Archive for the ‘State Department’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 10, 2012
An Iraqi refugee family now living in Idaho says that they were told, on the day before travel to the US for resettlement, that they should come in to “sign” for tickets. At the signing they claim they were then told to sign for a $4,500 travel loan. I wrote to the State Department about my concerns about the refugee Travel Loan Program program in 2005, but the agency’s refugee office did not make any major changes until now. In March the State Department announced that it was planning significant changes to the refugee program beginning in October (the beginning of the next fiscal year). A State Department spokeswoman says monthly loan payments will be capped according to income, loan agreements will be translated into nearly a dozen languages, and there will be a new informational website explaining the travel loan program. An article at StateImpact explains:
…[Qusay Alani] says he left Iraq after he was jailed for refusing to join Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. In Jordan, he says, he lived like a fugitive. As more and more Iraqis fled there, they were less and less welcome. Alani began the process of applying for refugee status. He didn’t aim to come to the U.S. He and his family simply needed to go somewhere. “Any country, I go to,” he says. “The only thing is just to protect my family. Because, you know, if I go back to Iraq I might get killed, you know. So – do my family.”
In 2009, after years of waiting, Alani and his family learned they were bound for the United States. This is where the travel loan comes in.
“They gave us like a month prior,” Alani explains. “They told us – in a month ahead, you’re going to travel. Then a day before, they told us to come and sign for your tickets.”
Alani says that’s when he found out he would have to sign a loan for more than $4,500…
…there is an effort underway to make changes, says Deborah Sisbarro, a spokeswoman for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
“We are, in fact, in the process of making improvements in the way the travel loan program works, yes,” she says.
Sisbarro says there will be a new informational website explaining the travel loan program. She says monthly loan payments will be capped according to income, and loan agreements will be translated into nearly a dozen languages. She says the changes should be in place by next year…
…In reporting this story, StateImpact requested interviews with current and former State Department officials and the official who oversees the travel loan program. None was available for an interview… Read more here
In the article the IRC’s Jim Carey complains about the travel loan program, yet his organization offers no private partner solution to the problem. Couldn’t the nine national resettlement agencies offer to set up a private endowment to help the refugees with part of the cost of travel?
Posted in Idaho, Iraqi, Travel Loan Program | Tagged: refugees, resettlement, State Department, Travel Loan, US Department of State | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 5, 2012
The mayor of Lynn, MA is putting out alerts about the fiscal pressure experienced by schools in her city, apparently due to refugee secondary migration. Secondary migration is refugees leaving the city they were initially settled in and, under their own volition, going elsewhere due to a whole number of reasons, e.g. to be near friends and relatives, to find a place that has more or higher paying jobs, to seek a less alien climate, to move to a place with a larger community of people from their ethnic group and/or group of national of origin, etc. The main problem here I think is that federal funds are insufficient to help schools impacted by refugee arrivals – the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s grant, known as the Refugee School Impact Program, doesn’t come close to meeting needs.
An article in The Daily News explains some basic details of the problem in Lynn, although it also shows that the mayor is taking a winding and confused course through government channels, even going to the UNHCR, and gets facts wrong about several of the federal agencies:
…[Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy's Chief of Staff, Jamie Cerulli] said after getting bounced from office to office she finally spoke to Barbara Day with the state department’s office of Refugee Resettlement Administration for Children and Families.
“She said for Fiscal Year 2011 they approved 25 refugees to come to the Lynn area,” Cerulli said. “She also said in 2012 it looks like there is approval for 28 … but that’s such a small number. If they’re not coming from there then where are they coming from?”
Cerulli said Day noted that if immigrants already have family in the area they are more likely to gravitate to the same area. Day was not available Thursday for comment and calls to the U.S. State Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately returned.
Cerulli said she plans to keep digging at the federal and state level to try and determine if Lynn has been officially deemed a haven city while also trying to determine exactly what drives immigrants to Lynn.
