Archive for the ‘ORR’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 4, 2012
The Office of Refugee Resettlement is alerting people to a new scam that targets refugees:
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has been alerted to a new telephone scam apparently targeting Bhutanese refugees. A man identifying himself as a representative of the “Federal Grants Department” calls from a Washington, DC-based telephone number, (202) 436-9601, informing recently resettled refugees that they are eligible to receive $10,000 because they are refugees from Bhutan. To claim the money, they are instructed to produce a money order for $650, and call the telephone number for further instructions on where to send the money…
…At least one refugee has been coerced into making multiple payments as “processing fees”, totaling more than $5,000.
So far, reports are localized in Texas, but ORR advises everyone to be aware of this scam and avoid giving any personal information or payments to unknown callers… Read more here
Another type of scam, this one in Australia, involves people on the phone posing as utility salespeople, and telling refugees that they need to verify details of their accounts. See Brimbank Weekly article:
REFUGEES and migrants with little or poor English are being targeted by door-to-door utilities salespeople, leading to large debts and disconnection of services for some.
Footscray Community Legal Centre financial counsellor Anita Smith said unscrupulous practices by door-knockers were still continuing, despite a campaign to stamp out the practice that involved distributing “do not knock” stickers to residents…
…”One of the tactics the salespeople use is to say that people need to verify their details and then get them to answer questions on the phone. The people then find that their accounts have been changed.”
Others seek help after a visit from a salesperson posing as a government representative, who makes the resident feel compelled to switch.
Many Burmese Chin people in the west are having problems with salespeople… Read more here
Posted in Chin, Nepali Bhutanese, ORR, scams, Texas | Tagged: bhutanese, Nepali, refugees, resettlement, scams, telephone scam | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 25, 2011
Now I understand the timing of Mayor Gatsas of Manchester going ballistic last week. It turns out that the refugee office at the State Department rejected his request for a moratorium of refugee resettlement in Manchester. An editorial in the Concord Monitor mentions the moratorium rejection and criticizes Gatsas’s latest request – for cut-off of certain federal aid (US Dept. of HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement grants) to the entire state:
Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas’s frustration at the strain a steady stream of refugees has placed on city services is understandable. So is his request to the State Department for a one-year moratorium on refugee resettlement to allow his city to improve its ability to meet refugee needs. But Gatsas’s response, when the predictable “no” to a moratorium came from federal authorities, was arrogant and illogical.
He wants …state government..to reject all contracts between the state and agencies that aid resettled refugees. That wouldn’t stop refugees from coming. The number assigned Manchester and other host cities is set by the State Department. But by stopping the already inadequate flow of federal money to assist refugee resettlement, it would place an even greater burden on local taxpayers… Read more here
Posted in funding, International Institute of NE, International Institute of New Hampshire, moratorium / restriction, New Hampshire, ORR, State Department | Tagged: funding, manchester, moratorium, New Hampshire, refugees, resettlement, Ted Gatsas | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 21, 2011
The US Department of State and the International Institute of Akron are resettling about 350 refugees annually in Akron. Secondary migration from other areas of the US is significant, with 350 more refugees arriving annually. Adult refugees here face the usual barriers to medical care, such as transportation issues, the language barrier, and cultural differences that hinder understanding and communication between medical staff and patients. Medical workers treat refugees for parasites, hepatitis, tuberculosis, dental problems, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other health issues. Although most refugee children are in good health when they arrive, some have medical concerns not typically seen in American-born children — e.g., hepatitis, latent tuberculosis, anemia, failure to thrive, parasites, chronic ear infections and certain oral health problems. An article in the Beacon Journal has more:
…Each year, about 350 refugees from Myanmar, Nepal, Iraq and other countries arrive in the Akron area with the help of the International Institute of Akron, according to Kate Sass, the institute’s director of refugee resettlement. Another 350 refugees who have been living in other cities throughout the United States also relocate to the region in a typical year…
...Cultural differencesAlong with the obvious language barrier, things such as transportation issues and cultural differences create challenges, Van Nostran said. Some patients also struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder from their past experiences.
