Tag: Bhutanese refugees

Bhutanese refugees kill themselves because of lack of jobs; let’s import more immigrant labor!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve reported previously on the high suicide rate in the Bhutanese population in the US, but to be honest, they killed themselves in camps at about the same high rate (or so this researcher says) as here in America.

Nevertheless, this latest news on the statistic highlights the refugees’ lack of employment in the US as one factor.

Bhutanese refugees were originally from Nepal and could have been resettled there, but instead the US pledged to take 60,000 of them and disperse them around America.  They were not in danger in their ancestral homeland.

So, let’s get this straight, Islamist Grover Norquist has joined forces with the likes of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (and the rest of the federal contractors, it’s just that HIAS has been the most in the news on amnesty) to push for more legal immigrant labor.

I’ve said on many previous occasions that the US State Department and federal contractors are really headhunters for the meatpacker and hotel industry among others (disguised as humanitarians)!

Amnesty for illegal aliens and increased immigrant worker visas is being largely driven by big business interests in need of plentiful cheap labor ably represented by Norquist.

So if we need more immigrant labor—why are refugees unemployed? 

From Ekantapur.com (emphasis mine):

 There have been 16 cases of suicide among Bhutanese refugees residing in the US as of February 2012, according to a report.

The report commissioned by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has shown an increasing rate of suicide among the refugees. It noted that the Bhutanese resettlement process coincided with the global financial recession, ‘making the typical refugee problem of unemployment especially bad.’

The global suicide rate per 100,000 people—how suicide rates are calculated—is 16, and the rate for the general US population is 12.4, says the report.

The Bhutanese suicide rate is much higher—20.3 among US-resettled ones and 20.7 in the refugee camp population in Nepal.

[….]

The rate of depression among the Bhutanese refugees surveyed was 21 percent, nearly three times that of the general US population (6.7 percent). In addition to depression, risk factors for suicide included not being the family’s provider, feelings of limited social support, and having family conflict after resettlement.

Post-migration difficulties that the victims faced offer clues about their possible motivations, Preiss wrote.

Most are unable to communicate with their host communities, while many were also plagued by worries about the family back home and the difficulty of maintaining cultural and religious traditions, she added.“Most of the victims were unemployed, while a few had previous mental health diagnoses and mental health conditions were probably significantly under-diagnosed in the camps where medical care was basic at best.”

Iraqis want stuff, we want jobs!

“Money, money, money,” Som Nath Subedi offers as an explanation, according to Preiss’ article. Subedi, a Bhutanese case manager in Portland, Oregon and one of the first community leaders to highlight the suicide s, says the intense poverty of the Bhutanese refugee population may be a factor. “Iraqis, when they get here, they start looking for a house or a car,” he says.

“We start looking for a job, how to pay rent, how to get bills paid,” Preiss quoted Subedi as saying.

The solution is—more immigrant laborers?

A brief history of how we came to get 60,000 plus, largely Hindu refugees from Nepal

The King of Bhutan wanted Bhutan for his own people.  The refugees we call Bhutanese are really Nepalese people who for generations had migrated into Bhutan.  They were then pushed out of Bhutan by the Bhutanese government and back to Nepal and put in UN refugee camps where they were cared-for for twenty plus years.  In 2007, the State Department and the UN began scattering them around the world inspite of the fact that many had to be strong-armed to give up their cultural roots.

You might liken this to the situation with the Palestinians where we in the West have paid billions of dollars to keep the Palestinians right there in camps for more than 50 years!  But, for some still unknown reason no significant pressure was put on Bhutan or Nepal (countries that we should have some financial power over) to take these people in.

So, in 2007, then Bush Asst. Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey opened the door for us to take 60,000 from camps and spread them around the US.  We have now exceeded 60,000 and are on our way to 70,000.

For our whole archive on Bhutanese refugees go here.   In addition to the suicide problem, the Bhutanese have been victims of crimes and the most egregious one of late was the death of a Bhutanese refugee at the hands of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, here.