Kennedy has always emphasized her administration has gone the extra step to celebrate the ethnic diversity and welcome immigrants to the city and she said she would never deny a child or its family services… Read more here
Posted in Boston, capacity, children, funding, language, Office of Admissions, ORR, school for refugee children, schools, secondary migration, refugee, UN (United Nations) | Tagged: Barbara Day, Judith Flanagan Kennedy, Lynn MA, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, Refugee School Impact Program, refugees, resettlement, schools, secondary migration | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 1, 2012
Below is a comment that a regular reader of this blog submitted for today’s State Department public hearing on the size and scope of the refugee program for fiscal year 2013:
I am a private citizen refugee advocate who has been assisting refugees with resettlement issues for the past three years. My comments are based on my experience helping refugees after they arrive in the United States with two exceptions: (1) It shouldn’t be as hard as it appears to be logistically for refugees to go through the process to enter the U.S. . By that I mean, not that each individual shouldn’t be scrutinized in detail, but that the process should entail the least travel through dangerous areas in their home countries, the fewest return trips to an application center, the most feedback about application status, the fewest repeat requests for information, and the speediest answer about whether refugee status will be granted. (2) The travel loan program should be converted to a travel grant program. There seems to be some sort of philosophy that it is citizen-building to saddle a refugee with debt as his/her first exposure to life in the United States. I disagree…It is regularly and repeatedly emphasized to them that failure to repay the travel loan can jeopardize their ability to get U.S. citizenship because of an adverse credit report – yet they are all too often given no information about how to seek forgiveness of a loan many of them will likely never be able to repay in time because of their personal situations. Furthermore, I think having the resettlement agencies act as collection agents for these loans is a significant conflict of interest…
My remaining comments concern my experience during the course of my activities as a refugee advocate…Resettlement agency failures to meet contracted responsibilities are not isolated incidences but are regular, daily occurrences on a widespread basis. I believe these failures occur not because of lack of resources, although that is surely true in some cases, but primarily because of a lack of leadership. Leadership in the local affiliates, leadership in the national offices of resettlement agencies, and leadership in the Domestic Resettlement Section. The failure of leadership that talks to each other more than to refugees. Leadership that cares more about what Washington thinks than what refugees think…I have encountered exactly two offices serving refugees in which a human actually answered the telephone; my experience instead has been full of voice mail not returned and even voice mail boxes completely full – this by agencies who are serving people who may not even have used a telephone before coming to the U.S. Leadership, such as that at World Relief, who cares more about its employees’ religious qualifications than their actual competence. Leadership that does not put enough of its own cash into a resettlement program but instead phonies up the value of its match (the value of which, I believe, is rarely, if ever, audited…English language instruction, crucial, of course, for new arrivals, is regularly inadequate and irrelevant to what a new arrival needs. Referrals for mental health services are regularly inadequate or nonexistent. Housing placements are regularly in dangerous neighborhoods and/or too expensive for the refugee to sustain after financial support stops. Too often refugees are completely abandoned after the initial six months placement…Too often the minimum contractually-required services are not adequately provided or not provided at all. Too often refugees become homeless…There are few people in responsible positions who have the personal and professional competence to install effective programs, who care whether their subcontractors perform well, who care whether their employees serve their clients well, who blame themselves and not their clients when things are not working well…
Particularly disappointing is the leadership of the Domestic Resettlement Section who appears to be more apologist for and defender of resettlement agencies and their local affiliates no matter what rather than the overseers and refugee advocates they should be. Complaints go unanswered; or, if answered, are answered with the condescension of a parent who knows best and must be trusted to do the right thing. Investigation may be promised but one never knows whether it happens and what the result is because that would be a violation of confidentiality. All I know is that what I complained about did not appear to change…Program audits are too infrequent and do not appear to include audits of financial responsibility…Particularly disappointing is that the Domestic Resettlement Section seems to think all is well and nothing needs to change – at least nothing they care to share with the public…