The staff has learned, for example, that it is considered rude in some cultures to only use one hand instead of two to give patients their prescriptions or other paperwork.
In another case, Van Nostran said, hospital staff were concerned that a refugee couple were ignoring their newborn shortly after birth. The staff later learned this was the custom in the family’s native culture, which believes doting on a newborn will draw the attention of “evil spirits.”
“It has challenged us not to make assumptions but to ask specifically about cultures,” she said…
…When refugees arrive, they must have an initial health exam within 30 days for parasites, hepatitis, tuberculosis, dental problems and other health issues.
Some refugees have latent tuberculosis, which isn’t active or contagious but still must be treated with a nine-month course of antibiotics to avoid an active infection in the future, she said.
“You learn a lot,” Erme said. “Health-care providers who take care of refugee patients need to be open to learning and realize that what we were taught in our medical professional education may not always apply to this population.”…
…Caring for children
…Although the majority of children are in good health when they arrive, he said, refugees have some medical concerns that typically aren’t seen in American-born children — things such as oral health problems, latent tuberculosis, parasites, anemia, failure to thrive, chronic ear infections and hepatitis… Read more here
I think that the International Institute of Akron resettling refugees into crowded housing with rats and roaches also must not have been particularly healthful for refugees in Akron.
Posted in health, housing, substandard, housing, overcrowding, secondary migration, refugee, children, PTSD, cultural adjustment, language, RMA (Refugee Medical Assistance), Akron, International Institute of Akron | Tagged: refugees, resettlement, International Institute, PTSD, language barrier, Akron, hepatitis, latent tuberculosis, anemia, failure to thrive | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 2, 2011
The wait for refugees in San Diego needing to take english as a
second language (ESL) classes has increased by nearly 14-times. The head of the US Department of HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (that would be Eskinder Negash) claims he “was caught off guard by the size of the problem”, and did not offer any immediate solutions. Yet, the California state government has been in deep financial troubles for two years now. An article in Fronteras has more:
SAN DIEGO — On a recent Friday morning, students of Iraqi descent practiced phrases they might need for a job interview in the language lab at Cuyamaca College…
…English as a Second Language, or ESL, courses, are in high demand at Cuyamaca, which is located in San Diego’s East County.
“We had enough students on the wait list to double the program,” said Alicia Muñoz, Cuyamaca’s ESL coordinator. In fact, over the past two years, the wait list for ESL classes has increased by nearly 14-times.
Most of the demand comes from recently arrived Iraqi refugees. More than 13,000 Iraqis have relocated to San Diego County since 2005, making it one of the largest refugee communities in the country…
…But budget cuts – affecting community colleges across the state – have forced schools to cancel classes in many subjects, including ESL. At the same time, the demand for these classes has skyrocketed. And it’s not just community colleges that are feeling the strain.
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob has gotten an earful of concerns from elementary schools, hospitals and other public institutions in her district. They all say that they don’t have the funds to address refugee needs, especially on shrinking budgets.
“There have not been adequate resources available to serve this population,” Jacob said.
The supervisor recently hosted a meeting of refugee resettlement officials and service providers to discuss the problem…
…After the meeting, the head of the federal office of refugee resettlement admitted he was caught off guard by the size of the problem. He didn’t offer any immediate solutions, but conversations between Jacob’s office and service providers are ongoing… Read more here
A year-and-a-half ago we wrote to the ORR about a refugee who was unable to use medical health care in Sacramento – that too, explained a California state official, was related to budget problems. If the ORR had investigated the case – or even talked to anyone in California – wouldn’t they have discovered the budget problems by now, and the effects on refugees? How do they manage to be completely out of touch with the problems that refugees in San Diego (the largest resettlement site in the US) are experiencing?
Another issue we put in a complaint to the ORR about is the issue of discrimination in hiring by faith-based refugee resettlement agencies (World Relief and Catholic Charities). World Relief claimed they could not hire a Muslim former refugee in Washington state because “he might not feel comfortable while they prayed at staff meetings.” Yet, federal regulations prohibit worship on the public dime. The ORR claimed it was investigating, yet has stonewalled since we placed the complaint in April 2010. We wrote once again in April 2011 to find out what progress they were making, Mr. Negash’s Deputy Director, Ken Tota, did not even bother to respond.
