking to bring refugees into new (unsuspecting) communities that this is a federal program funded by the feds.  (LOL! as if Washington has an orchard of money trees!)
However, this short model letter-to-the-editor in Tennessee quickly dispels the notion that the resettlement of refugees in your town will cost you nothing.

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Don Barnett, a resident of Tennessee, is a longtime expert on the US Refugee Admissions Program, and is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.

The letter, by Don Barnett of Nashville, is in response to the debate on-going in the State Legislature which we reported recently, here.  Tennessee is a Wilson-Fish state (a state where a federal contractor, Catholic Charities of TN, is making decisions for the state taxpayers with no accountability to those elected to protect the state’s purse).
Barnett in The Tennessean (emphasis is mine):

The reporting on Senate Joint Resolution 467 is proof that, at the very least, something must be done to bring the refugee resettlement program out of the shadows.

So misunderstood and secretive is the program that contractors who profit from it are able to make blatantly false statements and be assured they will be reported as fact.

According to Tennessee’s state refugee coordinator, who is an employee of the main federal resettlement contractor, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the program does not cost state taxpayers a dime.

But the contractors refuse to publicize the number of refugees they place into TennCare, a program paid for by state taxpayers as well as federal taxpayers. The last time they released this data, 2011, nearly 60 percent of refugees went into TennCare upon arrival.

The 2011 report of TennCare usage is consistent with national trends. According to the latest data available — a federal study of refugees who had been in the country five years or less as of 2013*** — 47 percent of refugees were dependent on cash assistance, 74 percent were in the food stamp program, and 56 percent were in Medicaid (TennCare) or short-term federal refugee medical assistance. Twenty-three percent were in public housing or receiving public housing assistance.

There is considerable evidence pointing to long-term dependence. The federal cash welfare program SSI is a good indicator of long-term welfare dependency rates. It is generally a lifetime entitlement and usually automatically includes Medicaid and other social services. The federal study of arrivals over the previous five years found that 21 percent of refugee families had one or more members receiving SSI.

For refugees from the Middle East, 91 percent of this population was on food stamps and 32 percent of families from this group had one or more members on SSI.

Is there really no cost to the state? And what about those costs to the federal government?

This is a letter you should use as a model where you live. Not mentioned by Barnett are the costs to local and state taxpayers to educate the children and the costs to the criminal justice system (for even minor legal infractions involving court interpreters).
***The report referenced here is the Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual Report to Congress for 2013.  You can find all of the very useful reports (as of today) through 2013, here.  But once again, the ORR is breaking the law!  As of January 31, 2016 they are TWO years behind in sending reports to Congress.

Where are the reports?

In December, Senator Jeff Sessions and Rep. Marsha Blackburn sent a letter to ORR wanting them to deliver the 2014 report, see here.  And, since reports to Congress are legally required to be delivered 3 months after the close of the fiscal year, ORR should now be providing the report for 2015 as well.  Are they hiding something at ORR or is it just sheer incompetence and mismanagement? It certainly looks like a (excuse the expression) middle finger to Congress.

Breitbart reports on high welfare use by refugees from latest annual report; let Rep. Trey Gowdy know!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I am so excited!

A major news outlet is actually reporting on those often very tardy (and seemingly boring) annual reports to Congress from the Office of Refugee Resettlement!

Probably for the last few years only a handful of people in the whole country were looking at a report that I doubt anyone in Congress ever looks at.  As a matter of fact, I bet most Members of Congress and US Senators don’t even know the Refugee Program exists!

Ken Tota is the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. He puts out the reports. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/about/leadership/ken-tota

But, a new day has arrived!

Here is Breitbart’s headline:

3 in 4 Refugees On Food Stamps, Many Using Other Forms Of Public Assistance

“A strikingly high percentage of refugees to the United States use some form of public assistance, according to a government report to Congress.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Annual Report to Congress for FY2013 reveals that nearly 3 in 4 refugees were on food stamps.

Additionally, nearly half were on some form of cash assistance and more than a half were on medical assistance. More than 20 percent were on Supplemental Security Income, more than 22 percent were in public housing and nearly 20 percent were on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

The report noted that many households received more than one type of assistance and the data dealt with refugees who arrived in the U.S. between March 1, 2008 to February 28, 2013.

To be sure, assistance use varied among region of origin.

Refugees from Africa and the Middle East were the heaviest users of cash assistance at 61.9 percent and 68.3 percent respectively. Latin American refugees only used cash assistance at a rate of 8.1 percent and South Asia used about 42.7 percent. Data for Europe and the former Soviet Union was not available.

The use of food stamps — or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — also varied with 88.9 percent of refugees from Africa, 91.4 percent of Middle Eastern refugees, the Middle East, 72.9 percent of South Asia, and 36.7 percent of Latin American refugees using the benefit.

Overall, according to the report just 50 percent of refugee households in the five year window were self-sufficient. [This self-sufficiency claim is shaky as refugees can be on some forms of welfare and still be considered ‘self-sufficient’ for the purposes of this report.—ed]

So, if you are angry, what do you do?  Who is the one person that could bring about a serious review of this program?

Call Rep. Trey Gowdy and tell him to do his job and review the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program. Call! 202-225-6030

 

First have a look at the report sent to Rep. Trey Gowdy’s House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.

Here it is—the annual report for FY2013.  The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required by law to prepare these reports to Congress within just a few months of the close of the fiscal year.  So this report is only a little over a  year late.

In the past, as we often reported, they were many years late and Congress never noticed!   Here is a post from 2013 where I chronicled the flagrant violation of the law over many years.

When the bill that became the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy, Biden, Carter) was debated in Congress, critics said it would become a pipeline for poverty as more and more welfare recipients entered the US as refugees and asylees.  Guess what!  They were right!

In keeping with a recent trend here at RRW where we are attempting to identify the major actors in colonizing your towns with impoverished third worlders…..

Let Rep. Trey Gowdy know you want this law reformed or repealed! 

Of course there is a Senate Subcommittee responsible for refugees as well, headed by Senator Jeff Sessions, but let’s get this ball rolling in the House.   Gowdy probably thinks the refugee resettlement program is some benign political freebie for him, let him know it isn’t!

Here is his office contact information.   Note that he has an office in Spartanburg the latest town to be seeded!