Tag: Lavinia Limon

USCRI: Hiring a refugee (instead of an American) is good for a business’s bottom line!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Geeez!  I had no idea that they had the audacity to spell out on their website how hiring a refugee trumps hiring an American, and the employment service this refugee contractor offers is FREE!

First, a little background.  USCRI stands for US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. It is one of nine major federal refugee contractors.  It’s head honcho is Lavinia Limon who coincidentally headed Bill Clinton’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) when Clinton brought Bosnians to Iowa for laborers for the meatpackers (just mentioned it here yesterday when I told you about Columbus Junction, Iowa.)  Type ‘Lavinia Limon’ into our search function for more.

As Limon revolved out the ORR door to her job as a federal contractor, USCRI’s Veep, Eskinder Negash, revolved in and now heads the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Resources which gives out grants to USCRI.  Handy huh!

And USCRI sure does get the federal grants!

According to the most recent Form 990 (p.9) available for Ms. Limon’s USCRI they received 94% of their $35 million plus income from you—the taxpayer. So much for that public-private partnership mumbo-jumbo!

So, their services might be FREE to businesses, but not FREE to you!

Here is their website page entitled:

‘Information for Employers on Hiring Refugees’

Refugee workers improve your bottom line.  Strengthened by adversity, refugees make capable, resilient, and loyal employees [Read desperate and can’t go home—ed].  USCRI’s partner agencies all over the United States can match your business with the perfect refugee employee(s)!  Our partner agencies offer comprehensive services that ensure employer satisfaction and high employee retention rates.  Best of all, services are FREE.

Find a local agency in your area

USCRI resettlement agencies help employers by:

Pre-screening applicants to find the most qualified workers
Matching employers with dependable employees
Providing a consistent source of reliable workers
Increasing productivity by reducing turnover
Managing external factors so that employees can focus on work at work
Ensuring that refugees have access to English classes
Facilitating communication between the employee and employer
Following up to ensure satisfaction

Why hire refugees?

Skills: Refugees showcase a variety of employable skills.  Refugees are doctors, nurses, small business owners, farmers, construction workers, graphic designers, tailors, cooks, and more.  Most refugees speak several languages.  Some refugees hold Master’s Degrees; others are expert farmers and artisans.  If you’re looking for a skilled employee, USCRI can match you with a qualified refugee.

Strong work ethic, high retention rates: Refugees who come to the United States want to regain self-sufficiency and economic stability for their families.  Strengthened by their experiences, they make capable, resilient, and loyal employees.

Built-in retention support: Local resettlement agencies manage external factors so that employees can focus on work at work.  Agencies provide holistic services to refugees so that child care, transportation, and other barriers to employment are addressed before the job begins.  [That’s right and exactly what I said yesterday—refugee families are additionally supported by you, the taxpayer, through welfare while the business gets away with cheap laborers!—ed]

Positive economic and community impact: Refugees are new Americans and they contribute to the economy by spending locally, living locally, and paying taxes.  Hiring refugees promotes self-sufficiency by strengthening families and communities.  They are hard-working, loyal employees who will improve your bottom line, while improving their own lives.

Tax incentives: Some businesses qualify for tax incentives when they hire resettled refugees.  For more information, visit the Department of Labor website or talk to your local DOL representative.

Tax incentives to hire refugees before Americans?  You betcha!   Not that long ago a foreman on a factory production line told me that her company rotated immigrants through the business while turning Americans away at the door every day!

Related!  See the Center for Immigration Studies latest report-–it is not true that there are jobs Americans won’t do!  Americans will do any job!

Also related!  USCRI supports the Gang of Eight bill in the US Senate which will add another 11 million immigrant workers to compete with Americans and with refugees for scarce jobs, go figure!

More on those Annual Reports to Congress and ORR breaking the law

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Before I get started on my latest foray into the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s flagrant law breaking regarding the Annual Report to Congress, yesterday I told you what people are searching that brings them to RRW, here.

This morning I just want to mention that searches yesterday were dominated by the phrase “Little Baghdad”—that would be El Cajon, California which we have discussed on many previous occasions.  Here is our archive on the refugee-overloaded city of El Cajon.  The most-read post yesterday with over 100 hits is this old post from 2009.

Back to the Annual Reports I spend a lot of time harping about!

Federal law says that the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) must file a report to Congress within three months of the close of the fiscal year.  A fiscal year ends on September 30th of a given year and so the report is due in Congress by January 31st of the following year.  Presently the ORR is THREE YEARS LATE!  They owe Congress 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Earlier this week I told you about the Legislative summary I found at the Library of Congress on the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, here.   This is what I found on the Annual Reporting requirement:

Requires the Secretary, not later than the January 31 following the end of each fiscal year beginning with fiscal year 1980, to submit reports to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees containing: (1) a labor profile for refugees who have entered the U.S. since May 1975; (2) a geographic description of refugee location; (3) a summary of the location and status of unaccompanied refugee children; (4) a description of the activities and expenditures of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, States, voluntary agencies, and sponsors; and (5) an evaluation of services provided under this Act. Requires the Secretary, in consultation with the Coordinator, to report to the Congress within one year of enactment of this Act an analysis of: (1) resettlement systems used by other countries; (2) the desirability of using a system other than the welfare system to provide refugee assistance; and (3) alternative resettlement strategies.

Hah!  I wonder if they ever did that last part!

So when did they start breaking the law, thumbing their noses at Congress and not getting these reports done?  That is what I wanted to know.

First, the ORR makes it very hard to find all the annual reports.  Some are available at their website, here.  But the missing ones are housed at the Georgetown Law Library—WHY?

My original plan was to start researching at 1990 and move toward the present time to see when they went off track and began breaking the law.  It didn’t take long—1993!

So, I went back to 1980 and sure enough through the entire Reagan Presidency and the George HW Bush Presidency from 1980 to 1992 those Annual Reports were right on time—submitted to Congress on January 31st of the following year.

But, you know what the little cheaters did beginning with the 1993 report (and continued to do for the next 20 years)—they stopped putting publication dates on them.  Oh, they had FY 1993 on the cover, but no information about when that actually went to Congress—heck it could have been three years late then!

Lavinia Limon headed the ORR in the Clinton Administration and is now a federal contractor who gets grants from ORR. Fox News Latino

So, who was the Director of the ORR during Bill Clinton’s time in office? 

Lavinia Limon who now heads up one of the nine major federal contractors—the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants—was in charge of getting those reports to Congress.   And, isn’t it funny that her former VP at USCRI is presently the Director of ORR.  There are a lot of revolving doors with this program between those who are handing out federal grants and those receiving them, but that’s a story for another day!

By the way, we have written a bunch of posts on Lavinia Limon over the years.  Here her subcontractor in Waterbury, CT was found to be treating refugees poorly and had come under review by the US State Department and Ms. Limon famously said “whoop-de-do”—we don’t get paid enough to do the job any better.

Incidentally, according to the most recent Form 990 (p.9) available for Ms. Limon’s organization they received 94% of their $35 million plus income from you—the taxpayer.

Only because I was keeping track do I know that the FY2008 report was released two years and 3 months late and the FY2009 report was three years and one month late.  And, as far as I know there hasn’t been a peep from the do-nothing House and Senate Committees responsible for over-seeing the Refugee program over all these 20 years since Clinton’s ORR flagrantly began breaking the law.   I’m guessing the attitude all around is that these are good people doing good work so they don’t have to follow the law!

About the photo and Ms. Limon:  Read all about her here at Fox News Latino.  Also, when you type ‘Lavinia Limon’ into our search function, you get this archive on the dozens of posts in which we have mentioned her.