Here is a link to a documentary about refugees in Buffalo, N.Y. I think you’ll find their indomitable spirits despite all that has happened to them is most inspiring. I also recommend the press kit that is posted on the web site for an insight as to how resettlement agencies in Buffalo inspired the making of this film. Read full letter here
Posted in capacity, dangerous neighborhoods, democracy, language interpretation/translation, lack of, Office of Admissions, openess and transparency in government, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) immigrants, State Department, Travel Loan Program, volunteers, World Relief | Tagged: Advocate, comment, Domestic Resettlement Section, FY2013, public hearing, refugees, resettlement, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), State Department, US Department of State | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 25, 2012
Memorial plaque to resistance members and wreath at the Bendlerblock, Berlin
Under Section 212(a)(3)(b) of current federal immigration law even the partisans who supported those who fought Nazis in Germany would have been designated as members of Tier III terrorist groups. How could that be? Well, according to an article in City Pages, “under the law, any group of ‘two or more individuals, whether organized or not, which engages in’ terrorist activity can be labeled a Tier III terrorist group, with ‘terrorist activity’ defined as any use of violence for purposes other than personal enrichment”. Not only that, but there is no publicly available list of Tier III terrorist groups. The article explains that groups are labeled Tier III on a case-by-case basis:
…Under Section 212(a)(3)(b) of federal immigration law, immigrants involved with terrorist groups are not admissable to the United States. But in the wake of 9/11, lawmakers broadly expanded the definition of “terrorist.” That transformed thousands of refugees and asylees already granted protection by the federal government into newly minted “terrorists,” delaying thousands of immigrants’ cases for months and years…
The USA PATRIOT Act created new definitions of “terrorist organizations” and providing “material support” to terrorism. It created two categories of terrorist organizations, labeled Tier I and Tier II. Maintained by the State Department, the list includes organizations like Al-Qaeda, Peru’s Shining Path, Colombia’s FARC, Al-Shabaab, and many others.
But the PATRIOT Act also created a third tier: “undesignated” terrorist organizations. Under the law, any group of “two or more individuals, whether organized or not, which engages in” terrorist activity can be labeled a Tier III terrorist group, with “terrorist activity” defined as any use of violence for purposes other than personal enrichment.
A 2005 bill, the REAL ID Act, broadened the PATRIOT Act’s definition of a “Tier III terrorist organization” to include any organization with a subgroup that engages in “terrorist activity.”
Unlike Tier I and Tier II organizations, there is no publicly available list of Tier III terrorist groups. Groups are labeled Tier III on a case-by-case basis, which is a problem for advocates.
“It’s so broadly written and written with such ambiguous language that it essentially allows the government at any time to assert that a group is a terrorist organization based on some very limited connection to violent activity,” says Ashley Huebner, a supervising attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “And that’s where the majority of people are getting caught up.”…
…Critics of the terrorism bar contend that it transforms vulnerable asylees and refugees into terrorists and puts genuine heroes’ applications on hold. Under the current statute, even the partisans who supported those who fought Nazis in Germany would have been flagged… Read more here
Posted in Dept of Homeland Security, security/terrorism, State Department | Tagged: asylees, Freedom Fighters, PATRIOT Act, REAL ID Act, refugees, resettlement, resistance fighters, terrorist, terrorist group | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 23, 2012
An article in the Salt Lake Tribune refers to the overall reduction in refugees being resettled to the US. Although the government set a goal of resettling 80,000 refugees for fiscal year 2011, only 56,424 refugees resettled. The goal again was 80,000 refugees for fiscal year 2012 but as of the end of March, halfway through that fiscal year, the federal government has resettled only 21,836 refugees. The slowdown is apparently due to the backlog in the security clearances done for each refugee by the Department of Homeland Security .
…The number of refugees coming to America has sharply declined in the past two years, as security measures have increased for newcomers coming from some of the most turbulent parts of the world.
“As credible threat information emerged, we had to enhance our screening process for the refugee program in order to make sure we were keeping our country safe,” said Deborah Sisbarro, public affairs adviser for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, which is part of the U.S. State Department.
