Pew: Christians still make up most of US immigrant population, but Muslim share is growing

No worries!  Only a quarter of a million US Muslims say violence against civilians in the name of Islam may sometimes be justified!

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life came out with a new study just yesterday about the religious make-up and size of the mostly legal immigrant population in the US.

As you read through this ponder these facts (I’ve rounded the numbers):

~ The US population is around 315 million.

~Pew says the US Muslim population as of 2011 was 2.75 million.

~We are adding roughly 1 million immigrants a year (for the past 20 years) and 100,000 of them are Muslim.

~Christians make up the largest share, but the share of Muslims and Hindus is growing.

Here are some interesting segments of Pew’s conclusions (I’ve highlighted the parts that interest me):

Over the past 20 years, the United States has granted permanent residency status to an average of about 1 million immigrants each year. These new “green card” recipients qualify for residency in a wide variety of ways – as family members of current U.S. residents, recipients of employment visas, refugees and asylum seekers, or winners of a visa lottery – and they include people from nearly every country in the world. But their geographic origins gradually have been shifting. U.S. government statistics show that a smaller percentage come from Europe and the Americas than did so 20 years ago, and a growing share now come from Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region.

With this geographic shift, it is likely that the religious makeup of legal immigrants also has been changing. The U.S. government, however, does not keep track of the religion of new permanent residents. As a result, the figures on religious affiliation in this report are estimates produced by combining government statistics on the birthplaces of new green card recipients over the period between 1992 and 2012 with the best available U.S. survey data on the religious self-identification of new immigrants from each major country of origin.  [US refugee program does track religious affiliation, they just don't make the information public.---ed]

While Christians continue to make up a majority of legal immigrants to the U.S., the estimated share of new legal permanent residents who are Christian declined from 68% in 1992 to 61% in 2012. Over the same period, the estimated share of green card recipients who belong to religious minorities rose from approximately one-in-five (19%) to one-in-four (25%). This includes growing shares of Muslims (5% in 1992, 10% in 2012) and Hindus (3% in 1992, 7% in 2012).

More coming from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The geographic origins of new permanent residents have shifted markedly during the past two decades, according to U.S. government data. In 1992, a total of 41% of new permanent residents came from the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa region or sub-Saharan Africa. By 2012, more than half (53%) of new green card holders were from those regions.

No surprise!  Most Muslim population growth in US is coming from immigration.

The estimated number of new Muslim immigrants varies from year to year but generally has been on the rise, going from roughly 50,000 in 1992 to 100,000 in 2012. Since 2008, the estimated number of Muslims becoming U.S. permanent residents has remained at or above the 100,000 level each year. [Readers, that means that probably the biggest chunk of legal Muslim immigration is coming through our refugee and asylum programs---ed]

Between 1992 and 2012, a total of about 1.7 million Muslims entered the U.S. as legal permanent residents. That constitutes a large portion of the overall U.S. Muslim population (estimated at 2.75 million as of 2011).

Most Muslim immigrants coming from Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Iraq, Somalia and Ethiopia.

The most common countries of origin among Muslim immigrants in 1992 included Pakistan, Iran and Bangladesh. Those countries, as well as Iraq, also were among the most likely birthplaces of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012.

In recent years, a higher percentage of Muslim immigrants have been coming from sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 16% of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012 were born in countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia. In 1992, only about 5% of new Muslim immigrants came from sub-Saharan Africa.  [Whew! That means about 16,000 Somalis and Ethiopians came last year!  Higher than I thought!---ed]

Now just for fun, go to Pew’s worldwide Muslim survey last month, here.

Don’t you just love it how Pew spins this with the word ‘few’!

Few U.S. Muslims voice support for suicide bombing or other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam; 81% say such acts are never justified, while fewer than one-in-ten say violence against civilians either is often justified (1%) or is sometimes justified (7%) to defend Islam. Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. However, substantial minorities in several countries say such acts of violence are at least sometimes justified, including 26% of Muslims in Bangladesh, 29% in Egypt, 39% in Afghanistan and 40% in the Palestinian territories.