Posted in Chaldean, discrimination in hiring, ESL & ELL, evangelical, funding, Iraqi, language, ORR, Sacramento, San Diego, World Relief | Tagged: English as a Second Language, Eskinder Negash, ESL, Iraqi, Ken Tota, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugees, resettlement, SanDiego | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 3, 2011
The case involving repeated sexual assaults of an 8-year-old refugee boy at a Catholic Charities Galveston-Houston shelter – and the agency’s subsequent cover-up of the case – continues to unfold. The agency won’t answer further questions on the cover-up, including whether the 8-year-old was separated from the two older boys after the assault, how many other children reported witnessing the abuse, what kind of treatment was provided for them and when. Its also seems that government oversight agencies have only been able to slowly dredge out details of the case from Catholic Charities, and that the faith-based agency continues to withhold many key details. It’s also now clear that a Texas state oversight agency did not have a mere “technical glitch” causing closure of the case without investigation, but had a series of failures – putting children at great ongoing risk. Another article in the Houston Chronicle reveals more details of the case.
…In the hours and days after a staff member interrupted the July 1 assault in the upstairs room, the senior management of the Catholic Charities’ program failed to get the boy medical treatment, doctored incident reports and tried to minimize what had occurred in order to “protect the program,” according to a federal report.
But it was not just the boy’s caretakers who stumbled, state and local law enforcement records show. A worker for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services intake system for reports of potential abuse and neglect also made a mistake, accidentally delaying an outside investigation into what happened for nearly two weeks.
After the federal government brought that error to the state’s attention, the case was referred to the wrong agency, leaving it in limbo until it landed with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in August.
In the end, children’s advocates say there is blame to go around, calling for accountability for the shelter program management, who are now part of a criminal investigation. They also called for a review of the state’s intake system to ensure that technical problems with law enforcement notification are quickly fixed.
“Certainly some fault has to go to St. Michael’s for what happened, but if … this reporting went awry and was misdirected in some sort of way, just imagine the hurt that might have been caused to a number of these kids by something not happening soon enough,” said Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of the Houston-based nonprofit Children at Risk.
“When it comes to kids, we need to take immediate action.”…
…The shelter management did not call the sheriff’s office, but they did call the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) Statewide Intake Division roughly six hours after the incident, at 6:34 p.m……any report to that state hotline reporting potential abuse or neglect should have triggered a chain of events, including notification of the licensing division for DFPS and a fax or email notification to local law enforcement, said Patrick Crimmins, a DFPS spokesman.
But the worker at the state intake center was confused and couldn’t immediately find a state license for St. Michael’s, Crimmins said. The intake report was “mistakenly closed” without notifying the licensing division or law enforcement about any incident at St. Michael’s, he said…
…On July 13, ORR called the state to check on the status of its investigation, but state licensing officials still had no idea what happened at the shelter.
They re-opened the initial July 1 report and sent out a state monitor to investigate within 72 hours. But the automatic notification system again failed, this time referring the report to the wrong agency, the Houston Police Department. The shelter sits near the city-county line but is within the jurisdiction of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office…
…By mid-August, ORR was suspicious enough about what happened at the shelter that day to send a team of monitors to Houston. They issued a scathing report that documented a reporting delay, failure to seek medical care and the doctoring of incident reports, notifying Catholic Charities on Sept. 8 that they would remove all children from their care, at least temporarily…
…Catholic Charities still refuses to answer several key questions about the incident, including whether the 8-year-old was separated from the two older boys after the assault, how many other children reported witnessing the abuse and what kind of treatment was provided for them and when… Read more here
Catholic Charities Galveston-Houston is the agency which was the subject of complaints from gay Iraqi refugees in 2010, and allegations that one of its workers sexually assaulted an 11-year-old refugee boy in 2007.