Media silence on the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell includes silence on death of refugee at his hands

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Bhutanese refugee Karnamaya Mongar and her husband.
Photo: AP

Fox News (Bret Bair) is reporting tonight on the increasingly obvious avoidance by the mainstream media of the “mass murder” trial of the Philadelphia abortion doctor.  Here is just one report from Newsbusters pointing out the media silence (warning: photos are graphic).

I still want to know why the additional silence about the  married Bhutanese refugee woman, Karnamaya Mongar, who also died at his hands.

A refugee, who had reportedly only been in the country for 4 months, didn’t speak English and lived in Virginia, did not ‘find her way’ to Gosnell’s Philadelphia office without the help of her resettlement contractor—who was it?  And, who helped the mother of three decide she needed an abortion in the first place?

See my most recent stories on the case here and here.

Are other refugees being taken for abortions?

Here is another account of Mongar’s death from the trial.

Comment worth noting: Clarkston, Georgia saturated; refugee flow is being reduced

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Mr. Parker has sent us this news from Clarkston (below).    We previously mentioned what had happened to the town that was memorialized in the warm and fuzzy book—“Outcasts United”.

I titled my post at the time “Propaganda United” partly because it was being read across the country, including in Maryland, as one of those ‘diversity is beautiful’ One Books.

Debris from a condominium, left, in Brannon Hill (near Clarkston) remains five years after it was leveled. Units in several buildings, right, are in such poor repair that they have been boarded up for years. No money because area populated by Somalis says accompanying story. Photos by Andrew Cauthen

You might want to see what the General Accounting Office said about community overload in a report that came out  in July 2012. Clarkston is given as an example of how communities aren’t properly warned or prepared (see page 12-14).  Indeed no one really knew what was happening beginning in the 1990’s when refugees began “finding their way” to the town.   GAO tells us obliquely that one of the reasons the resettlement contractors don’t properly alert local governments and other “stakeholders” about the arrival of refugees is that they fear the local governments (and citizens generally) will object!

Is Georgia one of those red states being turned blue by demographics?   According to the 2009 ORR Annual Report to Congress (the most recent report we have due to ORR breaking the law and not producing the 2010, 2011, or 2012 reports!) Georgia was in the top ten states for refugee resettlement.  The total number of resettled refugees for 2009 was 3,258 (number does not include secondary migrants!) which doesn’t come close to the enormous numbers that went to California, Texas, and New York for example.

From that report we learned that only 24% of Georgia refugees able and willing to work found employment that year (down from 45% in FY 2008).   And, 51% of Georgia’s refugees are on some form of welfare (in California 80% are on welfare!).

Clarkston moratorium (on new resettlement, secondary migrants still coming)

This is what Mr. Parker (who helps refugees assimilate and survive in the Atlanta area) reported yesterday in response to my post on Red States turning Blue.  He says the Bhutanese/Nepalese are turning the area around Clarkston into Little Nepal and will improve it.

Thought you may want to know that Georgia is reducing refugee resettlement by 20%
and the city of Clarkston essentially asked for a moratorium.

The agencies agreed to only place folks in Clarkston if they already have relatiives there, as the city feels their resources are overextended.. What they do not realize is that many Bhutanese are moving to Clarkston from other states to be with family and because of the desire to be in the largest Bhutanese Nepali community in the US. We even had refugees from suburban Roswell with great schools and low crime move to Clarkston. As an experiment one agency placed 6 Bhuatanese in Roswell. Three have moved to Clarkston and one is going to Pennsylvania. What is ignored by the politicians is that there is a great economic benefit in Clarkston due to new ethnic businesses and that many families are buying homes in the area and utilizing stores in Clarkston.

