Fun with numbers: find out how many refugees came to your town in last 5 years

Just this morning as I wrote the previous post on an Iraqi woman who beat her daughter, I had a close look at some databases at the US State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.

They have a database where you can see how many refugees and from what countries were resettled in your town.  And, I mean town!  Apparently the cities are overflowing with immigrants and the State Department is busy spreading new refugees out to even small towns.   They want to make sure you too experience the joys of multiculturalism.

Keep in mind, a refugee might be resettled in a particular town, but they are free to move after in some cases 3 months (it’s called secondary migration).   No one tracks where they go (this is America you will be reminded by open borders activists), but the problem is that, assume they are receiving treatment for TB where originally resettled, there is no way of knowing if they continue the meds after moving.

So those resettled in your town may no longer be there, or conversely they have attracted secondary migrants to come to your town and the numbers of a particular nationality are now larger.

Go here and scroll down to “Arrivals by destination city by nationality” open link to a ‘fun’ database.

This post will be archived in our ‘where to find information’ category.

The New York Times is of some use after all: great tools to see immigration and diversity trends

The New York Times web site has some fascinating interactive graphics about diversity and immigration. On this one, you can see how the ethnic/racial composition of schools has changed from 1987 to 2006. You can look up figures by state county and school district, and these are compared with national trends. The site says:

Immigration’s impact is often first seen in the classroom. The increasing diversity of the nation’s education system is the most detailed measure of where immigrants have settled in recent years. View demographic changes in more than 17,000 school districts across the nation — including your own.

The general trend is this:

Fueled by the latest wave of immigration, enrollment of Hispanic and Asian students in American schools has increased by more than 5 million since the 1990s. The increases are occurring not just in long-time immigration hotbeds, but in places as far flung as Sevier County, Arkansas to Colfax County, Nebraska, to Marion County, Oregon.

Asians increased from 5 to 6 percent; Hispanics from 13 to 21 percent over the period. Blacks and Native Americans remained the same, at 17 percent and 1 percent respectively, and whites dropped from 66 to 56 percent. This represents students, remember, so the minority figures are larger than in the general population.

On that page there is a link to this amazing map of immigration trends by nationality.  You  can run your cursor over any county and see the total population and the number of foreign-born. The counties are coded by color to show where most of the foreign-born are from.

Even better, there’s a timeline that runs from 1880 to 2000. You can select a nationality and move the pointer along the timeline to see what each census showed of that nationality’s settlement. Even this is at the county level, so you can learn, for instance, that in 1890 in Douglas County, Nebraska, there were 260 French-born people out of a total population of 158,008.

A state is permitted to withdraw from the Refugee Resettlement Program

For as long as we have been writing RRW, a year and a half now, I’ve wondered how it is that no refugees are resettled in Wyoming.   I had heard the state had “opted out” of the program but I could never figure out how this was done.

Today a kind reader sent me this section from the Code of Federal Regulations that answers my guestion!   A state is permitted to withdraw from the Refugee Resettlement Program.

The following is from Section 400.301, Withdrawal from the Refugee Program from 45 CFR.   The “Director” is the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Department of Health and Human Services.

(a) In the event that a State decides to cease participation in the refugee program, the State must provide 120 days advance notice to the Director before withdrawing from the program.

(b) To participate in the refugee program, a State is expected to operate all components of the refugee program, including refugee cash and medical assistance, social services, preventive health, and an unaccompanied minors program if appropriate. A State is also expected to play a coordinating role in the provision of assistance and services in accordance with §400.5(b). In the event that a State wishes to retain responsibility for only part of the refugee program, it must obtain prior approval from the Director of ORR. Such approval will be granted if it is in the best interest of the Government.

(c) When a State withdraws from all or part of the refugee program, the Director may authorize a replacement designee or designees to administer the provision of assistance and services, as appropriate, to refugees in that State. A replacement designee must adhere to the same regulations under this part that apply to a State-administered program, with the exception of the following provisions: 45 CFR 400.5(d), 400.7, 400.51(b)(2)(i), 400.58(c), 400.94(a), 400.94(b), 400.94(c), and subpart L. Replacement designees must also adhere to the Subpart L regulations regarding formula allocation grants for targeted assistance, if the State authorized the replacement designee appointed by the Director to act as its agent in applying for and receiving targeted assistance funds. Certain provisions are excepted because they apply only to States and become moot when a State withdraws from participation in the refugee program and is replaced by another entity. States would continue to be responsible for administering the other excepted provisions because these provisions refer to the administration of other State-run public assistance programs.

[60 FR 33604, June 28, 1995, as amended at 65 FR 15450, Mar. 22, 2000]

Based on that Section c, it looks like they aren’t going to let any state out easily.

For the entire Code of Federal Regulations for Refugee Resettlement, go here.  It is a treasure trove of information.

An afterthought:  I don’t know how many times over the last year and a half we have heard officials at state or local level say there is nothing they can do about refugees coming to a particular community—it’s all the federal governments doing they say.   Well this puts a lie to that notion, a state can say NO and it looks like a state can say, slow down the numbers!

Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual Report to Congress, where is it?

Sorry our “your state” page is so incomplete.  I just figured you could get your state information from our link to the ORR Annual Report to Congress, but I notice the link isn’t working (at least for me).  