Posted in Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, child protective services, faith-based, Houston, ORR, police, sexual abuse | Tagged: catholic charities, Department of Family and Protective Services, DFPS, houston, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, police, protective services, refugees, resettlement, sexual abuse, sexual assault, St. Michael's | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 28, 2011
It turns out that not only did Catholic Charities Galveston-Houston not report an incident involving the sexual assault of a refugee boy to the ORR until July 5 (four days after it occurred on July 1) — and did not mention the sexual assault part – but law enforcement was not notified until over a month later, on August 5. The Texas protective services, which claims that Catholic Charities notified it within 24 hours of the assault as required, claims to have closed its investigation due to a “technical glitch”, but reopened the case when Catholic Charities inquired about the investigation on July 13. The protective services investigation then found that the shelter left children unsupervised and children were acting out inappropriately. Records also showed a worker supervising children when that worker was actually off the clock. A report at Houston’s KPRC Channel-2 details what happened:
HOUSTON — An 8-year-old boy said he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by two boys at a home for children.
The boy said a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old boy assaulted him at the St. Michael’s Home for Children, which is run by Catholic Charities. The home cares for children who are refugees from foreign countries.
Harris County sheriff’s deputies said a worker at the home caught a 10-year-old molesting an 8-year-old in July. The 8-year-old later claimed he was also molested by an 11-year-old.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which licenses the home, launched an investigation and found children unsupervised and children acting out inappropriately. Records show a worker supervising children when that worker was actually off the clock.
The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement also launched an investigation. It removed all but five children staying in the home. They were working on new living arrangements for those children.
Investigators said Catholic Charities immediately notified the state of the claims. The state closed its investigation after a technical glitch, but when Catholic Charities inquired about the investigation on July 13, the case was reopened.
Deputies said they were not notified of the alleged incidents until Aug. 5… Read more here
An updated version of the Houston Chronicle article from Monday adds further details.
Posted in Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, child protective services, children, faith-based, Houston, ORR, sexual abuse | Tagged: catholic charities, houston, law enforcement, protective services, refugees, resettlement, St. Michael's Home for Children, technical glitch, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 27, 2011
An incident at a Catholic Charities shelter in Houston that media outlets previously reported as “sexual activity” between three children is now being reported as a sexual assault. An investigation by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) found that Catholic Charities did not report the July 1 sexual assault of a boy until four days later, nor did they seek medical treatment for the child. Catholic Charities management also did a cover-up, including doctoring of first reports. An article at UPI reports on the ORR investigation:
HOUSTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) — Federal officials were removing children and teens from three Houston shelters after learning the sexual assault of a child at one facility was covered up.
As of Friday, only five of 72 children and teens, mostly refugees, remained in the three Catholic Charities shelters, the Houston Chronicle reported.
An investigation by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement found that Catholic Charities did not report the July 1 sexual assault of a young boy at a St. Michael’s shelter until July 5 and also failed to get the boy medical attention until the latter date.
“CCGH staff had knowledge that a [child] had been anally penetrated as the result of a sexual assault … and did not seek medical treatment,” a report by the office states. “Program staff should have observed that a sexual assault of a child is grounds for immediate medical attention.”
Federal investigators conducted an unannounced visit to the site of the sexual assault in August and found that initial reports of the attack had been doctored.
“The ORR monitors found significant concerns, including the fact that management had full knowledge of the extent of the assault and submitted erroneous … reports to this office, which deliberately misled ORR,” the agency’s director wrote in a Sept. 8 letter to the president of Catholic Charities… Read more here
An article in the Houston Chronicle reports that Catholic Charities management also pressured staffers to withhold details from investigators.
Posted in Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, child protective services, children, faith-based, health, Houston, medical care, ORR, sexual abuse | Tagged: catholic charities, chilren, cover-up, doctored documents, houston, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugees, sexual abuse, sexual assault | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 16, 2011
The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement will temporarily remove all the immigrant and refugee children from St. Michael’s Home for Children operated by Catholic Charities in Houston due to an investigation into “sexual activity” involving three children at one of the organization’s shelters. The organization allegedly assigned staff members in charge of supervising children with other assignments, which left the children to their own devices. An article in the Houston Chronicle has the story:
Federal authorities plan to temporarily remove all of the immigrant and refugee children from St. Michael’s Home for Children operated by Catholic Charities in Houston amid an investigation into “sexual activity” involving three children in one of the organization’s shelters, officials said.