If refugees are not placed in Clarkston, then there will be tons of empty apartment as whites will not move there and it becomes an African American ghetto. Also many refugees live in unincorporated DeKalb Count with a Clarkston address. Yes-our area is becoming a little Nepal,but there has been minimal crime committed by this population although some of the young men (5) have committed burglaries. No food stamp frauds either.

People also move to Atlanta for a better climate more similar to Nepal, a low cost of living and the truly international mix here. I am not surprised that other Southern cities are popular as it is no different then the rush by non refugees to the south over the last 20 years. I do not see any conspiracy by the way, I think the fact that is cheaper to live in Republican Southern states is the reason for placements and migration

On a sad note we had another Bhutanese suicide* in Clarkston-second in 3 months and 21st in the US. A young father stabbed himself to death. He was being evicted and was outstanding with rent for 3 months. He had gambling and drinking issues. He was Christian and his church was helping but no one saw this coming. The suicide rate amongst Nepali Bhutanese is twice the US average and was high in the camps.

There was actually a conference call with ORR on this issue on the same day that he died. Very hard to know how to predict/prevent this and suicides seem to be limited to this community mainly because of concerns about money, loss of community, family displacement all over the US and lack of language and awful jobs in the chicken plants, replacing Hispanics who left.

The photo is from this story about how the refugees flooding into Clarkston in previous years have driven out the white residents and brought more poverty and decay.  I first wrote about it here.  Don’t expect to see any balanced reporting any time soon in the mainstream media (including on Fox News) on changing demographics through refugee resettlement.

* We have written about the high Bhutanese suicide rate here.  Culture shock?  Twenty years of being cared for by the UN in camps in Nepal (in their own culture) didn’t prepare them for the joys of American cheap apartment living, bills to pay (like those airfare loans) and meatpacker employment.  Does it ever occur to the wizards at the State Department (Asst. Secretary of State for PRM in 2007, Ellen Sauerbrey, announced that we would take 60,000 Bhutanese over 5 years, a number we have already surpassed) that some people are better off being left in their own cultures and may not survive in America?

Suicide rate high in US Bhutanese refugee communities

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I told you about Director Eskinder Negash’s year-end review for the Office of Refugee Resettlement here and here recently.  There was one paragraph in his report that I noted to follow up on.  It was this:

ORR has been working with CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to try to understand what is triggering suicides in Bhutanese refugee communities, undertaking an Epi-Aid study focusing on eleven communities in four states: (1) Arizona (Phoenix and Tucson), (2) Georgia (Atlanta Metropolitan Area, including Atlanta, Clarkston, Decatur, and Stone Mountain), (3) New York (Buffalo, and Syracuse) and (4) Texas (Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston). Results of the study were shared with ORR in October, and ORR is following up on CDC recommendations and next steps.

Here is the report from the CDC dated October 2012.  Sixteen newly resettled Bhutanese/Nepali refugees killed themselves in a three year period alarming the social engineers at the ORR in Washington DC, and within a year of getting to the US.   Researchers had data on 14 of those and interviewed family members to try to ascertain why they killed themselves (13 by hanging).  The reasons were in order of importance:  language barriers, worry about family back home, separation from family, and difficulty in maintaining cultural and religious traditions.

You will have to go to the report for the CDC’s recommendations which include more mental health screening for refugees, building support in communities among families etc, and expanding mental health facilities for refugees.

Just a reminder to readers that there was much angst and consternation in the refugee camps in Nepal where these refugees had lived for going on two decades about coming to the US in the first place.  We wrote about it on several occasions as the great emptying of camps began in 2007.  We reported last month that in the ensuing years we have resettled over 60,000 Bhutanese/Nepali people, so that meatpackers would have some more good docile workers, the contractors could get your taxpayer dollars, the Dems could get more voters and Americans could feel all warm and fuzzy about giving them this opportunity (I just threw that last part in there because I’m so cynical now!).

