Tag: Lawrence Bartlett

Government shut-down slowing the flow of refugees to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There are a spate of stories like this one in my alerts today.   Obviously the US State Department has put out the word, for media consumption, that there are many boo-hoo stories of families not being reunited thanks to those evil Congressional Republicans.  [The Administration has apparently worn out the National Park Service closure hardship theme and moved on to other sob stories like the refugee hardship story line!]

Lawrence Bartlett, testifying before Congress in 2012 about terrorists potentially using refugee resettlement to get into US, has sent out a letter telling contractors that the refugee spigot was closing for now.

Here is one from the St. Louis Post Dispatch (emphasis is mine). I bet most readers of RRW don’t even know that we are still resettling Cubans*** to America (they don’t have to get on a boat for a dangerous journey, just sign up to come)!

Today, Santos Landazury was to be reunited with his wife and their young son.

But as the Cuban refugee to St. Louis puts it, the “political problem” in Washington is preventing him from enjoying the land of freedom and democracy.

“The situation makes us feel like the government has let us down,” Landazury, 47, said Monday through an interpreter. “This is a government in which I put my trust …”

Because of the federal government shutdown, the U.S. refugee resettlement program has been suspended, leaving 34 people from six countries who were to arrive in St. Louis this month in limbo, including Landazury’s wife, Elizabeth, and their son, Ernesto, 9.

Other refugees whose arrival has been delayed include Burmese, Bhutanese, Iraqis, Eritreans and a Somali.

Landazury arrived here June 28 with his daughter, Rosmeri, 20. His wife and their son stayed behind so Elizabeth could care for her ailing mother. The plan was to arrive in St. Louis today.

But when the government shut down on Oct. 1, so did the resettlement program run by the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Resettlement agencies throughout the country including the International Institute of St. Louis get federal funds to help the new arrivals get acclimated to their new home. The money is used to pay for a few months of rent, utilities and food.

[Of course the resettlement agencies could use their own money during the shut-down, right!—ed]

Lawrence Bartlett, the director of refugee admissions for the bureau, said in a letter to resettlement agencies that because of the shutdown, “it is unclear whether certain federally funded services and benefits will be available to arriving refugees.”

Read it all, the article goes on to blame Congress for not giving money to Obama so that he can give it to the contractors. And, it tells us that some security clearances may expire and thus subject the refugee to yet another security check.

***How many Cubans?  3,801 Cuban “refugees” have arrived in the US in the first 11 months of FY2013 (see those numbers here).

For new readers, we have a lot of stories on refugee problems, especially crime stories, in our St. Louis archive, here.

Ft Wayne health commissioner: greatest fear is increasing generational poverty

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story from the week the Boston terrorist attack happened and like so many it became lost in my stack as all of my attention became fixated on the fact that “refugees” were responsible for the marathon bombing.

The US State Department Director of Admissions, Lawrence Bartlett, visited Ft. Wayne, the Burmese capital of America (where they produce diversity wheelbarrows), along with a UN Representative to assess the damage there.  LOL!  that last part is my assertion!   However, I have noticed that the State Dept. does send out people when cities have problems, it must be to smooth feathers.

Lawrence Bartlett, State Department Director of Refugee Admissions visited Ft. Wayne, Indiana last month.

In this case, I felt sorry for the mayor who has blinders on to what this refugee overload has done to his “welcoming” city.

Here is the story from the Journal Gazette (emphasis mine):

Burmese refugees will continue to resettle in Fort Wayne, although in smaller numbers, an official for the U.S. State Department predicted Thursday.

The decline might be offset by an increase in refugees from Congo and Iraq, according to Larry Bartlett, director of refugee admissions for the State Department.

About 60 Congolese refugees have arrived in Fort Wayne in recent years.

“I would expect the program in Fort Wayne to remain strong,” Bartlett told a gathering of local, state and federal government officials at Citizens Square. “We certainly do not want to overwhelm a community.”

Mayor Tom Henry said that “for a while, we were being overloaded. … We just did not have the resources.”

Henry was referring to 2007-08, when Catholic Charities of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese resettled more than 1,400 Burmese refugees in Fort Wayne.

This year’s local cap for refugees is 170.

Bartlett acknowledged that the 2007-08 influx “probably is not the right model for how we manage a program.”   [Excuse me!  The State Department could easily have reined this in, there was plenty of controversy in the newspapers in Ft. Wayne at that time.—ed]

[….]

More than 2,700 Burmese refugees have come to Allen County since 1993 to escape military rule in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Democratic reforms taking shape in the Southeast Asian country are expected to slow and perhaps reverse the exodus.

Fort Wayne is home to at least 5,000 Burmese, Henry said.

“To me, it’s a good problem to have,” the mayor said about challenges to both the city and its refugee population. “They wouldn’t come here if we didn’t have something to offer them.”

Henry said Fort Wayne adheres to a “welcome mat” philosophy. In addition to Burmese and Congolese, the city is home to refugees from Bosnia, Darfur and Somalia.

[…..]

The new arrivals tend to lack the education, job skills and English-language proficiency needed for quick assimilation and advancement, service providers said. Some have to travel out of state to find work. There are Burmese mothers who are raising children while their husbands remain in overseas refugee camps.

I think they call this “burying the lead!”

“My greatest fear is that we are increasing the generational poverty,” said Dr. Deborah McMahan, city-county health commissioner.

Read it all.

Don’t forget!  You have until 5 p.m. today to tell Lawrence Bartlett what you think about refugee admissions for fiscal year 2014 because he will likely be presiding over the hearing on May 15th.  Go here for instructions.

Testimony already submitted by others is archived here.

Almost forgot, former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar is responsible for getting this critical GAO report done on the Refugee Resettlement Program because he saw what is happening in Indiana.