Is the UN driven refugee resettlement program now on life support in the U.S.?

“The program is being torn down from the top,” says Dr. Shelly Callahan, executive director of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center in Utica, which works to resettle refugees.

Feds will close 74 refugee offices during the course of this year

Posted by Ann Corcoran on April 15, 2018

We knew this was happening, but this article at The Indypendent has some useful nuggets of information on the internal turmoil involving the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program which began in 1980 as a supposed public-private partnership, but has evolved in to an almost entirely publicly (taxpayer) funded industry.

I’m guessing that the average uninformed reader of this story is scratching his or her head and asking, how can the federal government ask non-profits to close their doors?

It is because the ‘non-profits’ are really fake charities and they can’t survive without the continuous infusion of federal dollars.
Here are a few nuggets from the story:

The Trump Administration is Dismantling the Refugee Resettlement System

April 1 marked the halfway point in the federal government’s fiscal year and, so far, the United States has only admitted 10,548 refugees, placing it on track to fall far short of its already record low admission ceiling of 45,000 individuals. Resettlement workers and refugee advocates say that this is further evidence of the Trump administration’s deliberate efforts to sabotage the refugee resettlement system now and for years to come.

The U.S. government works with nine private nonprofit organizations***, known as voluntary agencies, to assign refugees to host communities around the United States.

Voluntary agencies receive $2,125 in federal funding for each refugee they resettle and administer networks of local offices that provide services directly to the refugees. All of the approximately 320 local offices provide new arrivals with housing and social services including language training, job-search assistance, school-enrollment assistance and help integrating into the community during their first months in the United States. [They can never bring themselves to say they are signing them up for welfare, medical care and food stamps!—ed]

In practice, virtually all resettlement offices also provide a variety of services to other immigrant, minority, and vulnerable communities alongside refugees, and assist refugees beyond the first months of resettlement. [Yes, we know they are providing taxpayer-funded services to illegal migrants too!—ed] They rely on private donations for these programs. [No they don’t! Only small amounts!—ed]

[….]

Erol Kekic of Church World Service says they are trying to find a more sustainable model. Does that mean trying to raise private money now that the easy federal money, doled out on a refugee per head basis, is drying up?

In December, the State Department informed the voluntary agencies of its intention to close all local affiliate offices [aka subcontractors.—ed] that are not projected to receive at least 100 refugees in fiscal year 2018. According to a plan drawn up by the voluntary agencies and obtained by Reuters, some 74 offices are expected to be closed this year. 

Eleven new offices that were in the planning phase at the time will not be opening, although some of them may still be able to operate as sub-offices dependent on other offices for cases and funding.

“We’re trying to look into what would be the best make up of our network and how do we change what currently exists into something more sustainable that can still meet its moral and legal commitments,” says Erol Kekic, executive director of Church World Service, one of the national voluntary agencies. Church World Service has closed 17 offices this fiscal year, bringing its total to just 19.

The layoffs and closures being engineered by the Trump administration will impact the refugee resettlement system for years to come.

More here.
The article references a cool Reuters interactive graph showing how many offices are closing in each state.  See the whole thing here. This is just a portion of a screen shot.

Here is where the original list of over 300 subcontractors is archived, but it looks like the list has not been updated for over a year.

Partial screenshot. See full image here:  http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-IMMIGRATION-REFUGEES/010060WC1Q2/index.html

***  I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!).  We are hearing reports that all nine might not survive the year.

The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services (welfare)!  From most recent accounting, here.

• Church World Service (CWS) (71%)
• Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)(93%)
• Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (99.5%)
• Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (57%)
• International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular) (66.5%)
• US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular) (98%)
• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) (97%)
• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) (97%)
• World Relief Corporation (WR) (72.8%)

Original article:    Refugee Resettlement Watch

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