Update: First Syrian family to arrive in Greensboro living in hotel, here.
This is follow-up story to our post of a few days ago where we learned that Syrians are arriving in the Triad area of North Carolina. Resettlement contractor World Relief/Evangelicals expects 30-100 this next year (the fiscal year begins October 1).
The Triad area of North Carolina—a major resettlement site.
Our top post for the last six days is this one about the State Department spokesperson’s comment that thousands of Syrians had been selected by the UN for resettlement to the US. The largest percentage will be Sunni Muslims.
Refugees are not self-sufficient in 90 days as World Relief says below, but have been connected to “services.” See ourfact sheet for the list of social services (aka welfare) available to refugees. They will be deemed self-sufficient even as they remain on most forms of welfare.
Organizations such as World Relief and Church World Service work with the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees from around the world. [Both “church” organizations are actually federal contractors.–ed]
Timbie said World Relief High Point typically resettles 400 to 450 refugees in the High Point and Winston-Salem area each year. He expects to assist anywhere from 30 to 100 refugees from Syria in the next year.
The government provides money to help these families make it through their first few months in the United States. World Relief employees provide job skill and language training and help the refugees find jobs with local companies and connect to services.
“Our job is to make them self-sufficient within 90 days,” Timbie said.
That does not mean that they are on their own, Timbie said. It just means they are not relying on that upfront money.
Our post of late last week where we reported that the US State Department is saying that thousands of Syrian refugees have been chosen by the UN to be resettled to your towns and cities went through the roof with thousands and thousands of readers passing it around.
They are probably flowing into other small cities as well, but the Triad offices of contractors Church World Service and World Relief-Evangelicals (two of the big nine!) seem especially adept at getting news stories planted. (Just last month see World Relief here and Church World Service in North Carolina, here.)
By the way, back in 2010 there was a huge controversy in this part of North Carolina about too many refugees with lousy care. We wrote a three part story about the problem, which begins with this post. Local churches asked that the flow be slowed. LOL! the series showed what a dog-eat-dog-world the world of federal refugee contracting can be!
GREENSBORO — The first in the current wave of Syrian refugees will arrive in the Triad this week, representatives with the organizations helping to resettle them said Friday.
Sarah Ivory, Church World Service director in the Triad, says they are working with the local Islamic Center. Photo: http://cwsgreensboro.org/2012/03/05/40under40/
A Syrian family of seven will arrive on Tuesday and will settle in Greensboro, said Sarah Ivory, the director of refugee and immigration services with Church World Service in Greensboro. The family includes five children, the youngest just 5 months old, Ivory said. The oldest is 10 years old.
Andrew Timbie, the office director for World Relief’s High Point office, said his organization is helping to resettle a family in Winston-Salem. That family also will arrive next week, although he would not provide the exact date.
“This is the first of many that we anticipate,” Timbie said of Syrian refugees.
Church World Service and World Relief work with the U.S. State Department and the United Nations to resettle refugees.
Ivory said the family coming to Greensboro is currently living in Jordan. Timbie said on Friday that he did not have a lot of background information about the family his office is assisting.
The organizations receive government money to help give refugee families fresh starts, but the goal is to help the families become self-sufficient, with the help of other community agencies. [At least they are admitting they do it with government money, something we never saw reported in the early years of writing RRW.—ed]
[….]
Ivory said Church World Service is working with the Islamic Center of Greensboro, the Greensboro Jewish Federation and the local Syrian-American community to provide other resources to the family, such as hot meals upon arrival, clothing and diapers.
Is there any connection between Obama wooing big businesses to get on board with his threat to go-it-alone on immigration and the spate of stories we are seeing about how much businesses love their refugee labor force? I wonder.
First we note this must-read articleat Politico about the Obama Administration working to expand its plans for an executive branch-driven immigration overhaul by sweetening the pot for big businesses looking for tech labor and cheap labor (in the case of refugees it is cheap and captive labor!).
Tamar Jacoby: It’s all about promoting the free flow of labor into the US. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2013/02/13/washington-lobbyist-for-big-business-the-basic-goal-is-to-promote-the-free-flow-of-labor-into-the-usa/
Public opposition has been building against more immigration generally as the 2014 election season advances in light of the illegal alien invasion on the southern border this summer. However, if Obama can get big business on board, and thus blunt any establishment Republican opposition to changes in immigration policy (law!), it could be a winner for the Dems and for big business this fall.
Representatives from Oracle, Cisco, Fwd.US, Microsoft, Accenture, Compete America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among those present at a wide-ranging Aug. 1 session…
Later in the story we hear from Tamar Jacoby that she doesn’t want the needs of employers who want low-skilled laborers left out of the discussion. See also Jacoby with Grover Norquist in 2009 NumbersUSA expose’.