The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places children and teenagers caught crossing the border without family members into temporary care, so far has removed 22 of the 46 children housed at the three shelters in Houston and plans to continue removing the rest, officials with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said Friday.
Kenneth Wolfe, an ORR spokesman, said the agency made the decision to temporarily remove the children based on its own monitoring and a state investigation…
…Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the state conducted an investigation after being notified of the incident on July 13. The state investigator documented deficiencies at the facility, including faulting the administrator for assigning staff members in charge of supervising children with other assignments, which left the children alone “where they acted out inappropriately.”…
…U.S. immigration officials placed 6,074 immigrant and refugee children in the care of ORR in 2009, the most recent data available. More than half of those – some 3,200 – were detained in Texas, the statistics show… Read more here
Posted in Catholic, child protective services, children, faith-based, Houston, ORR, public/private partnership | Tagged: catholic charities, chilren, houston, immigrant, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugees, resettlement, St. Michael's Home for Children, Texas | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 2, 2011
An article at the The American Prospect explains the plight of former Hmong refugees who tried to make a go of it in poultry production in the Ozarks. Despite the farming skills and family values many Hmong brought from Laos — and hoped to use to achieve the American dream — American business markets set the Hmong up for failure.
Shane Tawr doesn’t remember exactly why he first decided to try his hand at chicken farming. Tawr had a government job in Milwaukee but wanted relief from the city’s bustle. He decided in 2004 to head down to the Ozarks, buy a chicken farm, and work for himself, just as many of his Hmong ancestors had done in Laos.
The Hmong, who came to the United States in large numbers as political refugees after the Vietnam War, settled mostly in urban communities in California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Some raised chickens and tended small vegetable gardens, but many worked jobs that kept them near the poverty line. In the early 2000s, chicken producers such as Tyson, which is based in northwest Arkansas, began courting the Hmong, and advertisements about chicken-farming opportunities appeared in Hmong-language newspapers. Roughly 500 Hmong now live in communities throughout Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma and raise breeder or broiler chickens for a handful of companies that operate in the Ozarks… Read more here
Apparently the highly exploitative contract-farming arrangements are not confined solely to Tysons, but practiced by other poultry processors such as Simmons, Peterson, George, etc. Other factors
involved in American businesses exploitation of the Hmong and other immigrants – a long tradition in American business – seem to include greedy realtors and inflated assessments of poultry farms, and “safe for the bank” loans guaranteed by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA). Read more here in a blog written by Daniel Krotz, a former Senior Consultant for the Washington DC based Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED) explains these other factors on a blog at Carroll County News.
…the Hmong began arriving in the United States from Laos following the US exit from Vietnam. The Hmong, valiant allies with the US against communism, became refugees and were settled in the United States to avoid extinction at the hands of our North Vietnamese enemies as punishment for their service to the United States.
and
…Hmong operated farms were destined to fail from the onset or, to be fairly marginal business investments over any period of time, short or long term…
The underlying problem was that the Hmong had purchased farms that were overvalued and with equipment and buildings that were nearly or fully depreciated. The critical information missing from the Pott’s article was that appraisals of farms were too high at the time of purchase, and that area banks made loans even though it should have been fairly apparent to the banks that the Hmong purchasers were entering into fairly risky ventures that had limited potential to ever be
profitable.
Why would banks make loans for potentially high risk business ventures? Probably because, in most cases, the loans were guaranteed by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), which substantially reduced the risk for lenders…
In very general terms, what appears to have happened is that Realtors found a crowd of eager buyers fo farming operations the buyers were not adequately prepared to operate, and passed the buyers along to banks–accompanied by inflated appraisals–who made “safe for the bank” loans because they were guaranteed by USDA FSA. The only losers were the Hmong.
