Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘meeting refugees at the airport’ Category

Bhutanese families coming to school without coats or good shoes in Lancaster

Posted by Christopher Coen on October 30, 2011

It turns out that resettlement agencies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have not been giving coats or good shoes to refugees as early as the winter of 2009 (even though resettlement agencies sign a contract with the US State Department promising that they will give refugees Appropriate seasonal clothing required for work, school, and everyday use as required for all members of the family, including proper footwear for each member of the family, here). A school district official also visited refugee families and found instances where two or more Bhutanese families sharing an apartment. The two local resettlement agencies, Church World Service Lancaster and Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern PA, apparently had not even informed the School District of Lancaster – or at least the School District’s point person for homeless students – about the arrival of the Bhutanese families. An article in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era covers this resettlement site:

In late 2009, with winter setting in, the children of some Bhutanese families were coming to school without coats or good shoes.

Ken Marzinko, School District of Lancaster’s point person for homeless students, started visiting the parents, and in some cases, found two or more Bhutanese families sharing an apartment.

“I was caught off guard,” Marzinko said of hearing about the refugees and their needs.

Like most Americans, Marzinko wasn’t aware the United States had in 2008 begun taking in 60,000 of the more than 100,000 Bhutanese crowding camps in Nepal. More than 800 now live in Lancaster County, and many more are in the pipeline... Read more here

The most recent State Department inspections of the two local resettlement agencies, from 2006, show other problems. The report for Church World Service Lancaster shows that only 53% of refugee clients were employed after 90 days, even though jobs at that time were quite plentiful in Lancaster, with an unemployment rate of only 3.4% in 2006. Agency staff had also used white out throughout the case logs. 

The Lutheran Children and Family Service inspection report also showed that refugees’ relatives who helped with their resettlement did not understand that the agency was ultimately responsible for all contract requirements. Apparently the agency had duped these relatives into believing that they were responsible for the requirements of the agency’s contract (a common occurence according to these State Department monitoring reports). In three of four refugee homes that monitors visited, batteries in smoke detectors were dead.

Although the two agencies, the Lutheran agency being a subcontractor of LIRS, were vested with the State Department contract requirement that each refugee receive a physical health screening within 30 days, refugees were not being screened within that time requirement. Case logs also did not make references to airport reception of refugees and employment referals – as supposedly equired – so that there was no documentation that these services were provided by the resettlement agencies.

Posted in children, clothes, Cooperative Agreement, CWS, employment services, faith-based, housing, housing, overcrowding, late health screenings, Lutheran, Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern PA, meeting refugees at the airport, Nepali Bhutanese, Operational Guidance, Pennsylvania, State Department | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Chaotic beginnings for refugees resettled to Utah

Posted by Christopher Coen on June 12, 2011

Hello?

We get a glimpse into resettlement experiences of two Iraqi refugee
cases assigned to resettlement contractors in Salt Lake City, Utah, in articles in KSL Broadcasting and Deseret News. An Iraqi woman arrived to an empty apartment. She turned a broken TV that she had scavenged on its side as a makeshift table. An television journalist forced out of the country with his wife and children by Iraqi militia members reports that although the family spoke no English at all, no one met them at the Dallas airport during a flight connection, nor did anyone meet them at the airport once they arrived in Salt Lake City. Instead, a security guard referred them to the airport FBI office.

…Suhad Kudhair and many in her “large family” in Iraq had English language skills and worked with American companies, which labeled them as disloyal to Iraq and attracted threats to their lives, mostly from Iraqi militia. She and her two sons fled to Egypt in 2006, where the process of accomplishing refugee resettlement to the United States took three years. “I told them I have a sister in California. They said California was too expensive, and I was going to Utah.”…

…Once in Utah she worked long hours on a farm, at a day care, as a medical translator, and now works for Catholic Community Services doing what a lot of other Iraqi refugees do once they are established: She is a case manager for new refugees who are in the process of resettlement.

She knows as well as anyone what it is like to arrive in a strange country at the end of 36 hours on airplanes to a place where there are no friends, no family, no job and an apartment with no furniture.