So, if we have roughly 2.75 million Muslims in the US and 8% say it’s often or sometimes justified to use suicide bombings and violence against civilians in the name of Islam, that means that 220,000 American Muslims think violence against civilians is justified (someone check my math, maybe I have too many zeros!).  Ahhhhh!

I’m confident (aren’t you?) that when we take immigrants from Egypt, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories that we are only getting those from the percentage who do not approve of violence against civilians in the name of Islam—right!

I bet there is a lot of juicy stuff in here for anyone with the patience to dissect it!

Best day ever at RRW yesterday!

We are a small blog on a rather arcane subject that gets a moderate number of readers from day to to day (until the Tsarnaev ‘refugee’ brothers bombed Boston and since then our number of readers has steadily increased).   Yesterday we had a record-breaking number of 3,708 readers.

Granted over 2000 went to one post—Laura Ingraham calls for halt to Muslim immigration—demonstrating the power of social media (facebook in this case).   The next two top posts following far behind were the Diversity is Strength alert from Wisconsin and the Minneapolis intimidation and harassment post.

If you are a new reader here, we started writing this blog (a charitable enterprise) in 2007 when Mesketian Turks/Russian Muslims were brought to our rural county in Maryland by the Virginia Council of Churches (subcontractor of major federal contractor Church World Service).   We, blog partner Judy and other women friends, just wanted to figure out how that could be done with no approval process by local elected officials or consultation with the citizens who were told we must be “welcoming.”   It is a very long story (chronicled in our category entitled ‘September Forum’), but the bottomline is that here we are, going on to our 6th anniversary in July, still trying to understand the refugee and asylum process in America (and the world!) and trying to educate you.

You can see from the categories on the left hand column how busy we have been—there are 1,500 posts on Muslim refugees alone!   We are approaching the 1.5 million visitor mark and have written 4,626 posts in all.  We have readers from all over the world.

If you don’t find a topic among our categories that interests you, we have a great search function.  Type in a couple of search words and presto you will likely find something that you want to learn more about.

And be sure to check the TOP POSTS in the right hand sidebar every day to see what posts most readers are finding of interest.  Sometimes it’s a post that is several years old because the topic has suddenly become relevant.

I apologize that our fact sheet (on the header) is out of date, but those mundane chores—updating a fact sheet (yuk!)—are hard to do when every day there are so many news stories begging to be reported.  Also, I’m not very good at responding to comments (I’ll try harder).  And, I stink at keeping up our facebook page, but have recently started tweeting, so follow me—Ann C @Refugee Watcher.

And, thanks for visiting RRW!

How much money does the United States spend on refugees and asylees?

Your tax dollars!

That is a question being searched-for lately that has brought readers to RRW.  It is hard to answer with any accuracy.

Before I direct you to the closest figures I have, remember that these budget numbers do not include costs presently being absorbed by your states.   The numbers on page 58 of the Proposed Refugee Admissions for FY 2013 were sent to Congress by President Obama near the end of FY2012.

The summary of costs, also does not include costs associated with the Unaccompanied Alien Childrens Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income Programs, Educational costs, Section 8 housing, other medical assistance from states, ESL programs and others I can’t think of at the moment.

So we see that excluding those costs above—Refugee Resettlement was expected to cost the US taxpayer in FY 2013—$1,064,700,000 (that’s a billion with a B).  A very large portion of this funding is distributed to unaccountable non-profit groups who contract to manage and care for the refugee population.

The program comes under the purview of three cabinet-level federal departments: the US State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security.

Media on Chechens, manipulating the numbers and twisting the truth

Steve Sailer has a very good post on Chechens, here (read it), in which he directs us to a USA Today story on Chechen “refugee” numbers.

