A church working with World Relief in Spokane says that they cannot keep up with the flow of refugees to the city, according to an article in The Spokane Spokesman. The church’s pastor says that World Relief must draw the line somewhere, or have it drawn for them.

In the fall of 2006, a young Spokane pastor and his wife welcomed an extended family of 12 ethnic Burmese refugees into their East Central neighborhood church called Jacob’s Well and prayed that more would come.

Nearly four years later, that family has been joined by more than 600 Burmese, and the Rev. Eric Blauer wonders how many more refugees from around the world his church, the city and the nation can handle in these tough economic times.

“From our standpoint it’s hard to figure out how we can keep receiving refugees who are unprepared for the realities they find when they get here,” Blauer said…

…ardent refugee advocates such as Blauer believe there are limits to the education, health care and social service resources available to support large, low-income populations of people whose attempts to find employment are impeded by culture and language.

World Relief and other voluntary refugee resettlement agencies must draw the line somewhere or have it drawn for them, they say. here

But the recalcitrant director of World Relief in Spokane, Mark Kadel, indicates that he has no intention of listening to feedback from churches, such as Jacob’s Well, that are working with his organization. He intends to try to bring MORE refugees to Spokane, and not less. Despite his defiance, he may have trouble getting through Washington state’s Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance, whose chief, Tom Medina, says that given the economic situation, this is not the time to increase the flow of refugees to the area.

…World Relief, the resettlement agency responsible for bringing thousands of refugees to Spokane over the past 24 years, says it would like to bring more – not fewer…

…Last year, Washington state received 2,588 refugees. Of the 80,000 refugees authorized to be admitted into the United States this year, Washington is expected to get as many as 2,900, including 500 in Spokane. World Relief expected to bring even more to Spokane next year.

The Baltimore-based agency has no intention of slowing the flow of refugees, says Mark Kadel, World Relief’s director in Spokane.

“Absolutely not. If anything, we need to move forward,” Kadel said in a recent interview.

Kadel said the United States provides a safe haven for less than 1 percent of the 13 million people suffering in refugee camps, and “we are not doing our share”…

…Tom Medina, chief of Washington’s Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance, looked at the state budget and advised the six resettlement agencies operating in the state to slow the flow of refugees this year.

Two other agencies – the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and Catholic Charities of Spokane – attempted this year to begin new resettlement programs in Spokane. Medina convinced them that given the economic situation, this was not the time to initiate new refugee streams.

And then this statement:

Although resettlement agencies like World Relief are not required to notify municipalities about the number of refugees they may be bringing in, they are required under the federal Refugee Act to show that they have at least consulted with someone in state government.

That’s not correct. According to the State Department contract that World Relief signed, the Cooperative Agreement, World Relief must, “…colaborate with state and local officials, other agencies and services in the area in implementing a plan to rationalize the numbers of refugees to be resettled and to ensure quality services and a welcoming atmosphere are provided to refugees.”

By the way, I had an experience myself with Mark Kadel. In 2003 I discovered Lost Boys of Sudan refugees at World Relief’s Tampa affiliate in New Port Richey who complained of severe neglect and mistreatment by the agency. The refugees said that World Relief placed them in unfurnished apartments where they had to sleep on the floor for months, and that the agency made them work in their warehouse moving furniture and then setting up apartments for new refugees, but never paid them for the work. They also said that they had to spend days cleaning nursing homes but were never paid for the work. The World Relief refugees said that before they did the cleaning that a World Relief employee made them sign pieces of paper that he had folded over so that they couldn’t see what they were signing. When World Relief finally helped them get jobs, the jobs were in a different county, and the refugees had to wake early at 4am to commute by bike three hours to their jobs.

I wrote to the State Department and the ORR to forward the refugees’ complaints, but the agencies did not bother to respond. I then wrote to the agencies again in 2004 and 2005 to report ongoing complaints from the refugees. In May 2005 the refugees told us that Mark Kadel came to their apartments and represented himself as a U.S. State Department employee. One of the refugees said that when he asked for Mr. Kadel’s business card, Mr. Kadel failed to produce one, and that he then asked Mr. Kadel to leave the apartment. Mr. Kadel also contacted me, and this time, misrepresented himself as a “mediator”, and tried to get information from me about the complaint. Of course, the organization that is the subject of the complaint could never act as a mediator.

State Department monitors then showed up in New Port Richey to talk to World Relief employees and the refugees. After speaking to dozens of refugees and inspecting World Relief’s records, which indicated extreme disrespect for their refugee clients, the State Department then canceled World Relief Tampa’s refugee resettlement contract.