U.S. housing shortage presents new challenge for refugee resettlement
When the White House announced earlier this month that it would increase the number of refugees granted admission into the United States this fiscal year by four times the previous target, to 62,500 people, reversing course from President Biden’s initial plan, immigrant advocates applauded the decision. Yet groups working to help resettle refugees are now facing another new challenge: finding housing for new migrants.
Rajbhandari — hmmm! a little dissension in the ‘humanitarian’ industry?
Sheryl Rajbhandari, the founder of Heartfelt Tidbits, a Cincinnati-based organization that has helped resettle over 50,000 [their website says 40,000 but who is counting!–ed] people in western Ohio since 2008, worries that refugees will be pushed into inappropriate housing.
The government-approved resettlement agencies*** that sponsor refugees and provide services for the first 90 days will often place them in public housing with high crime rates.
Those agencies “want the money for each individual they resettle. So it’s like ‘We don’t really care if we move people,’” she said.
[….]
Once refugees are in the United States, a resettlement agency is responsible for finding and paying for housing for them for an initial period. In a real estate market driven to new highs by the pandemic, finding that housing has become increasingly difficult.
To be clear, the “resettlement agency,” one of the nine federal contractors*** doesn’t use its own money to pay for the initial housing, it uses your money that is passed through federal grants and contracts to their coffers.
Low-income and potentially dangerous housing may expose already vulnerable families to crime, and it can also restrict those families from getting the resources they need, Rajbhandari argued.
“If it’s a high-crime area, folks don’t want to go into that area,” she said. “So folks who might be able to provide assistance don’t feel comfortable driving into places where there are people being shot at and drugs are being dealt.”
Not so subtle pitch for more of your tax dollars to go to refugee resettlement.
The concerns over housing come as organizations working with refugees deal with two challenges: a sudden increase in the cap for people eligible for resettlement and limited government resources in place to help them.
[….]
…there are currently 35,000 refugees who have already passed security checks and have been cleared for entry into the U.S., and there are another 100,000 in the pipeline.
Independent resettlement organizations around the country are optimistic about reaching the 62,500 target, however difficult to achieve. The challenge now will be finding them appropriate housing.
Miry Whitehill, the founder of Miry’s List, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that assists families with the resettlement process, said this is a problem that goes deeper than just housing.
The cost of resettlement loans and plane tickets means many refugees enter the United States already owing money they must repay.
“Something that I think is really important to mention here is that refugees are starting out in debt,” Whitehill said. “Every refugee, they’re required to sign a financial contract agreeing to reimburse the resettlement agency for the cost of their flights.”
Whitehill isn’t telling the whole story on those airfare loans.
IOM bags at airports are the tip-off! Refugees Arriving!
The resettlement agency does collect the loan money from the refugees (when they can get it!), but it was your money, your tax dollars flowing through the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration that shelled out the money in the first place.
When one of the big nine does collect the airfare loan reimbursements, they get to keep a quarter of it for themselves, some years resulting in over a million in extra petty cash. Judicial Watchattempted to find out exactly how much was collected, but got the runaround.
I digress….the takeaway from this story is that Biden’s promised high number of refugees will be placed in crime ridden slums adding to the tensions already evident in most US cities unless you, the taxpayers of America stop being so greedy and spend more money on nicer housing for New Americans (because the US has run out of our own poor people).
Of course,the other option, but never discussed, is to not ‘welcome’ more refugees at this challenging time.
***In case you are new to RRW, here are all of the nine contractors that have monopolized all refugee distribution in the US for decades.
They worked to ‘elect’ Biden/Harris andlobby for open borders. As taxpayers you pay them millions annually to change America by changing the people.
Two of the contractors, the USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service are alsopaid to find locations for the Unaccompanied Alien Children.
At this very moment they are all out scouting for new, fresh territory in which to place their refugee clients. See Winchester, VA.
You may remember that in mid-March the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partner the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the entity that processes refugee travel, announced that due to the Chinese Virus crisis refugees would not be traveling to a new country. This was to protect the refugees from picking up the virus.
Joint Statement: UN refugee chief Grandi and IOM’s Vitorino announce resumption of resettlement travel for refugees
The temporary hold on resettlement travel, which was necessitated by disruptions and restrictions to international air travel caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, delayed the departures of some 10,000 refugees to resettlement countries. Throughout this period, UNHCR, IOM and partners continued to process and counsel refugees and resettled scores of emergency and urgent cases.
If you see a bag like this at your local airport, know that a new refugee is arriving (that is, assuming you are traveling at all!).
In addition, numerous resettlement countries established or expanded their capacities to apply flexible processing modalities, to adapt and ensure the continuity of their resettlement programs in unpredictable circumstances.