The decrease in arrivals — nearly 17,000 fewer refugees in 2011 than in 2010 — follows the high-profile arrest of two Iraqi refugees in 2011 on terrorism charges after they were resettled in Kentucky…
In 2011, 56,424 refugees arrived in the U.S., compared with 73,311 the year before.
Halfway into this federal fiscal year, the U.S. has welcomed 21,836 refugees, though federal officials continue to assure resettlement workers that numbers will climb.
Utah welcomed 836 refugees in 2011 versus 1,100 in 2010…
The decline has forced the IRC, one of a handful of resettlement agencies in Utah, to shrink its staff. Each refugee comes with about $700 from the federal government… Read more here
My first suspicion is that this large reduction of incoming refugees mainly includes Iraqi refugees, due to the security clearance backlog. Looking at the numbers at the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center website, however, it turns out that reductions are from each area of the world, although with refugees from Africa and the Near East losing the largest share. Only 26,000 refugees from the Near East/South Asia arrived in FY2011, compared to the 35,000 that the US federal government approved for resettlement. In addition, only 6000 refugees from Africa were let in compared to the 15,000 approved (whether this reduction is from across Africa or concentrated in one area, e.g. Somalia, I don’t know). Nevertheless, the security clearances backlog is affecting refugee rivals from all regions, including the 3000 unallocated lots — none of which were used in FY2011. (Also, a complicating factor related to the security clearances is that many Iraqis and Somalis have similar names, which can present a problem if US authorities consider someone else by the same name as a security threat).
Note: Regarding the $700 figure given for the federal government’s contribution per refugee – local refugee resettlement agencies get $700 per capita from the State Department for their overhead costs. As to what the State Department actually gives, that would be $1800 per capita just for initial refugee resettlement needs (refugees’ first 90 days). The federal government supplies other contributions via the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
Posted in ceiling limit, refugee annual, Dept of Homeland Security, R&P, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), security/terrorism | Tagged: Department of Homeland Security, Iraq, ORR, refugees, resettlement, security checks, security clearance, State Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 16, 2012
The US Department of State is asking for feedback about the size and scope of the US refugee resettlement program. A meeting will be held at the Refugee Processing Center in Arlington, Virginia on May 1, which the public may attend. Or you can send comments via email.
I plan to comment about the size and scope of the program needing to strongly tied to effective administration and management of it. (Why are contractors still allowed to inspect themselves? How effective are State Department inspections when they are pre-announced, so rare (once in ten years or less), and that mainly rely on contractor’s records and not refugees’ feedback? Why are there no penalties for contractors that fail to comply with minimum requirements of the State Department contracts? Why are the minimum requirements – see Operational Guidance – so extremely minimal? Why don’t resettlement plans take into account local crime rates?, etc.)
A notice in the Federal Register gives details about the meeting:
There will be a meeting on the President’s FY 2013 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on Tuesday, May 1, 2012 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Refugee Processing Center, 1401 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1100, Arlington, Virginia. The meeting’s purpose is to hear the views of attendees on the appropriate size and scope of the FY 2013 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.Show citation box
Persons wishing to attend this meeting must notify the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration at telephone (202) 453-9257 by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 2012, to reserve a seat. Persons wishing to present written comments should submit them by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 via email to spruellda@state.gov or fax (202) 453-9393…
…If you have questions about the public meeting, please contact Delicia Spruell, PRM/Admissions Program Officer at (202) 453-9257…
Dated: March 22, 2012.
David Robinson,
Acting, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Department of State.
[FR Doc. 2012-7700 Filed 3-29-12; 8:45 am]… Read more here
Posted in Operational Guidance, PRM, RPC (Refugee Processing Center) | Tagged: Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration, government contractors, oversight, PRM, Refugee Processing Center, refugees, resettlement, RPC, State Department, US Department of State | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 11, 2012
Catholic Family Service in Amarillo has decided to reduce new refugee resettlement numbers by half due to concerns of overload from the local school district, according to an article in the Amarillo Globe-News. Resettlement will now be limited to “family reunification cases” – refugees who are resettling to be reunified with local family members. (The article also gives various confusing numbers for the amount of money the State Department gives for initial resettlement needs (intended as seed money). As of last year the amount was $1800 per refugee, with $700 available for resettlement agency overhead, $900 minimum to each refugee, and $200 that resettlement agencies may redirect to the neediest refugees at the agency. The $1800 was supposedly increased this year, but no numbers yet available.)