And, just so you know, some Bhutanese are doing well. Here is one glowing report from Pittsburgh, PA.   But, oops! it is the location of one of the suicides as we reported here in 2010 (Sheesh, I googled Pittsburgh Bhutanese and my own post came up!).

US exceeds original goal—admits over 60,000 “Bhutanese refugees” since 2007

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Nevermind that the “refugees” are not Bhutanese, but in fact are Nepalis.  They are originally from Nepal, had settled in Bhutan (probably illegally) and then Bhutan gave them the boot (wanting to keep Bhutan for true Bhutanese).  Nepal, not an evil terrorist country, didn’t want their kinsmen back, so they lived in camps and the UN and the US State Department under George Bush said, what the heck we’ll take 60,000.

Remember Bush is an Open Borders guy and I suspect, although soft-hearted on immigrants generally, was largely driven by financial backers looking for cheap labor.  Think about it, with captive LEGAL refugee laborers, big businesses keep wages low and their employees are additionally supported through taxpayer-funded “social services” to bring their living standards up (since their wages won’t do it alone).  What a racket!  (But, I’m digressing).

We have followed this story from its earliest days when the “refugees” proclaimed that they didn’t want to be resettled and dispersed around the world (Let us live together here with our brothers and sisters),  but wanted to work things out with Bhutan and Nepal.  Why we ever got into this squabble between neighbors is beyond me, but it was Bush’s then Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration who ultimately gave the green light, here.   And, just as I said in my previous post about TPS, these really are economic migrants, they aren’t people being persecuted in their home country.

Now, the UN (which loves moving people around the world) is celebrating that they have dispersed 75,000 economic migrants to mostly the US.   The story I’m posting below is confusing but it appears that we have now resettled 63,400.     As recently as September the number was 60,000, here.   I’ll bet you a buck this isn’t the final number!

December 13 2012,  Kathmandu Nepal:  Claiming to have resettled around 75,000 Bhutanese refugees from Nepal, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed the number in a joint statement. Under one of the largest and successful resettlement programs, more than 63,400 refugees were resettled in United States, 3,837 in Australia, 5,296 in Canada, 724 in Denmark, 710 in New Zealand, 326 in Netherlands, 546 Norway, and 257 in United Kingdom where Yagandra Kami a six year old boy became the 75,000 refugee to be part of major resettlement program. The Program was launched in November 2007.

Stephane Jaquemet, UNHCR Representative in Nepal said, ““This is a tremendous achievement, where we have successfully placed 75,000th Bhutanese refugee from Nepal to the United States [75,000th to US?—-ed] on Wednesday for the third country settlement. It has only been possible due to the incredible generosity of the resettlement countries, the resilience of the refugees, the great support of the Government of Nepal, and the exemplary partnership with IOM.”

[…..]

The Bhutanese ethnic cleansing took place in early 1990s, where hundreds of thousand Nepali origin Bhutanese were forced for exile. [It would be like us sending Mexicans back to Mexico, and Mexico rejecting them—ed] They were forced to be limited in overcrowded refugee camps in eastern Nepal with no progress toward a resolution of their plight. Many rounds of bilateral talks between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan could not resolve the issue.  [Why didn’t we just tell Nepal to repatriate its own people!–ed]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as binding international treaties signed by Bhutan, ensures the right of the refugees to return to their country. During this long period of exile, however, Bhutan has not allowed a single refugee back. In midst of that the US and other supporting agencies started the resettlement program which has led in ensuring at least a quality of life for the refugee.

Quality of life?   Just now I was looking back at reports of all the problems the mostly Buddhist Bhutanese have experienced in America. Yes, my critics will tell me many others are doing just fine.   One post is about a Baltimore murder of a Bhutanese refugee, here.  And in that post I said this:

I just typed ‘Bhutanese murdered’ into the search function here at RRW and up came this archive of all the problems the Bhutanese are experiencing—others murdered, one killed by an abortion doctor, inner city beatings, suicides, and the list goes on.