Kudhair said she scavenged a TV set that did not work properly but made a makeshift table when laid on its side. Turned on, the picture tube made an interesting blue glow in the room that people found curious enough they would take pictures of it when they visited the apartment… Read more here

And this about the Iraqi television journalist and his family who were
also resettled to Salt Lake City:

My name is Mohammed Mushib. I live in Salt Lake City, but I was born in Baghdad and lived there until 2007. In Baghdad, I was a television journalist. In Salt Lake City, I am a refugee. Once I reported stories, now I am part of a story…

…I had a nice house, a nice car, and my wife Faeza and I started our family…

…In 2003, the war started. Iraq was in chaos. We did not have a government for one and a half years, so the people established security units for each neighborhood. I was a security guard in my neighborhood. In 2005, the civil war started. The militias killed many people. I lost friends, I lost relatives, there was death all around…

…In February of 2008, the United Nations told us that we could go to the U.S. as refugees…

…We, along with about 20 other families, flew to Turkey, on to New York, then to Dallas, then to Salt Lake City. The other families went different ways in New York, we flew alone to Dallas. We spoke no English. No one met our plane. I saw a salesclerk at the airport who was wearing a hijab. She was from Somalia, and she only spoke a little Arabic. I was very relieved and grateful for her help – she gave us cake and cola and a banana, which she paid for – that I cried. God sent her to us at that moment.

We arrived in Salt Lake City, no one met us. I found the exit, there was no one except a security guard. who pointed me toward the FBI, which I knew from movies. They told me that our contacts from the International Rescue Committee were outside! They took us to a motel for the night, and after 1 or 2 hours of sleep, there was a knock on the door. It was a woman who spoke Arabic and identified herself as the person whose name I had gotten from my brother. She brought us food and welcomed us to Utah. In the morning, our case worker, Travis, took us to our apartment and to WalMart to shop, and our new life began… Read more here

The good news is that Utah and the Salt Lake community has actually taken proactive and creative efforts to help refugees who have advanced skills and degrees – so different from what we saw in nearby California when Iraqi SIVs (Special Immigrant Visa holders) were arriving in Sacramento in late 2009. (In that case state refugee coordinator Thuan Nguyen gave us endless excuses and misreferrals in our attempt to aid two Iraqi engineers whom a resettlement contractor had referred to low-skill, low-pay jobs. In one case that involved a job at a distant food market beginning at 5am before buses operated, and in another case involved a set-up at a gas station where the resettlement contractor first took a relative in to be interviewed before coming out and canceling the SIV refugee’s interview.)

Efforts in Utah involve the New-American Academic Network, which seeks to place refugees with professional credentials in jobs and training that will help them to find proper employment for economic self-sufficiency.

…”As particularly the Iraqi population was coming into the valley, we were experiencing sort of a new phenomenon in the sense that many of the Iraqi population or individuals had training — undergraduate, graduate and professional positions,” said Rosmarie Hunter, special assistant to the president for campus community partnerships at the University of Utah.

“They were coming over as engineers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, but were coming here and being resettled in much the same way where they were going into entry-level positions,” she said, which left some unable to afford to live here, or unable to afford professional testing and retraining needed to work in their profession.

“People were going back, and perhaps in very unsafe circumstances,” Hunter said.

The New American Academic Network was created to help those professionals re-certify to work in their fields of expertise. NAAN is a partnership between the University of Utah, University Neighborhood Partners, the International Center, Workforce Services and resettlement organizations in Utah.