Here is how USA Today begins (emphasis mine, and when I use red I really mean it!):

Glen Howard looks like a nice guy, maybe I shouldn’t say he is lying. But no city in America gets to pick its refugees!

There are probably fewer than about 200 Chechen immigrants in the United States, and most of them are settled in the Boston area, as many U.S. cities have refused to accept asylum applicants from the war-torn area of southern Russia, says Glen Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation.

Glen Howard is flat out lying!    First, we really don’t know how many Chechens are in the US (heck, clearly this family was moving back and forth to Russia), but more importantly I am unaware of any city in America given the opportunity to say “NO ” to any particular ethnic refugee group.  Indeed, this is one of the most serious complaints about refugee resettlement (which includes asylees)—states and cities are not consulted in the resettlement process, and once the migrant has a foot in the door, they can move anywhere.

The decision about which cities get refugees and from where is made mostly by unelected federal contractors (the volags) in collaboration with the State Department.  This is a Tenth Amendment States Rights issue that hardly any state has ever raised (except maybe Tennessee).    Only when there has been a complete breakdown in the city due to refugee overload is there ever a hiatus for a city once it’s been deemed “welcoming” by the resettlement industry.

***Update*** A reader this evening sent this comment in response to the above point:

Not only do states and cities not have a choice to say no, but when and if they try to, the federal government simply contracts with a private non-profit to bring them anyway.

Should there ever be any peep of objection by the “native population”, they are then accused of being unwelcoming.

USA Today continued with this:

About 70% of the Chechen immigrants are women, Howard says. Very few men are granted asylum because of U.S. anti-terrorism policies and because Russia often protests when ethnic Chechens try to settle in the U.S., he said. The U.S. admitted only 197 refugees from all of Russia in 2012.

This is how they twist the numbers.  There might have been only 197 from Russia proper in 2012, but that is meaningless!   Go to the Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual Report to Congress for 2009 (published three years late btw) and go to Appendix A.  Note that refugees are listed as from THE FORMER USSR!  (not just Russia).

From 1983 to 2009 we resettled 526,308 from THE FORMER USSR which includes Russia AND all of those countries that split off—all of the ‘stan’ Muslim countries.  Someone at the State Department might be able to tell us how many are Chechens, and indeed how many are Muslims!

In 2005 we resettled:  11,272

In 2006: 10,452

In 2007: 4,583

In 2008: 2,390

In 2009: 2,022

After that the numbers are hard to find (and I’ve got other things to do today!).  But, if the ORR wasn’t breaking the law by not providing annual reports to Congress for 2010, 2011 and 2012, we could easily find numbers.

And, then this!  We are expected to assume the US has only 200 Chechens when Austria has 30,000.  Last I checked you could come to the US easily from Europe once you were in the EU.

That contrasts with many European countries, especially Austria, where many Chechens who want to leave difficult conditions at home settle. Austria has about 30,000 Chechen immigrants, Howard said.

For additional edification, readers might want to search RRW for all the problems poor Austria is having with its large and ever-growing Muslim population.  Just type ‘Austria’ into our search function and see if you want that here!

Moratorium!

No surprise! The world wants to come to America….

….and the Chinese want to have babies!

Steve Sailer writing at VDARE directs us to a recent worldwide Gallup poll that has determined that, of all the countries in the world, most migrants want to get into America!

Here is Sailer:

The Gallup organization just released the results of a poll of 500,000 people worldwide. It turns out that America is the first choice destination for 138 million adult would-be immigrants. (Their children would no doubt add scores of millions more, bringing the total up to around, say, 200,000,000.)

And America Jr. (i.e., Canada) is the first choice of 37 million adults, and America’s nephew Australia is the first choice of 26 million. Most of those would likely go to America instead if they could get in.

138 million want in while the present US population stands at just over 315 million!  

Here is the Gallup Report and the top countries most desired by would-be migrants.

I hate to break it to the 29 million who want to get into Saudi Arabia, but they don’t allow their Muslim brethren in except for limited slave labor.

