Archive for the ‘openess and transparency in government’ Category
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 February 12, 2012
David Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration apparently spent some time discussing the new refugee law implemented in Tennessee last year – the Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act. State Sen. Jim Tracy, who sponsored the Act, alleges that the State Department thinks the new bill [actually a law now], which allows for local refugee moratoriums and codifies the federal regulation requiring quarterly meetings between resettlement agencies and local officials, is “just fine”. (???) An article in the Shelbyville Times-Gazette gives a view of the meeting from Tracy’s perspective:
A top representative of the U.S. State Department was in Tennessee this week to discuss a law dealing with the state’s refugee resettlement program.
The Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act, which originated from the desk of State Sen. Jim Tracy, became law last July. It’s the first bill of its kind.
It requires the state’s refugee program agency, Catholic Charities, to meet four times a year with local governments to plan and coordinate “the appropriate placement of refugees in advance of the refugees’ arrival …”
The law also allows local communities to apply for a “moratorium” on refugee resettlement if those agencies overload local resources, and so far, Tennessee is the only state that has passed this type of legislation…
A number of refugees from a variety of countries, such as Somalia, Burma and Egypt, have moved to Shelbyville in recent years to be closer to jobs at the Tyson Foods facility.
Tyson Foods needs workers who will willingly accept relatively low pay for the repetitive motion, cold environment jobs, and new refugee immigrants need jobs to support their families. (Alternatively, Americans could pay higher meat prices and the government could require companies like Tyson Foods to pay a more livable wage.)
…On Wednesday, David Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, met with Tracy and other parties to discuss the law passed last year, the state senator told the T-G.
“That was the whole purpose of the visit, and they thought the bill was fine,” Tracy said, but he added that even though provisions in the new state refugee law passed last year was already codified in federal law, it had not been enforced…
Perhaps the State Department refugee office isn’t bothered by the new law’s quarterly meetings requirement, since it’s already an ORR regulation, but why would they think that the new law is just fine? Are moratoriums compatible with the constitutional provision that allows people freedom of movement? The government may not single out specific groups of people to restrict their freedom of movement (individuals get to decide for themselves where they want to live in this country).
…”If you are going to bring refugees into a community, you need to meet with community leaders, mayor, councilmen, commissioners, school superintendents, hospitals, anyone that an influx of a refugee group would affect,” Tracy said, explaining the reasons for the law being passed last year.
…Tracy said he “thought it was interesting that we had to codify something in state law to get [the State Department's] attention.”…
Yes that is interesting. Also interesting is why other government refugee program-related regulations and contract requirements are also regularly ignored. World Relief feels free to worship on the public’s nickel, even though its prohibited by a federal regulation, and their ORR partner has ignored our complaint about that practice. Also, the quite minimal “minimum requirements” that the resettlement agencies agree to meet in the refugee program are regularly flouted, and the State Department refugee office does not enforce those requirements or penalize the resettlement contractors. In practice this does not seem to have been working well for decades — the resettlement contractors just continue to violate regulations and contract requirements year after year. (What does that say about the public/private partnership philosophy in which contractors are put on pedestals and government oversight agencies don’t exercise much authority?)
…Tracy explained he also had questions for Robinson, talking about the local unemployment rate and about refugees getting on state assisted benefits, while the State Department discussed “sustainability” of the refugees. Supposedly, the refugees have 90 days to become sustainable in this country, Tracy said.
“The question we had for them was ‘what’s the definition of sustainability,’” Tracy said. “We had a good discussion about it.”…
Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if they shared that discussion with the public? After all, this is a publicly run and funded humanitarian program. The State Department refugee office apparently gave advance notice to all so-called “stakeholders”, except for the last minute notice to the public and press.
…”It was a pretty high level meeting,” Tracy said. “They were very concerned who was going to be in the meeting, it was very interesting.”
Tracy said that the State Department wanted to clarify that they had no control over secondary migration, when refugees leave the city they were initially settled in and go elsewhere.