“The main problem is the financial problems for the refuges,” said Muthana Maktouf, also from Iraq. “The NAAN program tries to find other help, other resources, started to find internships for the students.”… Read more here

Posted in Catholic Community Services of Utah, economic self-sufficiency, education, employment/jobs for refugees, furnishings, lack of, Iraqi, IRC, meeting refugees at the airport, professionals, Salt Lake City, SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) immigrants, Utah | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Yet another TX resettlement agency neglected refugees – Alliance for Multicultural Community Services

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 3, 2011

There is a new State Department monitoring report that we acquired via a FOIA that documents neglect of refugees. The State Department cited the Houston-based refugee resettlement agency, Alliance for Multicultural Community Services, an ECDC affiliate, for “partial-compliance” with their State Department refugee resettlement contract. Findings include:

  • The Alliance had placed all three refugee families visited at home by monitors in housing with problems, including serious mold, roach infestation, and a serious plumbing problem that forced an Iraqi refugee family to move.
  • A Burundian refugee woman did not know how to use either the stove or a thermostat in her apartment.
  • The Burundian family’s second bedroom had no furniture, so the couple’s infant and 2-year-old toddler had to sleep in the parent’s room.
  • The Burundian refugee family and a Burmese refugee family reported that the Alliance failed to give them required living-room furnishings, so the families had to garbage-pick sofas and chairs from dumpsters.
  • The Alliance did not give refugees pocket-money, as required.
  • The Burundian refugee family — with the infant and toddler — reported that the Alliance did not give them food or supplies for their infant upon their arrival as required, and that the Alliance did not use child safety seats when transporting the family to appointments.
  • The Burmese refugee family reported that the Alliance did not have interpretation at the airport upon their arrival or during orientation. The Alliance finally hired someone who spoke their Karen dialect over four months after their arrival.
  • Orientation to health care services in the area appeared to be incomplete, as both the Burundian and Burmese families expressed anxiety over their children’s medical needs and uncertainty about how to handle emergencies.
  • The Burundian and Burmese families expressed anxiety over their prospects for self-sufficiency.
  • The Alliance did not provide any structured training plan to new employees, as required.
  • Refugee client case note logs contained minimal information, and often failed to record home visits. Monitors were often unable to verify that the Alliance provided refugee clients with the minimum-required services of the State Department refugee contracts (see contract documents – the Cooperative Agreement and Operational Guidance).
  • Monitors noted Insect infestation in one or more refugee apartments.
  • Monitors noted that the Alliance did not give some refugee(s) a ready-to eat meal upon arrival after long intercontinental flights, as required.

Then there are these comments about the Alliance from 2010. Note that three years after this State Department monitoring the Alliance is still putting refugees in substandard housing, etc.

So, in other words, the State Department noticed all these problems and three years later many of the problems have not ceased. What does that tell us about the effectiveness of the State Department monitoring trips? The State Department does not use any penalties for resettlement agencies’ they find in “non-compliance” or “partial-compliance” with the so-called minimum requirements of the State Department refugee contracts. Resettlement agencies don’t have to give back any of the government contract money they received for agreeing to provide minimum services and then not providing them.

Posted in Alliance for Multicultural Community Services, beds, Burma/Myanmar, Burundian, children, Cooperative Agreement, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, ECDC, food, furnishings, lack of, health, home visits, housing, housing, substandard, Houston, Iraqi, Karen, language, language interpretation/translation, lack of, meeting refugees at the airport, Operational Guidance, pocket-money, rats and roaches, State Department, Texas, transportation | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

YMCA International Services’ depth of refugee neglect & contract-cheating revealed in new inspection report

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 27, 2011

The State Department finally released another inspection report of YMCA International Services, a Houston USCRI affiliate, three years after we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. I blogged about this case last June.

This report is from January 2008 and reports that YMCA International Services was “non-complaint” with most of the terms of its government refugee contract. That’s a nice way to say “contractual fraud” and “neglect and abuse of refugees”.

Here are some of the highlights of the report:

  • All refugee homes inspected had significant roach and/or mice infestation.
  • Refugees and YMCA expressed concern about safety of refugee apartment complexes. Refugee families at the Glendale Park Apartments complex reported that people were harassing them on their way to the supermarket and their children were getting into fights on the bus (being attacked?).
  • YMCA did not give refugees ready-to-eat food upon arrival.
  • Records were in complete disarray.
  • Home visits to refugees were almost never documented.
  • A Cuban refugee couple only had a bed with one small, thin blanket, a plastic folding table, and two folding chairs. The bed was extremely uncomfortable, if not unsafe, with protruding mattress springs. The family waited over 45 minutes at the airport for the YMCA case worker to arrive, who did not speak their language. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation using hand signals. The couple did not feel safe in the apartment complex. They had heard of local robberies and the police had come to their door warning them to.use caution in the parking lot. YMCA took 3½ months to give the family community and cultural orientation.
  • Upon arrival YMCA gave an Iraqi refugee couple with a small child only one bed (no bed for the child) with one small, thin blanket, a plastic folding table, and two folding chairs. The bed was extremely uncomfortable, if not unsafe, with protruding mattress springs. The YMCA employee who picked them up at the airport did not speak their language. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation in English. The couple did not feel safe in the apartment complex as they had heard of local robberies and the police had come to their door warning them to
    use caution in the parking lot. YMCA took 3½ months to give the family community and cultural orientation. There was no ready-to-eat food upon arrival. The family used money they brought from Iraq to buy food until they received their food stamps. Neighbors told them the apartment complex was “risky” and they wanted to move. The family received an electrical bill that began one month before they arrived, but YMCA told them they must pay it. No one from YMCA visited the family until three months after their arrival, and YMCA did not give them a community orientation so they did not even know how to use the bus system.
  • YMCA placed a Burmese refugee family that arrived in December in an apartment that had a large hole in a ground-floor bedroom window, and the management still had not repaired it two weeks later. The bed YMCA gave them was so uncomfortable that they slept on the floor. No one from YMCA spoke their language at the airport. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation in English and hand signals. It was two months before someone from YMCA visited them at home.
  • YMCA placed a Burundian refugee couple in an apartment complex surrounded by barbed wire. The only furniture upon arrival was four plastic folding chairs and five beds. For their first two months the family ate their meals on the floor. They pulled couches from the trash. No one from YMCA spoke their language at the airport. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation using hand signals. The family needed clothes but YMCA did not offer to help them.
  • YMCA caseworkers were enthusiastic! Yipeeee!
  • The State Department monitors had to order YMCA to check all fiscal year 2007 refugee cases and compensate refugees for all missing money.
  • YMCA fired the Refugee Program Director, Gabriel Gebray, yet allowed the agency’s Executive Director, Jeff Watkins, to keep his job. He apparently got off scott-free.

Here is a question: if an Executive Director of an organization claimed he had no idea how his refugee clients were being neglected, what does that tell you about his performance? Don’t Executive Directors ever look at the records or talk to refugee clients?

I know ignorance is bliss but is it an excuse to not be accountable?

Posted in beds, Burma/Myanmar, Burundian, clothes, community/cultural orientation, Cuban, dangerous neighborhoods, food, furnishings, lack of, home visits, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, Houston, Iraqi, language, language interpretation/translation, lack of, meeting refugees at the airport, rats and roaches, safety, State Department, USCRI, YMCA International Services | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

USCRI’s International Institute of Erie in “partial compliance” with State Department refugee services contract

Posted by Christopher Coen on June 21, 2010

In the latest monitoring report from the State Department evaluating the USCRI’s International Institute of Erie, the State Department rated the agency as being in “partial compliance” with their refugee services contract (here). They rated housing and furnishings provided to refugees by the International Institute of Erie as “not in compliance” with R&P (resettlement & placement) requirements, and refugee employment, at 41%, was below established targets (75%).

The International Institute of Erie made it into the newspaper in recent months with a report that a Burmese refugee family was left at the airport overnight and had to sleep on the floor, here and here. We inquired with the director of the Institute, John Flanagan, to find out why the refugees were left there, but he never responded.

The State Department report, the product of a second State Department inspection in eight years (unusual), found that of four refugee families visited, three reported that the Institute had delivered some required furnishings and done some repairs the DAY BEFORE the monitors’ visit. The housing and furnishings were also generally below minimum standards. The monitors suggested that the Institute’s director Mr. Flanagan, visit the homes of the Burundian, Iraqi, and Burmese refugee families (gee, what a novel idea).