Then here are the nationalities of those trying to escape to America and the West:

There is more, read Sailer’s whole commentary.

The Chinese are coming!

No wonder the Chinese are the largest group of asylum seekers slipping into the US.  Here Jason Dzubow writing at The Asylumist tells us why.   Babies!  They want to have babies, lots of babies and for that reason we grant them asylum.

Here is Dzubow (emphasis mine):

A new report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”) shows that asylum claims in industrialized countries have increased 20% from 2010 to 2011.  The United States continued to receive the most asylum seekers among the countries surveyed: approximately 74,000 asylum seekers in 2011.  This compares to approximately 55,500 asylum seekers for 2010, a 33% increase (among all countries, South Africa received the most asylum seekers).

The increase in asylum seekers to the U.S. is due largely to higher numbers from three countries: China (+20%), Mexico (+94%), and India (+241%).

The U.S. receives more asylum seekers from China than from any other country.  In 2010, we received 12,850 asylum seekers from China.  In 2011, we received 15,450 asylum seekers from China, an increase of 2,600 people or about 20%.  The large numbers are probably due to special provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that provide for asylum for victims of forced family planning–these provisions were created specifically to assist people from China, and they certainly seem to have encouraged Chinese nationals to seek asylum here.  Indeed, of the 24,400 Chinese asylum seekers worldwide, the U.S. received about 63% of all cases.  This is a very high number, given our physical distance from China.

For new readers:  The Refugee Resettlement Program and our Asylum Program are two sides of the same coin.  The difference is that with refugees certain nationalities are usually targeted for resettlement—right now the top groups we are taking are Iraqis, Bhutanese/Nepali, and Burmese.  They are screened and flown here and placed in your towns by US State Department contractors.

Asylum seekers get here on their own steam (usually helped by traffickers and paying large fees) and then ask for asylum at our borders or other ports of entry.  Immigration lawyers are ready and waiting for their business—to help them prove they are persecuted for an ever-growing list of complaints (including spousal abuse, sexual orientation and because they want to procreate)!

Update:  Asylum seeker numbers rise sharply in Australia, here.  (I have too many potential posts backed up, so am just linking this story here so as not to lose it).

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

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.

The Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, a refresher on its 33rd aniversary!

Every day I get up eager to find more interesting stories about our out-of-control Refugee Resettlement program, and I definitely avoid the nitty-gritty tedious work of digging through documents so that the average American wondering where all these third-worlders are coming from and who is paying for it (mostly you) might be better informed.

Today, I made myself do some digging.

An aside:  Readers you’ve probably noticed that government at all levels thrives on secrecy.  If you’ve ever questioned a local boondoggle project or any sort of government program you know what I mean.  They, government officials at any level, fear that the taxpayer will raise questions and they frankly hide stuff as best they can.   In fact, it is easy to do because the government is a leviathan and they don’t even need to purposely hide stuff, we private citizens just don’t have the time to dig for it.

And, by the way, their ability to hide stuff has been made easier since real investigative reporting is rare.  The mainstream media now appears to be on the side of government rather on the side of the citizens.  So, I’ve learned over the years that the first step in any battle with government is to find their documents—any documents!  It’s actually funny, you may never find a smoking gun, but just having their documents  makes them nervous and is your first step to bring about change.

Today I found something I’ve been wondering about for years—some of the Legislative history of the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 (really 1979).   It is here, at the Library of Congress and I can tell this bill summary is filled with all sorts of juicy things you will be hearing more about as time goes on.

Who do we thank for the Refugee Resettlement Act? 

Top honors go to Senator Ted Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter!

The reason we have a Refugee Program—Democrat Party voter recruitment!

