Tag: Bhutanese refugees

90,000 Bhutanese from Nepal resettled in the West since 2007…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and they are not done!

The US has taken 75,000 of those and more are on the way.

The UN and the International Organization for Migration say that 21,000 more have expressed interest in coming to your city.

The Bhutanese are really from Nepal originally and were sent packing from Bhutan when that country wanted to keep Bhutan for its own people.  Nepal didn’t want its people back, so what the heck, we lined up to take them.  And, readers, remember! it was the Bush Administration that opened the pipeline.  Bush said 60,000 (of the 100,000) over five years was our limit!

Before we get to the short news story, please look at this map of the camps in Nepal.

When you tally up the number of residents in each camp in 2007 the total number comes to 107,700, yet this article tells us that the total number (resettled 90,000 and waiting 27,000) is closer to 10,000 more.  Either they were cranking out babies or other “refugees” (having heard the good news) have come to the camps since 2007 looking for a ticket out!

http://www.culturalorientation.net/providing-orientation/overseas/programs/rsc-south-asia/images/map-of-bhutanese-refugee-camps-in-eastern-nepal

Here is The Himalayan (90‚000 refugees from Bhutan resettled: IOM)

The resettlement of the Bhutanese refugees began in 2007. So far, over 5,800 refugees from Bhutan have been resettled in several communities across Canada, including Charlottetown, Saint-Jérôme, Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, among others. The other resettlement countries are Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The majority of resettled refugees – over 75,000 – have been taken in by the United States, the statement read.

“This is another important step towards resolving one of the most protracted refugee situations in Asia. This has been possible due to the strong support of the Government of Nepal and the excellent cooperation between the resettlement countries, UNHCR and IOM…..   [LOL!  I bet there was strong support from Nepal—they didn’t want their people back.  But, I still wonder why that was our (US) concern? Cheap labor?—ed]

[….]

According to IOM, of the 27,000 refugees remaining in the camps, about 21,000 have already expressed an interest in resettlement and are expected to depart in the coming years.

What is the lesson here?  Don’t believe the US State Department the next time they say we are only taking ____ refugees.  For example, once the doors are opened wide to Syrians there will be no end in sight!

Click here for our extensive Bhutanese refugee archive.

US resettles 75,000 Bhutanese refugees since 2007; State Department goes back on its word

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In 2007, then Asst. Secretary of State for Population Refugees and Migration, Ellen Saurbrey, said the US had agreed to take 60,000 of the 100,000 Bhutanese (really Nepali) refugees living in camps in Nepal over a five year period.  Here we are, going on 7 years, and we have now taken in 75,000 with more on the way!

Sauerbrey: 60,000 over five years.

You can read all about why we decided it was our duty (here) to do this when we had no national interest in it—other than that the UN told us to do it!  And, surely US companies, looking for cheap legal labor, were egging the Bush administration on, while the human rights industrial complex agitators cheered.  In fairness, we can’t blame Sauerbrey for what the subsequent Obama State Department is doing.

But, pay attention because they will do this (lie) about the Syrians as well. 

Once the US State Department begins the process with its resettlement contractors, the numbers will balloon way beyond what they promised in the first place.  Remember the contractors are paid by the head to resettle refugees in your cities and town.  They are always out scouting for a fresh supply!

Other countries were supposed to help, but as is the usual case, the lion’s share falls on the US.

From the International Organization for Migration (also a US contractor):

Nepal – The United States this week resettled its 75,000th Bhutanese refugee from eastern Nepal. Tilak Chand Ghimire, 44, his wife, 12-year-old daughter and 75-year-old parents, will start new lives in Akron, Ohio, where his brother resettled in 2010.

The move brings the total number of Bhutanese refugees resettled from Nepal since 2007 by IOM, in close cooperation with the Nepali government, the embassies of resettlement countries and UNHCR, to 88,770.

Get it!  We took 75,000 of the 88,770 resettled so far!

All subsequent negotiations to allow them to return to Bhutan failed and almost the whole 107,000 caseload are expected to eventually be resettled in third countries, notably the US.

We have an extensive archive on Bhutanese refugees going back to our first year writing RRW, click here to learn more.  You will see in the early posts that a large number of the Bhutanese/Nepalese camp dwellers DID NOT want to be resettled in third countries.