Catholic Family Service has lowered the number of new refugees it helps settle in Amarillo to help school officials better handle unique needs posed by refugee children and help the organization meet budget cuts.
Roughly 800 to 900 of the 1,100 refugee students enrolled in Amarillo schools had little to no formal schooling when they arrived in the U.S., and that has created a major learning block, said Kevin Phillips, executive director of student performance for the Palo Duro High School cluster…
…Catholic Family Service, a nonprofit organization, is one of two groups that receives federal funds to help newly arrived refugees settle in Amarillo. Executive Director Nancy Koons said the organization has decided to take in no more than 200 arrivals per year, down from 400 in previous years. Koons said the arrivals will be limited to “family reunification cases.”…
…Koons said [Amarillo Independent School District] principals and school nurses have expressed concerns about the challenges posed by refugee children.
“It seems like we were creating needs by bringing in too many refugees,” she said… Read more here
Posted in Amarillo, Catholic, Catholic Family Service, Amarillo, children, funding, R&P, schools, Somali Bantu | Tagged: Amarillo, Catholic Family Service, refugees, resettlement, schools | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 5, 2012
On March 29 the US Senate confirmed the former IRC Vice President Anne C. Richard as the new Assistant Secretary of State of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). She will now be in charge of overseeing the State Department’s contracts with refugee resettlement contractors — for instance, the IRC. A notice at Human Rights First confirms the nomination:
On March 29, Anne C. Richard was confirmed by voice vote by the U.S. Senate to serve as the Assistant Secretary of State of Populations, Refugees and Migration (PRM)…Ms. Richards was nominated by President Obama on November 4, 2011 and approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 6 weeks ago.
Ms. Richard has served as the Vice President of Government Relations and Advocacy for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) since 2004, and previously served as Director of the Office of Resources, Plans and Policy at the Department of State… Read more here
Posted in Ann Richard, IRC, revolving door | Tagged: Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration, International Rescue Committee, IRC, PRM, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 27, 2012
A single mother of a refugee family from the Central African Republic finds herself alone and isolated (a condition correlated with refugee suicides) five months after resettlement to Portland via Lutheran Community Services Northwest. Interviewed about six weeks after her arrival, she only knew how to get to the grocery store and to an organization which offers employment training and referrals, though her resettlement agency was required to give her community orientation. The family’s apartment is sparsely furnished, with not enough heat to stay warm and little light (this, though the State Department’s Operational Guidance contract document supposedly requires resettlement contractors to provide refugees with one lamp per room unless installed lighting is present). An article in the Portland Tribune describes the refugee family’s initial resettlement to Portland:
Monique Detoloum…[a] new Portland resident has found peace for herself and her four children, after surviving a reign of terror in the Central African Republic and six years in limbo in neighboring Cameroon…
…Monique and her children arrived here in late October, settling in East Portland. They are among the 944 refugees from more than a dozen nations who resettled in Oregon last year, mostly in Portland. Nearly 60,000 refugees from around the world have landed here since 1975. That’s an average of 135 newcomers a month, a steady stream of foreigners who are gradually expanding the Portland area’s ethnic mix and forever changing its complexion…
…Somewhat arbitrarily, since Monique had no family or connections here, she was assigned to Portland, aided by Lutheran Community Services Northwest.
Agency staff picked up Monique’s family at the airport, found her housing in an apartment on Southeast Division Street near 126th Avenue, helped enroll her children into David Douglas schools, arranged medical screenings and financial support.