I’ve written about this before, but along with Chief Sponsor Ted (don’t bring them to Hyannis) Kennedy we have the following co-sponsors (remember these guys—mostly Dems!):

Sen Biden, Joseph R., Jr. [DE] -
Sen Boschwitz, Rudy [MN] -
Sen Hatfield, Mark O. [OR] -
Sen Javits, Jacob K. [NY] -
Sen Levin, Carl [MI] -
Sen McGovern, George [SD] -
Sen Moynihan, Daniel Patrick [NY] -
Sen Pell, Claiborne [RI] -
Sen Randolph, Jennings [WV] -
Sen Ribicoff, Abraham A. [CT] -
Sen Riegle, Donald W., Jr. [MI] -
Sen Sarbanes, Paul S. [MD] -
Sen Tsongas, Paul E. [MA] -
Sen Williams, Harrison A., Jr. [NJ]

And, I always thought it was funny that Jennings Randolph’s and Bobby Byrd’s West Virginia and Joe Biden’s Delaware resettled only a tiny fraction of the 3 million refugees resettled since 1975!   The top year for resettlement was 1980! with 207,000!  1980 was also the first year we admitted refugees from Africa.

In 1981 we resettled 159,000 and in 1982 it was 97,000.  Reagan must have caught on and we saw a big drop to 62,000 in 1983.

Refugee Council USA (a lobbying group for the contractors):

Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled over 3 million refugees, with annual admissions figures ranging from a high of 207,000 in 1980 to a low of 27,110 in 2002. The average number admitted annually since 1980 is 98,000. [That low year (2002) was because 9/11 happened and they were all scared that a refugee might be a terrorist---that did happen eventually, but not right after 9/11.---ed]

But then get this!

The law specified that the refugee cap for 1980, ’81 and ’82 was set at 50,000 a year unless the President determined there was a great crisis—-did Ronald Reagan actually agree with this?    Although fiscal year 1980′s 207,000 would have been Jimmy Carter’s gift to America (along with having signed the bill into law on March 17th, (St. Pat’s Day) 1980!).

Library of Congress summary, here:

Provides for up to 50,000 annual refugee admissions for fiscal years 1980 through 1982. Authorizes the President to exceed such 50,000 admissions level if, at the beginning of a fiscal year and after appropriate consultation, he determines it to be for humanitarian purposes. Provides that these admissions shall be allocated to groups of special concern to the United States.

Funds were only authorized for those three years as well.  Wonder if they have been just operating ever since without formally reauthorizing the funding?

Endnote:  Ann Coulter reminded the audience at CPAC of Ted Kennedy’s role in changing America with immigration, here, on Saturday.  Readers!  They are changing the people!

We have a “where to find information” category that is chock full and this post will be archived there.

Another suggestion for the sequestration budget cutting ax: IDAs

Your tax dollars!

IDAs—Individual Development Accounts!

What is that?  It’s a fancy name for your tax dollars matching a refugee’s savings.  For every dollar a refugee saves in this program (administered not by a government agency, but laundered through a non-profit), he or she is matched a dollar from the federal treasury.  I am not kidding!

How many times over the years have I heard someone complain—how are these refugees getting cars and such—this is how.  The monies can be used toward purchasing a car, a house, a business or education.

Here is a profile of a refugee eligible for this special deal.  He/she is usually employed (and may earn up to $3000 a month!) and own a house, have one car, and no more than $10,000 in assets, and can sign up for the program.   Nothing like this is available to a low income American citizen that I know of!  Ever heard of it?

$4-5 million could be saved annually if we dumped this discriminatory program!

Like St. Patrick’s never-ending pot of gold, the federal treasury is available for certain special groups of people.

In 2009 (from that finally-released three years late 2009 Annual Report to Congress, p.38) we spent $4.6 million on the program, again by passing your money through an unaccountable non-profit agency.   If we insist on redistributing taxpayers money this way, couldn’t the program go through the state refugee agencies which are at least nominally open to public scrutiny?

By the way, ORR tells us that 8% of participants quit the program—I wonder do they give your money back?

Here then are the resettlement contractors and ethnic community group grants for 2009.  I bet they each get to keep a cut of the pie for their own “administration” of the program.