Burmese and Bhutanese refugees arrive in US in poverty, stay in poverty

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve written about the report from the Asian Pacific Islander Scholarship Fund previously, but thought this article about a recent briefing in Washington, DC added a few points that need to be high-lighted as well as asks the question:

Why, then, has the plight of refugees largely escaped the attention of policymakers?

I can answer the question!  When the Refugee Act of 1980 (Kennedy, Biden, Carter) was passed and signed into law, skeptics in Congress were assured we were not importing poverty and life-long users of welfare, but we have and we are.  And, more importantly anyone who points that out is immediately called a racist, xenophobic boob.  So what member of Congress would dare to open his or her mouth!

Lawmakers in Washington DC when it comes to the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 which has never been reviewed or reauthorized. These monkeys are not just the D’s! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/02/11/human-rights-first-praises-ten-open-borders-republicans-who-say-bring-in-the-refugees/

The two largest groups of refugees arriving in the US in recent years are from Asia—the so-called Bhutanese (really from Nepal originally) and the Burmese.  Here is what this latest article says about the damning study and how it impacts the Maryland, Virginia, and DC region  (although really not DC so much since it resettles only a tiny handful of refugees).

From Asian Fortune:

I wonder how many lawmakers actually bothered to listen to the briefing!

In a briefing on Capitol Hill, Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) stated that “…an overwhelming 30% of Burmese Americans live below the poverty line, compared to 13% of the Asian population living in the United States.” Del. Bordallo iterated the need to focus on education, highlighting the fact that 39% of Burmese Americans are high school dropouts, the highest of any Asian America/Pacific Islander group.  [Remember those are the kids, the next generation!—ed]

As we have pointed out ad nauseum since 2008, it’s the meatpacking and hotel industry that presses for more LEGAL cheap immigrant labor while taxpayers subsidize the workers’ lives with welfare and pay for their criminal trials/incarceration!

Several key findings may explain the challenges refugee communities face. Limited English proficiency is a socioeconomic barrier in the refugee adaptation process, and older refugees experience the greatest difficulties in educational attainment. Indeed, older refugees typically find work in low-paying jobs in industries such as meatpacking and hotel-housekeeping that offer little or no benefits, and find it difficult to improve their socioeconomic status. Moreover, the report states that those who arrive as teens or young adults also have a more difficult time adjusting.

I love the way news accounts say they ‘find work’ as if they just watched the employment ads in a local paper.  They find work because the Refugee Resettlement CONTRACTORS act as head-hunters for BIG MEAT and BIG HOTEL!

To states and cities planning to “welcome” refugees: refugee healthcare at crisis stage

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Weren’t we told Obamacare was going to take care of all the poor uninsured people?  I guess not according to this story, one more in a series, from reporter Erika Beras on refugees without health care and insurance in Pennsylvania.  Beras’ other stories are here.

From New America Media (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’).  This is a long report but well worth reading.  Is your refugee contractor going to help care for the uninsured or dump them (after the federal money runs out) on your state and city?  On your local hospital?

Wyoming, are you ready for this?

Top four resettlement states for Bhutanese refugees as of 2012: PA, TX, NY, and GA.
http://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/profiles/bhutanese/population-movements/

Just one of the featured refugees is Mira a Bhutanese refugee with lots of health problems and on a suicide watch.

Mira Chhetri knows all too well the perils of being uninsured. Chhetri, 23, came to the U.S. with her husband a couple years ago after spending most of her life in refugee camps in Nepal.

In her first few months here, she had ovarian cysts removed. The procedure was expensive, but like all of her health care needs at the time, it was covered by federal refugee medical assistance.  [US taxpayer funded!—ed]

All refugees have health care coverage for the first eight months they are in the U.S. But when the eight months are over, if they don’t qualify for Medicaid or disability or have a job that provides them health care, they are at a loss.

“After eight months they are like any poor American, low-income American,” said Leslie Aizenman, who runs Refugee Services at Jewish Family and Children’s Services, one of the four local agencies tasked with acclimating new refugees to Pittsburgh.

After their medical assistance ended, Chhetri and her husband were uninsured. They both made just above minimum — too much to qualify for Medicaid. Chhetri still had pending surgeries.