Although many travel restrictions still remain in place, as these begin to lift in many resettlement countries more refugee departures can be anticipated. UNHCR and IOM will continue to work with our government partners and other stakeholders around the world to move towards a return to normal operations as swiftly as the situation allows in each country.”
There was no moratorium!
During the supposed halt in refugee travel, the US admitted 523 (emergency) refugees that were distributed to 33 states.
Using data from the Refugee Processing Center, here is where the 523 who came in during the height of the virus crisis in the US, from March 17th, when the spigot was supposedly closed, to today.
Top ten states ‘welcoming’ refugees are: Texas (always number one!), Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Georgia, Idaho/Utah (tied for tenth place).
The primary sending countries were the DR Congo (as usual), Burma, Pakistan, El Salvador, Iran and Syria.
I was very surprised to see that 194 of the 523 emergency refugees we admitted are Muslims (37%) of some stripe, included are 13 Somalis. 45 of 65 from Burma are Rohingya Muslims. No Christians from Syria out of 23 arrivals were among them, and only 4 of 17 from Iraq are Christians. So much for saving the Christians of Syria and Iraq!
I will be watching and let you know when I see the floodgates fully open!
As you know by now the President’s cap for refugee admissions for FY2020 is 18,000 and you also should know that none arrived in October (the first month of the fiscal year) because President Trump had waited a month to sign the order.
Well, here they come! Who are they? And where did they go?
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a branch of the United Nations that takes care of doling out the plane tickets American taxpayers pay for, is reporting 600 in the first wave.
IOM Welcomes First US Bound Refugees Resettled in FY 2020
Washington DC – More than 600 refugees landed in the United States this week, marking the first arrivals of US fiscal year 2020. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) welcomed the refugees who come from a variety of countries.
[….]
IOM works closely with the US Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to provide case processing support, pre-departure health assessments and cultural orientation, as well as transportation support for refugees.
Congolese senior citizens, new Americans, get instructions on how to get their benefits. https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2019/03/08/kentucky-refugee-seniors-going-hungry-as-us-imports-more-poverty/
A group of 25 Congolese refugees were the first to arrive on Tuesday morning at Washington Dulles International Airport before continuing to their final destinations. Due to ongoing violence, the families fled to neighbouring Rwanda where they remained in limbo for years. [And, remind me why this is our problem!—-ed]
Almost half of the refugees resettled in the US in fiscal year 2019 were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Several others arriving this week are also Congolese.
What is so maddening about the Congolese wholesale movement to America is that Obama told the UN in 2013 that we would take 50,000 over five years and we are now almost at 60,000 and they are still coming.
I bet the deep staters at the US State Department never told the Trump people there was supposed to be a limit on the Congolese!
So it is no surprise that when I checked the data at the Refugee Processing Center I see that 226 of the 563 refugees admitted in the last week are DR Congolese!
I suspect the discrepancy in the numbers reported by IOM and the RPC is that IOM has shipped off 600 (maybe), but the State Dept. data base isn’t up to the minute and shows that we admitted 563 refugees from the first of November to today.
Because I don’t plan to report every month about who came and where they went, I’m going to give you a tutorial on finding out yourself!
Then click on ‘Interactive reporting’ (there are useful data in the other categories), but for today’s lesson it is ‘Interactive reporting’ that you want.
You will get a screen that looks like this:
For the first exercise I picked the first choice: MAP.
A screen opens that asks for your start date and the last date. I chose November 1 to today, the 9th. It asks for nationalities and provides a drop- down (I chose all) and I chose for sort order ‘number of individuals.’
And presto, I got this map (below) to show where 563 refugees were placed between November 1 and today. On the page after the map I can see the numerical breakdown for all of the states that ‘welcomed’ refugees over the last week.
As usual Texas is numero uno!
(Reminder! These are just refugees admitted through the US Refugee Admissions Program, not unaccompanied alien children, not Special Immigrant Visa holders, and not asylum seekers!)
Now go back to the first screen and see your other choices for searches. You can find out which ethnic groups were placed in which cities in your state.
When choosing parameters for the ‘arrivals by destination’ search, choose ‘fiscal year’ and ‘destination.’ Just for fun I did Minnesota. Here are the ‘new Minnesotans’ that arrived this week.
You can find out the religions of refugees arriving (although not by state). And you can even find how many kids are coming (cost to your schools!) and how many senior citizens will be coming to collect their SSI.
I’ve never been able to find out which contractors settled which refugees. It might be there somewhere and if you find it let me know!
Here is what I did learn for the whole batch this week:
Of the 563 we brought in as ‘new Americans’ ….
226 are from the DR Congo
Moldova 56
Afghanistan 40
Ukraine 38
Syria 32
Burma 27
Liberia 26
Somalia 26
Eritrea 18
Iraq 18
Sudan 15
Plus smaller numbers from many other countries.
Of the 563, 154 (27%) belong to one or another Muslim sect. I was surprised to learn that a small number of the DR Congolese are Muslims. There is no Muslim ban!