Continuation grants awarded in FY 2009 to the following programs with cycles that will end on September 29, 2010 are:
•
Lao Family Community Development, Inc., Oakland, CA, $200,000
•
World Relief DuPage, Wheaton, IL, $235,000
•
ISED Ventures, Des Moines, IA, $235,000
•
Jewish Family & Vocational Services, Inc., Louisville, KY, $230,000
•
International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, $180,000
•
New York Association for New Americans, New York, NY, $300,000
•
Women’s Opportunities Resource Center, Philadelphia, PA, $235,000
•
Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Nashville, TN, $194,392.

Continuation grants awarded in FY 2009 to the following programs with cycles that will end on September 29, 2012 are:
•
Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA, $204,000
•
Western Kentucky Refugee Mutual Assistance Society, Inc., Bowling Green, KY, $150,000
•
Economic and Community Development Institute, Columbus, OH, $230,000
•
Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Augusta, ME, $207,901
•
Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden, Inc., Camden, NJ, $225,000
•
Diocese of Olympia, Seattle, WA, $205,000
•
ECDC Enterprise Development Group, Arlington, VA, $280,000
•
Mountain States Group, Boise, ID, $201,018
•
United Way, Inc., Los Angeles, CA, $240,000
•
Neighborhood Assets, Spokane, WA, $50,000
•
International Rescue Committee Phoenix, New York, NY, $230,000
•
Alliance for Multicultural Community Service Inc., Houston, TX, $203,500
•
Catholic Charities, Diocese of St. Petersburg, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL, $200,000
•
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell, Inc., Lowell, MA,$192,380

I wonder if the Health and Human Services Inspector General has ever looked into this program?  Does anyone audit these outfits?

Editors note:  This is the third in my series of suggested budget cuts.  Here I suggested we could cut the grants for refugee “healthy marriages,” and here for the little ACORN-like ethnic community based organizations.  Including the IDAs, I’ve now saved the US taxpayers over $13 million!  I wonder what the sequester is going to require ORR to cut overall?

Illinois: Too many refugees, too little money! (Cue the weeping)

They are wailing and rending garments in the land of too many refugees according to this lengthy and very informative article in Medill Reports:

[LOL! After the standard practice of featuring a successful refugee---ed] The Ethiopian association is one of the refugee resettlement agencies in Illinois, which are struggling under a triple burden as the number of refugees steadily climbs: large cuts in federal funding, a greater range of native languages among refugees and the recession.

Illinois has the largest immigrant population in the Midwest as shown here in data collected at the Univ. of Minnesota.  Medill continued:

Tens years of resettlement represented here (23,220). However, according to Silverman’s office in the Illinois Dept. of Human Services, Illinois has resettled 145,000 since 1975.

Illinois has received about 23,220 refugees from 66 countries since 2000, and the flow has steadily increased since 2006, according to data of refugee arrivals in Illinois from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Feds cut our money,while refugee numbers rise!  (They haven’t seen anything yet, wait till the sequester hits Refugee Resettlement!)

Cook, Kane and DuPage counties have unusually large refugee populations, making the state eligible for targeted assistance from the federal resettlement agency, according to Edwin Silverman, chief of the Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services at the Illinois Department of Human Services.  [Here is our Ed Silverman archive for the curious reader---ed]

However, in recent years the federal allocation to Illinois has been cut by more than 50 percent, according to official funding data.

“In the year 2000, we received $7.3 million in combined refugee social services and targeted assistance, and in 2012, we received $3.5 million,” Silverman said.

Federal funding to the state has fallen while refugee numbers have increased in Illinois, because they have also increased in other states.

More diversity=more difficulty

In the face of these cuts, resettlement agencies are striving to meet the needs of a greater diversity of refugees.

Over the past decade, the refugee population has become increasingly diverse linguistically, with wide-ranging educational and employment histories, according to a recent report issued by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This makes it more challenging for resettlement agencies accustomed to receiving refugees from a limited number of countries.