Why so many stories lately about the refugee resettlement contractors*** serving as employment services for businesses?
The contractors previously kept a pretty low profile about their services to businesses large and small (they especially like meatpacking companies and the hotel/service sector).
Just last week the Washington Post wrote glowingly about the role resettlement contractor Church World Service is playing in bringing refugee laborers to North Carolina, here. I wonder do the businesses give CWS a finders-fee for bringing them laborers?
Now here is the Winston-Salem Journaltelling us how much another contractor, World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals) is doing for North Carolina businesses. It is a win-win—contractors get to wear the white hat of humanitarianism while making money! Is World Relief in competition for refugee bodies with CWS?
World Relief’s Andrew Timbie begs US State Department in Washington for more refugees for NC. Remember readers that contractors are paid by the head for everyone they resettle.
KERNERSVILLE — The work here at EFI, which makes architectural glass and aluminum, takes strength and skill. Glass sheets can weigh as much as 155 pounds and the measurements must be exact. On a summer morning, the plant floor is noisy and hot.
In the company’s early years, it had trouble finding and keeping reliable employees. But these days, when Jeanne Clary, the company’s human resources director, has a vacancy she calls the World Relief office in High Point, a local refugee resettlement agency.
“I will almost always call World Relief first,” said Clary.
[….]
Andrew Timbie, the director of the High Point office of World Relief, has spent the summer making a pitch to his national office to send refugees this way. He expects to resettle 450 refugees in the next year, with a handful from Syria. “Generally speaking it’s a very good area for refugee resettlement,” he said. “The weather’s good. It’s warm. There’s a newcomer’s school. There are clinics here. There are lots of jobs for refugees.”
With the federal and state welfare goodies coming their way, businesses don’t have to feel bad about the low wages that are discouraging American workers.
The federal government provides refugees with a stipend that lasts for three months and extended federal benefits for six more months. They are also eligible for state aid, such as food stamps and Medicaid. But Timbie’s first goal is to help refugees find a job. In spite of North Carolina’s unemployment rate of 6.4 percent, Timbie said he can count on a handful of employers other than EFI that are eager to hire refugees, among them Ralph Lauren Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc..
LOL! Tyson Foods is no surprise, they hire refugees and change American small towns throughout the mid West and South. But, see Ralph Lauren goes to North Carolina, here— says they will bring high-skilled jobs. So how do the third-world refugees fit in? Are they going to clean the offices at night?
There is much more in the W-S Journal, so please read it.
We havemany posts hereon North Carolina. You might wish to review several from 2010 in which contractors (the Lutherans at that time) in North Carolina came under fire for overloading some locations and then not taking proper care of the refugees they resettled.
Recently the Center for Immigration Studies released a report on Tennessee (we reported on it here) about how immigrant employment was responsible for most of the job growth in that state, and then today I see they have another study out, this time on Florida. Here is how a piece by Ryan Lovelace atNational Review Onlinebegins:
A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies finds that the majority of the net increase in employment among Florida’s working age population since the first quarter of 2000 has gone to legal and illegal immigrants. Florida ranked second in the nation in employment growth among 16 to 65 year olds since the first quarter of 2000, CIS says, but still ranks 34th nationwide in labor-force participation of its native-born population in the same age range.
They need to do a study on North Carolina if they haven’t already!
One of the quasi-government/quasi-religious groups, Church World Service, is busy supplying refugee laborers for North Carolina companies and now they are whining again about cuts in taxpayer dollars that allow them, a non-profit ‘church’ group, to bring in workers to compete with native workers.
CWS CEO Rev. John McCullough (left with scarf) and other “faith” leaders pushing for amnesty in Washington. http://www.interfaithimmigration.org/2013/04/12/nationally-renowned-faith-leaders-speak-at-a10-time-is-now-immigrants-rights-rally/
Here is the Washington Post helping Church World Service get its cry heard for more money (from the US Treasury’s money tree), in the wake of the unaccompanied minors’ border invasion:
“We measure our success as a company by the number of rice cookers we have,” Lindsay Hancock, Creative Snacks’ director of business administration, says only half-jokingly. The company has four now.
All 30 full-time employees on the plant floor are refugees. Many came through the Church World Service resettlement agency and its Greensboro employment training program. But that program’s future remains uncertain because, in the world of immigration and refugee policy, it turns out that the Mexican border and all its politics can run right through a North Carolina snack plant full of refugees.
