Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Resettlement agencies hand-select refugee representatives for ORR consultation
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 5, 2010
Refugee resettlement agencies continue to select refugee representatives for the ORR 2010 National Consultation in Washington DC this coming week (here).
The IRC, for example, has selected refugees from across the nation to attend the confernece, including a Nepali Bhutanese refugee leader from Arizona named Manorath Khanal.
Manorath Khanal, who chairs the Bhutanese Community in Arizona (BCA), has been selected to participate in Refugees Resettlement Consultations to be held on June 7 and 8 this month in Washington D.C.
The consultation program of Office of Refugee Resettlement marks its 30th anniversary this year garnering community refugee leaders and other stakeholders from various States of America…
…”It is a matter of pride that International Rescue Committee (IRC) which has been looking after resettled refugees here selected me along with six others from various countries for this program,” Khanal told Bhutan News Service over telephone.”The IRC is sponsoring all participants from Arizona”, he added….
…Khanal has felt that America has old immigration policies due to which refugees resettling there do not get sufficient benefits prior to becoming self-reliant economically.
“The aid basket for resettling refugees has been getting smaller each year,” Khanal said promising to raise these issues during the consultations in Washington D.C…
Of course, letting federal contractors select which refugees will speak to the government oversight agencies means that those refugees will of course arrive at the Consultation feeling indebted to their resettlement agency benefactors.
Already I see that these refugee representatives are towing the line about so-called shrinking government funding — during the same year that the State Department doubled the R&P refugee grant! Khanal seems to have already been preprogrammed to ask for more funding for his sponsor, the IRC.
While refugee resettlement contractors like the IRC use people like Khanal to lobby the government for more public funding for them, refugee leaders like Gedlu Metaferia are simultaneously being selectively excluded from the conference by the ORR (here).
Is this the type of conference marking the 30th anniversary of the refugee resettlement program that will really benefit the refugees, the average citizen, and the nation? Or is this whole thing a set up to help the refugee resettlement contractors and their revolving door friends in government?
National Refugee “Consultation” scheduled for Washington, DC next week « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
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Read ‘Friends of Refugees’ blog « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
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