According to the report:

In the apartment of the Burundian family, monitors observed water leaking through electrical wiring, evidence of rodent and insect infestation, and several broken chairs. The oven did not work and the rear entrance to the apartment had been boarded up. Furniture was arranged in one bedroom in a way that would make exit difficult in an emergency. The family reported that affiliate staff delivered a sofa and alarm clock and repaired a moldy, leaking bathroom ceiling the day before the monitors’ visit. Monitors asked that alternative housing be found immediately for the family.

The Iraqi family informed monitors that they were extremely uncomfortable in their home and were often afraid to leave the apartment because they feel the neighborhood is unsafe. They described an instance where a woman screamed all night in the street outside their apartment, and said they have witnessed drug dealers fighting and frequent police activity in the neighborhood. They complained that the house is dirty and infested with insects, the bathroom did not work for two weeks after their arrival; and the lock on the door to the basement is broken. Clothing storage had been provide by [the International Institute of Erie] the day before the monitors’ visit. Monitors observed garbage stored in the hallway outside the family’s kitchen, and moldy carpet in the bathroom. There was  no working smoke detector in the apartment. …the husband said he was relying on Iraqi friends to help him find work because International Institute of Erie staff had told him there was no work available.

…Monitors asked that the affiliate assist the Iraqi [family] to find new housing.

Read more. It doesn’t get much better.

Posted in State Department, USCRI, R&P, Burma/Myanmar, Nepali Bhutanese, Burundian, Iraqi, Pennsylvania, International Institute of Erie, meeting refugees at the airport, employment services, neglect, housing, substandard, household items, missing or broken, Erie, furnishings, lack of | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Update to story about refugees left at the airport in Erie, Pennsylvania

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 9, 2010

On February 20th we reported about an International Institute of Erie Burmese refugee family that was left stranded at the airport in Erie (here).

The International Institute of Erie’s director then commented that it wasn’t his agency’s fault, and that we should report on positive things that newspapers reported about his agency, such as ESL classes.

As Agency Director, I certainly did not blame the airline for the snafu, or at least I think I didn’t. Certainly, as the Primary Resettlement, The International Institute or Erie is responsible to ensure that our clients are met at the airport, and taken to their new home. We take full responsibility for the people we serve, and the mistakes that we sometimes make, and always have. … And to answer your comment on calling the airlines, that is EXACTLY what we did, and were told that the flight was cancelled. Our staff was unaware that our clients were put on a bus and transported to Erie from Cleveland, and not simply rebooked on the next flight out, as is normal procedure in this event. …You can also feel free to comment on respond to article to the many good things we do with our clients. As a matter of fact, their was a great article just above this one in the paper and on goerie.com that went into great detail about our ESL serivces we provide for newly arrived refugees and immigrants. I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are on that article as well.

Thank-you Mr. Flanagan for your response. I just found your comment in the spam filter (don’t know why it was there).

I then commented, “If you thought that the refugees had been rebooked on the next flight out of Cleveland to Erie, then didn’t you call the airline again to ask why they didn’t show up in Erie on the next flight? Where did you think they were? Also, did the IOM give the refugee your agency’s phone number in case of an airport mix-up? Arriving refugees need a contact number to get in touch with a live person from your agency after hours in case of future airline mix-ups.”

On Febuary 24th I also emailed  Mr. Fanagan and asked him, “Mr. Flanagan, I posted your comment today after finding it in the spam filter. I didn’t know about the ESL article so I just went and found it. Do you have just the two ESL class levels? Beginners and intermediate? We have a lot of refugees who complain to us that the ESL they are offered is too easy and a waste of time. Alternately, other refugees who have no English at all have a hard time learning from a teacher who does not speak their language. How do you address that other than using photos, pointing, etc? What about Advanced English, e.g. for Iraqis or others with good English who just need to learn American English pronunciation? Does any agency in town offer it? How long may refugees attend your classes, 8 months, 5 years? Do you ever make referrals to First Alliance’s ESL class?”

Mr. Flanagan has not responded to the comment or to the email.

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Erie, International Institute of Erie, IOM, meeting refugees at the airport, Pennsylvania, USCRI | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

 
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