The senator said that’s why the law is “so important, because we’re bringing refugees into Tennessee, the majority of them settle in Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis and Chattanooga,” but they eventually migrate to smaller towns…
So, what the state senator doesn’t seem to understand is that, under the Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act, Shelbyville and other localities will not be able to request any local moratoriums on refugee resettlement since no one is resettling refugees to those places. Refugees are moving to Shelbyville on their own for meatpacking industry jobs, in what is known as “secondary migration”.
…”It was interesting that they (the State Department) would travel to Tennessee to talk about the legislation that we passed last year and I really take it as a compliment,” Tracy said Friday. “I think they were already supposed to be doing that, and in Tennessee, they have to be doing that now.” Read more here
I guess I’d like to hear the State Department’s version of what was said at this “pretty high level meeting”, but since they treat refugee resettlement as a secret program, which seems only to guard against accountability, I won’t hold my breath.
***UPDATE*** — While the public had to sit outside the meeting one of the so-called “stakeholders” invited to the meeting was the lobbyist Jennifer Murphy of the Catholic Public Policy Commission of Tennessee.
Posted in State Department, ORR, World Relief, Cooperative Agreement, Somali, Assistant Secretary of the PRM, meatpacking industry, public/private partnership, Tennessee, openess and transparency in government, secondary migration, refugee, local officials, failure to notify, capacity, Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Joint Quarterly Placement Planning Meeting, Joint Quarterly Placement Planning Meeting, legislation, Murfreesboro/Shelbyville | Tagged: Catholic Public Policy Commission of Tennessee., David Robinson, federal contractors, moratorium, Population Refugees and Migration, PRM, Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act, refugees, regulations, resettlement, Tennessee | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 10, 2012
Does left hand know what right hand does?
According to an article from Chattanooga, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) David M. Robinson claims that Tennessee’s new law – that mandates refugee resettlement agencies to report quarterly to local governments and allows local communities to apply for a “moratorium” on refugee resettlement – is already part of federal law. He must be referring to the part of the Tennessee that deals with quarterly reporting since there is no federal law about moratoriums. The “federal law” he refers to is actually a ORR regulation, as well as required via the State Department refugee contracts. Robinson claims he believes that the State Department (and/or their contractors?) have always abided by this regulation. Yet, they have not always abided by it, hence Tennessee’s claimed need to codify the requirement via state law. In New Hampshire the state refugee coordinator went so far as to claim that she could not require a refugee resettlement agency to consult with a city about its work, even though the ORR regulation required her, as the state refugee coordinator, to conduct quarterly meetings between the resettlement agencies and state and local governments. So, it seems that there is a disconnect between what the government oversight agencies believe that they do, and what actually happens. An article about Robinson’s visit is found in the Chattanooga Times Free Press:
A top U.S. State Department official, who spent two days in Tennessee discussing the state’s refugee resettlement program, said he wants to give communities a “louder voice in the process.”
“We believe it’s in the best interest of the United States that we pursue this program, but also we need to recognize the community nature of the program,” David Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, Migration, said during a news conference Thursday.
Robinson has been in the state for a two-day visit with community members, local government officials and employers to discuss the resettlement process…
…Tennessee is the first and only state to pass a law that mandates resettlement agencies to report quarterly to local governments and allows local communities to apply for a “moratorium” on refugee resettlement if those agencies overload local resources.
The law was approved last year, but the Tennessee Office for Refugees said no one has applied for the moratorium.
Robinson said that it’s already part of federal law but said Tennessee’s law “makes perfect sense.”
He added, “We believe that’s what we’ve always done,” he said… Read more here
All of this brings another question to my mind: If the new bill in New Hampshire for a proposed one-year moratorium on refugee resettlement is probably unconstitutional – as University of New Hampshire Law professor Albert Scheer told a NH state House committee last week – wouldn’t that be an indication that the part of Tennessee’s law which allows local refugee moratoriums also likely be unconstitutional? Sheer says it is likely unconstitutional because it singles out a particular class of legal residents. He cited a 1941 U.S. Supreme Court case involving a California law forbidding indigent residents from other states from settling in California.