Within her first week in town, Monique was referred to East Portland’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization [IRCO], which offers employment training and referrals, among other services…
…Interviewed about six weeks after her arrival, Monique knew how to get to IRCO and the Winco grocery store on Northeast 122nd Avenue, but hadn’t ventured further on her own. She was too flustered to think about going downtown, feeling pretty helpless without any English skills…
…Now, after five months, here she is still having trouble adjusting to cold weather. She just experienced her first snow, and says she doesn’t like it.
The family’s two-bedroom, one-bath apartment is sparsely furnished, with little light and not enough heat to stay warm…
…Monique has found a Baptist Church she wants to attend. But she says she is feeling isolated here, with no friends to talk to, only her children…
…Refugees rarely go back to their home country, Tauch says, but they do move around once they’re here, especially to find work. In January, a recruiter came to town and offered seasonal jobs to 52 Portland-area refugees at a Kodiak, Alaska, cannery, Tauch says. Last year, a Nebraska employer offered 100 permanent jobs to local refugees… Read more here
Posted in alienation-isolation, Central African Republic, furnishings, lack of, housing, language, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, mental health, Operational Guidance, Portland | Tagged: Central African Republic, Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, irco, isolation, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Portland, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 19, 2012
Last month attorney Zoe Ann Olson at Idaho Legal Aid Services, Inc. told us about her efforts to help refugees in Idaho whom resettlement agencies had damaged their credit ratings via reporting them to Trans-Union. Now comes word that the State Department is planning the significant changes to the refugee Travel Loan Program. Beginning in October, those refugees owing the most money will see their monthly payments capped according to a formula that the State Department has not yet finalized. An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer has the details:
…In the land of the free, [refugees] are instant debtors.
Depending on the size of the family and how far the plane traveled, the bill can exceed $10,000, a sum beyond what many refugees would make in a lifetime back home.
They must begin reimbursing the federal government after five months, and pay in full within 42 months. They are warned that credit bureaus are kept apprised of their punctuality, or lack of it.
“Our goal is not to care for them in . . . perpetual victimhood,” said David Robinson, acting assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, which oversees the program. Loans tell them “it’s not a one-way street.”
Refugee advocates, who give orientations on financial literacy even before the displaced leave the camps, agree the program teaches a critical lesson in responsible borrowing. But criticism has mounted that it also imposes too heavy a burden on families already weighed down by multiple disadvantages.
So the State Department is planning the first significant changes to the Travel Loan Program in its 32-year history. Beginning in October, those owing the most money will see their monthly payments capped according to a formula still under review.
The change will make the program “more equitable,” Robinson said. “In some cases, individually, the burden may [have been] too high.”
Of the 28 nations that take in refugees, the United States accepts the vast majority – 57,000 out of a total of about 80,000 last year, from more than 60 countries. But only the United States and Canada require repayment. Canada charges interest; America does not.
The federal government paid nearly $43 million in airfares last year, and so far has collected $1.7 million.
Data released to The Inquirer last week by the International Organization for Migration, the intergovernmental group that dispenses the travel money, show that almost half the loans since 2002 – 45 percent – were not repaid during the prescribed 42 months. About 25 percent, or one in four families, is delinquent by 180 days or more.
“We don’t want anybody to fall into [delinquency],” Robinson said, “but we know people do.”…
…The pot shrinks automatically because the 10 nongovernmental agencies that collect the loans keep 25 percent for operating costs.
The travel-loan program’s administrators say it bends over backward to work out repayment plans and never seeks liens for failure to pay. About $14 million – three percent of the total outlay since 2002 – was forgiven because of a death in the family, disability, or other hardship… Read more here
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Philadelphia, Travel Loan Program | Tagged: International Organization for Migration, IOM, refugees, State Department, Travel Loan, travel loan program | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Comment submitted for today’s State Department hearing on size & scope of refugee program
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 1, 2012
Posted in capacity, dangerous neighborhoods, democracy, language interpretation/translation, lack of, Office of Admissions, openess and transparency in government, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) immigrants, State Department, Travel Loan Program, volunteers, World Relief | Tagged: Advocate, comment, Domestic Resettlement Section, FY2013, public hearing, refugees, resettlement, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), State Department, US Department of State | 1 Comment »