If the new report is out would someone send me the link at Ann@vigilantfreedom.com!   Thanks!

Numbers of refugees admitted to the US in 2007

Thanks to Chris here is a link to the 2007 ORR data for the number of refugees admitted, where they are from and to what state they were resettled.   

We admitted 48,281 refugees from 62 countries in 2007.

The top 6 sending countries were:

Burma:   9776

Somalia:  6958

Iran:  5474

Soviet Republics:  4583

Burundi:  4525

Thailand: 4059

 The top three “welcoming” resettlement states:

California:  6706

Texas:  4401

Minnesota:  3198

The bottom 3 least welcoming states:

Mississippi:   1

Montana:  3

Arkansas:   6

Then, last but not least, the state that has refused to take refugees!   Wyoming

Utah Board to make sure refugees are served

The State of Utah set up an 11 member board last Monday to begin monitoring services to refugees in the state.   This article says that Utah has 20,000 refugees. 

All existing state, county and private-service providers are being asked to make a “good faith effort” to hold themselves accountable for the successful delivery of services to refugees throughout the state, DePaulis [Dir. Utah Department of Community and Culture] said. “Each government entity dealing with refugees is to report back to the new state office the steps they intend to take to fill in or reduce the gaps cited by the working group.”

Not a word was mentioned in the article about the rape and murder last month of the little Karen refugee girl by another refugee in the building.  That case seems to have disappeared into a black hole.

You can find out more information on Utah at “Your State”.   And, here is a link to all of our posts mentioning Utah where things must be hopping regarding an influx of refugees.  Apparently Utah is a welcoming state.

Your state: I’m working on it!

I’ve been so lazy about trying to get more information up on our “Your state” page (at the top of RRW).  Yesterday I had a request for some basic information about Washington state.   I discovered that not only did I not have any information at my fingertips, I had forgotten to even list Washington in the state list!

Embarrassed, I put up a few things on Washington state this morning.   I will try to do something each day on a state (if nothing else too exciting distracts me!).    

Your state, apologies

I see lots of readers have been accessing our “your state” page today and yesterday.  So sorry, that I have not worked on that in awhile.  Time is limited and the breaking news every day is so interesting that it’s hard to make myself work on the page.    I’ll try harder in the future.   In the meantime, please e-mail me at Ann@vigilantfreedom.com  and I’ll help you get started researching your state.

Job hunting? Utah looking for a director of new refugee office

 Your tax dollars:

The refugee business is booming in Utah, or so it seems.   According to today’s Deseret Morning News, Refugee services have been coordinated by one guy but now a whole office is needed to handle the flow of refugees to the state.  The new office will be funded by the federal government but it looks like state funds will be thrown into the pot.   Taxpayers of Utah need to look into this!

The state’s first director of an emerging Refugee Services Office could be in place by early next year.

——–

“We’re moving very quickly,” DePaulis (Utah Dept. of Community and Culture) said of organizing the office, which for now will be federally funded under the Department of Workforce Services.

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The refugee group also has requested that Huntsman allocate $200,000 in state funding for refugee services in the governor’s budget, which is set to be released Monday, DePaulis said.

But wait, the numbers of refugees are going down in Utah, not up!

“It’s been something I’ve wanted for a long time, recognizing that one person can’t do it all,” Nakamura (the present refugee coordinator)  said. “The needs of the refugees over the last five to seven years are significantly different from the needs … when the program was created.

——-

“In the ’80s we had a huge population coming from a handful of countries in Southeast Asia. Now, we’ve got a handful of people coming from all over the world.”

If you check the number of refugee cases handled by Nakamurra’s one-man office you will see that the number went DOWN from 2005-2006 by almost a third.   But, this is interesting!  The federal funds required to take care of the smaller caseload went up by about $1 million.

Note that the federal funding is coming from the Utah Department of Workforce Services.   This is a handy federally funded (?) state agency.  It’s one stop shopping—employment services and food stamps/medical assistance all in one place. 

Sources for State information on Refugee programs

Thanks to the sleuthing of citizens of Emporia, KS,  we are learning more things we didn’t know that should help others of you trying to understand this complicated Federal program called Refugee Resettlement.   We have maintained all along that this program is becoming increasingly contentious because local citizens are not fully briefed about the Federal plans that will change the character of their cities and towns.  Citizens then become justifiably angry because they are not given the facts and have to dig for them themselves.

This information was made available to citizens of Emporia in the last couple of days, we should have seen it sooner.   The Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement, has a division called the Division of Refugee Assistance (DRA) whose mission is described below:  

The Division of Refugee Assistance (DRA) was created to oversee and provide guidance to State-administered programs that provide assistance and services to refugees, asylees, certain Amerasian immigrants, Cuban and Haitian Entrants, and Victims of Human Trafficking (henceforth referred to collectively as “refugees”). DRA monitors program planning, provision of services, and provides technical assistance to ensure compliance with federal regulations governing the delivery of refugee assistance and services, including cash and medical assistance.

_______

MISSION

DRA provides direction to States to ensure that refugees are provided assistance and services through State-administered programs that enable them to become employed and economically self-sufficient as soon as possible after their arrival in the United States.

You can read a summary of social service programs and grants programs for refugees here.

Go here for recent state grant figures, number of cases managed and to find your state’s Refugee office. Our previous post on this database is here.