Before you read this below, know that there is nothing that precludes a resettlement contractor from raising PRIVATE funds to help offset the medical costs of those it brings to your city.

The U.S. State Department issues guidelines for what the resettlement agencies have to provide refugees. But when it comes to health care, Aizenman said it’s open to interpretation.

“As regarding medical care there are three sentences about what we must do for newly arriving refugees,” she said.

The agencies must make sure refugees get an entry physical in the first 30 days, and they have to address acute medical issues.

In Pennsylvania, before 2009, there wasn’t even a standardized physical exam. Physicians generally just checked for tuberculosis, parasites and sexually transmitted diseases. They also made sure that refugees got immunizations.   [Now that Pennsylvania gets so many refugees, they have stricter physical exam requirements.—ed]

Bhutanese refugees are committing suicide at alarmingly high rates (see our archive).

In Mira Chhetri’s case, in the last couple years, she and her husband have moved in and out of jobs, obtaining and losing health insurance along the way.

Along with her outstanding physical pain, in February, while she was uninsured, she attempted suicide. She spent a few days at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Then, she received a bill for more than $8,000 in care.

Before yours becomes a “welcoming” resettlement city, get all the facts about what the ‘diversity’ is going to cost you!

Bhutanese refugees, depressed, accuse UN of separating families

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written a lot lately about Bhutanese refugees in America with a very high rate of suicide. Here is one story I’ve had kicking around from New Hampshire that I never got around to posting.

But, this was a big surprise to me.  It seems that refugees left behind in camps in Nepal are also depressed and are developing serious mental illnesses.   This is just a reminder to the do-gooders who think bringing refugees to the West and dropping them off in troubled city neighborhoods to work as cheap laborers is always an act of kindness, consider this news:

From ekantipur.com (emphasis is mine):

 Though third-country resettlement of Bhutanese refugees has provided relief to many, the initiative has been the cause of pain for some.

Durga Devi Odari, who was once a lively, happy person, has been on medication for the past three years. Odari went into a state of depression when her parents were flown to the USA and her brother to New Zealand. Her dreams of settling abroad, for which she even divorced her husband, were shattered.

She can’t find her parents!

“I am not sure about finding my parents and I do not know if I will ever be able to find my loved ones,” said Durga.

Durga’s case is not an isolated one: many refugees awaiting resettlement are battling with depression. As the number of people in the camps decreases, depression is becoming a serious issue for those remaining.

Though the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation (TPO) has not officially confirmed the numbers of those with depression, mental disorders, and drug dependency inside the camps, the increase in activity of the TPO, which specialises in providing counselling services, has fuelled speculation that the number of those facing depression is increasing.

Refugees claim UN has separated families!

While the UNHCR has made assurances that they would not separate families without parental consent, some refugees claim that the UNHCR’s actions demonstrate otherwise.

The UNHCR has been working with TPO since 2008, two years after the initiation of the resettlement process.

According to Sanchahang Subba, Secretary of the Beldangi Camp, he receives hundreds of letters per day by those seeking the whereabouts of their loved ones.

How did we come to bring 70,000 Bhutanese to America?    

In 2007: Ms Sauerbrey blamed the refugee leaders in the camps in Nepal for the “intimidation”.

We’ve been writing about this subject since 2007 when then Asst. Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey (a Bush appointee) announced the decision to help the UN clean out its camps for Bhutanese/Nepalese in Nepal.  Here is one re-cap.   Keep in mind the UN and our State Department were never in a hurry to clean out the Palestinian “refugee” camps.

Just now I was looking around further on the history of all of this and was reminded that camp leaders were furious when the third country resettlement began and I suspect the woman in our story above, who divorced her husband to try and be resettled with her parents, was probably married to a camp political leader.  The leaders wanted to keep the pressure on Bhutan to take them back until we stepped in and brought tens of thousands of them to the US to work in meatpacking and other menial labor jobs.

Other than our need for cheap labor (and the contractors’ needs for refugee numbers because they are paid by the head!), what was our national interest in getting involved in a dispute involving Nepal and Bhutan?

Here is another writer a year ago on the same topic.

The photo is from this BBC story where Sauerbrey said sending the Bhutanese to western countries (the US took the lion’s share) was all done for “humanitarian” reasons.