More refugees=more unemployment  (by the way, readers, they could say “NO!” to the State Department and ask that the numbers be reduced.)

Achievement of self-sufficiency for refugees has also become more difficult in recent years, according to a 2011 research report for Congress by Andorra Bruno, a specialist in immigration policy.

The recession has played a major part, making it difficult for refugees to find employment and become economically self-sufficient.

Oh NO!  The real horror, Silverman says they have to do private fundraising!

“Finding employment is the biggest problem,” said Erku Yimer, the executive director of the Ethiopian association. “Because many of the companies that hire refugees are not hiring anymore.”

The subsidies resettlement agencies provide refugees is the only financial resource for those who can’t find work. The recession means those who are looking for a job rely on these subsidies for a longer period of time than in the past, Silverman said.  [Not exactly true, refugees are accessing welfare at accelerating rates, most of the contractors are putting their charges on the public dole as soon as they can!---ed]

“So in addition to providing resettlement service, the resettlement agencies have had to be in a constant process of fundraising from the private sector, in order to assure that refugees can pay their rent and don’t go homeless,” Silverman said.

Readers when this program first became law in 1980 (thanks to Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter among others) the understanding was that refugees would quickly become self-sufficient and not be part of a permanent underclass.  Also, the program was to be funded through a PUBLIC-PRIVATE partnership.  Over the years the contractors got lazy and became increasingly dependent on the taxpayer to support THEIR charitable desires and the public is now largely on the hook.

If they have to exert themselves and do private fundraising now, too bad!  They should have been doing that all along.  [sounds of wailing!]

So, how many refugees did each of the contractors resettle in 2009?

As we reported here, the Office of Refugee Resettlement recently released its Annual Report to Congress for 2009 (four years late!).  To save you from going through its nearly 200 pages, I’m from time to time going to bring you some nuggets.  Already I’ve told you two place we could start cutting the bloated federal budget by cutting grants for “healthy marriages” and for “ethnic community based organizations” which are essentially little ‘Acorns’—community organizing outfits funded by you.

Wait till I tell you about those special savings accounts for refugees.  Did you know that you are putting your money into their private savings accounts laundered through non-profits?

I hope to have a couple of things for you today, including the savings accounts, here is the first.  If you go to Appendix C of the report, you can learn all about the Big Nine federal contractors who monopolize the program.  There were ten in 2009 as the State of Iowa was being phased out.

Here is the contractor and the number of refugees it brought to your towns and cities in 2009 (remember they are being paid by the head!):

Numero uno!

Church World Service:   6,602 (plus helped 10,806 Cubans and Haitians)

Episcopal Migration Ministries:  4,792

Ethiopian Community Development Council:  3,874

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society:  2,306

International Rescue Committee:  11,547

Iowa Dept. of Human Services:  426

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service:  10,129

US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants:  7,166

US Conference of Catholic Bishops:  22,417  (11,064 Cubans and Haitians)***

World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals):  7,264

For more on these mostly “religious” non-profits read a report at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) which I missed in March of last year, here.   Looks like in my survey of 2009, the Catholics are number 1 followed by the secular IRC, and with the Lutherans coming in at number 3.    (Although that depends on whether you count Church World Service’s Cubans and Haitians).

Says the always diplomatic CIS:

It is to the United States’ credit that our nation has, from her founding, provided a safe haven for the unjustly persecuted. However, even well-meaning efforts require accountability and should be balanced against other important, competing priorities. Without appropriate balance and oversight, helping refugees shifts from being a worthy humanitarian gesture in truly exceptional cases to an avenue for government largesse, enriching private bureaucracies while feeding public cynicism.

Readers, there is no oversight of the refugee resettlement program.

***Endnote:  The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is pouring $millions into their political immigration platform, as we learned a few days ago at the Washington Post. Are they using taxpayer money?  Remember they are paid by the head for all those refugees they are resettling.