File this under unintended consequences: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement allocates funds to programs for refugees and unaccompanied alien children. Earlier this year, when the number of children fleeing Central America and Mexico for the United States started skyrocketing, the office reallocated more money to help address a mounting crisis at the border. That money — $94 million — came directly out of refugee programs and services. Taking the hit were grants that help refugees with employment, preventative health services and adaption to America and its school system.
Don’t make us choose between refugees and illegal immigrants! WE want money for everybody (our salaries too)!
For state refugee coordinators and immigration advocates, the crisis at the border has meant walking a tightrope: Do not make refugees bear the cost of Congress’s refusal to provide more funding. Do not pit refugees against immigrant children. Do not make us choose one or the other.
State refugee coordinators have been scrambling to figure out how to avoid layoffs and keep their health-care, educational and employment services intact.
Then this (below) is what jumped out at me! “Creative Snacks” DEPENDS on Church World Service to supply it with workers and the owners have NO REAL ANSWER AS TO WHY THEY DON’T HIRE AMERICANS.
I have a few theories and one is that there are tax breaks of some sort for the employers when they hire refugees and what the refugees can’t afford through their salaries comes to them via various social services and training supplied by you! (There are even special savings plans for refugees for such things as cars, homes and education where the government matches their savings.) So, the company can keep salaries low—you take care of everything else. And, most importantly, refugees are basically trapped employees with nowhere else to go.
The WaPo continues (We want to know why is this the responsibility of the US taxpayer?):
“We depend upon Church World Service to help us find people,” Hancock says. “The loss of funding would have an immediate impact on our business.”
Yes, Hancock says, the company could hire the native-born, but Creative Snacks’ owners, Marius and Hilary Andersen, are committed to providing opportunities to refugees, who, by definition, have been wrenched from their homelands and who, in that loss, must place their faith in a new country. [So, they have been wrenched by the UN and Church World Service from their homeland, what does that have to do with answering the question about why the Andersens don’t hire native North Carolinians?—ed]
CWS isn’t as bad as some of their fellow contractors*** in terms of the percentage of federal dollars they gobble up in any given year (most contractors are up in the 90% range). Their 2013 Form 990 says they took in $74,101,599 and that $43,999,257 came from you as government grants. That’s about 59.3 %.
Doing well by doing good!
Their CEO, Rev. John McCullough makes a cool $285,830 in salary from CWS (and related activities). Five other employees are in the 6-figure salary range. Maybe if the shortfall continues they could cut those salaries down a bit and help the refugees more. (just saying!)
You should know that CWS lobbied for so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform which we all know helped inspire the border surge.
This is just one of those warm and fuzzy articles we find ourselves needing to ‘balance.’ It is all about how Syracuse, NY has become a primary resettlement site. In fact, it is officially a “preferred resettlement site” according to the feds.
Puff pieces like this usually run when there is trouble afoot. News outlets work with the resettlement agency to get ‘news’ like this out—it is meant to make any complaining citizens feel like they are in the minority and force them to shut up. In other words, if you aren’t “welcoming” you are mean-spirited and surely a racist boob!
Helen Malina, refugee contractor: We are a welcoming city!
The article is here at Time Warner Cable News (CNY’s refugee community thrives as global refugee numbers climb):
But when a refugee is finally cleared, the highest number end up in the United States, and Syracuse has emerged as a prime city for resettlement.
Experts say that’s because of New York State’s robust public assistance programsand a combination of Syracuse’s relatively low cost of living and inviting community.
“We really are a welcoming city and I think most of the communities that have been resettled here have been well integrated into the Syracuse community family,” said Malina. [Helen Malina head of the local contractor—ed]
Out of the approximately 70,000 refugees that come to the United States every year, Central New York receives about 1,200 of them. About half of those are helped by the InterFaith Works Center for New Americans. The center helps refugees find homes and jobs, learn English and adjust to American society. However, the transition can be a difficult one….
Read it all if you feel like it.
Here is one story about the generosity of the taxpayers of New York and this Interfaith gang. A new Iraqi refugee came with hypertension. He had emergency heart surgery and spent the next six weeks comatose and in intensive care while others cared for his wife and kids. Imagine what that must have cost the generous citizens of Syracuse and New York state!
RRW owes a lot to Church World Service because it was they and their subcontractor—Virginia Council of Churches—thatfirst introduced us to the programwhen they tried and failed to get a foot-hold and establish a resettlement office in our rural Maryland County. There would never have been an RRW without their ham-handed Hagerstown adventure.
Check out our archive on Syracuse which recently made the news because a Catholic Church was turned into mosque and it became a major controversy there. Looking back I see refugees demonstrated against “racism” in Syracuse a few years ago. No mention of any of that in this warm and fuzzy piece.