Again, while I cannot characterize how equitable the business relationships between Tyson and the Hmong farmers are, I can say that many of the farmers had similar if not identical contracts with other poultry processors such as Simmons, Peterson, George, etc. Financial outcomes for Hmong farmers was predictably poor regardless of the processing company they worked with… Read more here
Posted in Arkansas, California, Hmong, Hmong, Hmong, Minnesota, ORR, poultry production, US Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin | Tagged: American business, American dream, Arkansas, contract-farming, Daniel Krotz, Farm Service Agency, FSA, George, Hmong, human rights, Institute for Social and Economic Development, ISED, Monica Potts, Ozarks, Peterson, poultry farms, realtors, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, safe for the bank, Shane Tawr, Simmons, Tyson, US Department of Agriculture, USDA, Vietnam | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 18, 2011
The ORR recently put out a message about the 2012 Matching Grant Program to refugee resettlement agencies. For the Matching Grant Program the ORR awards $2 in public funds for every $1 raised by the private resettlement contractor, up to a maximum of $2,200 in federal funds per capita (that is, per persons in the program, although not proportioned equally to all refugee clients).
Dear colleagues,
The Office of Refugee Resettlement is very pleased to announce the publication of the 2012 Matching Grant Program funding opportunity announcement.
The Voluntary Agencies Matching Grant Program is an alternative to public cash assistance designed to enable refugees, asylees, and other ORR eligible populations to become self-sufficient through employment within 120 to 180 days from date of arrival into the United States (U.S.) and/or date of eligibility for ORR services… Services provided under this cooperative agreement
include, but are not limited to, comprehensive case management, employment services, maintenance assistance, cash allowance, and administration.
…Participating agencies agree to match the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) grant with cash and in-kind contributions of goods and services from the community. Currently, ORR awards $2 for every $1 raised by the agency up to a maximum of $2,200 in federal funds per client. At least 20 percent of the non-federal share (the grantee’s match) must be met with cash or cash equivalent; the balance may be cash, in-kind services, or donated goods. Note that while Federal and match funds are calculated and awarded on a per capita or enrolled client basis, the actual spending of such funds is not per capita based. This is to allow Matching Grant Program service providers flexibility in providing individually tailored services (higher or lower than the per capita rate) necessary for the client to achieve self-sufficiency… [emphasis added]
Program related questions should be directed to Tom Giossi in the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Thank
you,
ORR
(An online version is found on the ORR website.)
So, it looks like resettlement agencies are able to direct money to
individual refugee clients depending upon the individuals’ needs. The policy does therefore, however place a large amount of power over individual refugees in the hands of these small religious and/or non-profit private groups. This freedom can also be misused to reward some refugee clients and punish others, especially those that speak-up. It would be naive to think this cannot and does not happen. Refugee clients are often fearful of retaliation from authority figures – and they commonly misperceive these small, private government contractors as “authorities” – due to the negative and traumatic circumstances from which they have fled For that same reason, however, many refugee clients have learned the necessity of being courageous and speaking up for themselves when they see abuses.
My concern is the power this Matching Grant Program policy gives those agencies that have, or newly develop, a propensity to punish refugee clients who speak out. (I’ve seen it happen – this is not hypothetical.) To counter that negative and unintended consequence what we need here, at the very least, is unbiased and independent oversight – and that’s not what we have with the current cozy partnership between government oversight agencies and the private agencies they oversee. Not only is “partnership” the official policy, but most of the government monitors are former resettlement agency employees who went in search of government jobs – jobs that may be more demanding/ stimulating, but that also have much better benefits.
Therefore, who protects refugees from the real and possible abuses? Essentially no one, so far, except the outspoken and courageous community members and leaders we periodically see. I don’t think that’s enough though, and it certainly can never substitute for effective oversight.
Posted in employment services, employment/jobs for refugees, Matching Grant program, ORR, public/private partnership, retaliation, revolving door | Tagged: human rights, Match Grant, Matching grant, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, voluntary agencies | 5 Comments »
Christopher Coen
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