Now you too can do this yourself and I recommend that you do it at least monthly and see who is coming to a town near you!
(Have fun, play around with it!)
For serious students of the refugee program, this post is filed in two categories here at RRW: ‘Where to find information’ and ‘Refugee statistics’. All categories are in a drop-down on the right hand side bar at RRW, here.
This is just a quickie follow-up to a post I wrote here on Tuesday in which I reported that European Union countries are behind in their commitment to the United Nations to take in 50,000 UN-chosen refugees over a two year period.
First International Organization for Migration (IOM) International Charter Flight from Ethiopia Brings 154 Refugees to New Homes in Germany
(Just so you know the IOM had previously been a separate organization, but is now part of the UN. The US sends the IOM gobs of money!)
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Ethiopia organized on Tuesday its first international charter flight carrying 154 Somali refugees to be resettled in Germany.
If you see someone with a bag like this at an airport near you, you know they are refugees.
The group had been residing in Jijiga and Dolo Ado refugee camps in southern Ethiopia. They included 63 males and 91 females, 47 of whom are minors.
IOM has supported the German Resettlement Programme in their efforts to resettle 500 refugees living in Ethiopia to Germany since March. These efforts are closely coordinated with the Ethiopian Government’s Agency for Refugees and Returnee Affairs (ARRA), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Federal Government of Germany.
An additional 220 refugees will depart for Germany on a second IOM-chartered flight in mid-November. The majority of these people have already undergone the necessary interviews and health assessments.
“It is important that we facilitate the smooth resettlement of refugees by providing safe transportation,” said Milun Jovanovic, Operations Officer with IOM Ethiopia. “We are happy that refugees enjoyed this facilitated charter flight from departure to destination, with no hassles faced.”
For the past 15 year, IOM Ethiopia has been involved in relocating refugees to more than 16 countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, Norway and the European Union through resettlement, family reunification and humanitarian admission programmes. Since 2016, the Organization has arranged 36 domestic charter flights for refugees travelling to Addis Ababa from camps throughout Ethiopia.
In 2019 alone, IOM has assisted 4,000 refugees to resettle to new countries together with UNHCR.
I told youhere earlier this month about the long knives being out to destroy the nomination of Ken Isaacs a Veep at Samaritan’s Purse to head the IOM.
President Trump has nominated Isaacs to head the International Organization for Migration which not very long ago was another NGO receiving millions of US taxpayer dollars to do the foreign end of refugee processing in to the US (among other things). Now they have been officially folded in to the UN.
Of course, I would like to see the IOM squeezed financially, but at minimum the President should not be bullied by this pair (with the Washington Post!). Knife number one: CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper
In my earlier post I said the President should not back down to the long knives lead by Eric Schwartz and CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper. Here is newswith the latest on the controversy, hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.
A bipartisan group of leading human-rights activists, including a Pulitzer-prize-winning New York Times columnist, has jumped to the defense of President Trump’s choice to lead the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), which uses its $1 billion annual budget to promote worldwide cooperation on refugee and trafficking issues.
Trump nominated Ken Isaacs, vice president of the Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, in January to head the 169-member organization, which holds elections to name a leader but typically defers to United States’ choice to run the organization.
Knife number two: Eric Schwartz, a hard Left one-worlder who ran the refugee program in the early years of the Obama Admin, and is a George SOROS protege.
Isaacs, who served in the Bush administration as the director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, has spent 30 years organizing large-scale emergency relief programs in some of the most dangerous and desperate places in the world, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Darfur, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Rwanda.
The day the White House announced his nomination, Isaacs was in Bangladesh administering diphtheria treatment to Muslim-majority Rohingya refugees.
Now, two weeks later, lifetime colleagues and allies in the humanitarian community are furiously trying to save his nomination after an Obama State Department official and a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations accused Isaacs of tweeting anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant statements.
In a Washington Post article, the pair of critics took issue with a number of Isaacs’ views, including the belief that the Koran instructs its followers to engage in violent jihad, that Middle East Christians should be given first priority when applying to the U.S. government for refugee status, and that President Obama’s policy of accepting large numbers of Syrian refugees was “foolish and delusional” because some of them could become “security risks” if allowed in the United States.
After the article, Isaacs apologized for his “careless” social media posts and vowed to lead the IOM with “the highest standards of humanity, human dignity, and equality,” if chosen.
The paper later editorialized against the nomination, arguing Isaacs’s views were “venomous,” demonstrated “bigotry,” and that his leadership in the post would be “an embarrassment to the United States.”
Continue reading here.
Dear Donald, don’t let the Washington Post (Bezos), CAIR and Schwartz win this one!
Using data from the Refugee Processing Center, here is where the 523 who came in during the height of the virus crisis in the US, from March 17th, when the spigot was supposedly closed, to today.