Posted in Assistant Secretary of the PRM, capacity, Joint Quarterly Placement Planning Meeting, Joint Quarterly Placement Planning Meeting, legislation, legislation, moratorium / restriction, New Hampshire, openess and transparency in government, ORR, State Department, Tennessee | Tagged: Assistant Secretary of State, David M. Robinson, moratorium, ORR, Population Refugees and Migration, PRM, Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act, refugees, resettlement, unconstitutional | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 24, 2012
Today the State Department’s PRM Bureau had a live chat session on their Facebook page with Acting Assistant Secretary David Robinson. This was my question:
Christopher Coen’s question: Why are Office of Admissions’ inspections of refugee resettlement contractors not unannounced, and why are there no penalties for the contractors’ failure to meet Cooperative Agreement contract requirements?
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: PRM announces visits up to two weeks in advance, and home visits two days in advance. Just so you know, PRM requires corrective actions that correspond with the level of non-compliance. This could include stopping placement of refugees through a particular contractor. In fact, this year, monitoring findings factored into the Cooperative Agreement awards. In general, we view our auditing and monitoring and evaluation programs as cooperative tools to correct mistakes and respond to inadequacies. In the rare instances we find faults too serious to fix, we take immediate action, including the possible removal of an organization from our work.
Don’t unannounced inspections reveal how a place really operates? Announced inspections allow the refugee resettlement contractors to make preparations (clean things up?). If you read through some of the State Department monitoring reports you will see that the contractors’ refugee case notes (part of the record that the monitors use to test the contractors’ quality of services) often do not correspond to the services and material items that the refugees say that the agencies gave them. The case notes also sometimes do not conform to what the monitors find in other parts of the records, and in their interviews with a small sample of refugees (3-4 refugee cases). Announced inspections allow for altering of the records (monitoring reports show the use of white-out liquid, and pro forma individual refugee self-sufficiency plans). Computerized case management notes can make the possible alteration of records difficult to detect.
The other problem is how rare these inspections are – once in ten years or more, according to the results of our monitoring reports FOIA requests (once in five according to a senior State Department official I spoke with in 2010 who refused to speak for attribution).
It’s good to see that State Department monitoring findings are finally being factored into the Cooperative Agreement awards (the State Department’s non-competitive grants to the private resettlement contractors), yet how are they being factored in? Why are their no penalties for non-compliance with contract requirements other than the rarely used temporary suspension or removal of an “affiliate” — a subcontractor — resettlement agency?
A friend of our group asked the following question:
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: I want to repost and answer Cevon Anderson’s earlier question.
Have you performed any financial audits of the numerous resettlement agencies you have found to be not in compliance with State Department cooperative agreement requirements?
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: Thanks for your question, Cevon. As government officials and taxpayers, we believe strongly that we must be good stewards of our tax dollars. We regularly monitor programs, and our cooperative agreements require quarterly financial status reports and a final financial report be submitted to the Bureau’s Office of the Comptroller. In addition, recipients of our financing must have an appropriate audit performed by independent public accountants in accordance with U.S. Government Auditing standards. That audit must include confirmation that the reported quarterly charges were actually incurred in the amounts and during the periods specified and that the reported charges were not based on average costs, estimates, or predetermined fees.
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: Finally, we implement an aggressive monitoring and evaluation program throughout the year, visiting dozens of resettlement sites around the country and our facilities overseas to assure compliance with our standards, rules and regulations.
Yet, when State Department monitors primarily rely on contractors’ own written records as proof of compliance with basic requirements of the State Department contracts (services to refugees), aren’t those records the basis that the audits rest upon? These resettlement contractors’ records are also sometimes left incomplete.
It’s also hard for me to think of these monitoring inspections as “aggressive” when they are so rare, and there are no penalties for non-compliance (again, other than the very rare suspension or termination of a refugee resettlement contractor). How does the State Department “assure compliance with…standards, rules and regulations” when these once-in-5-to-10 years-or-more-inspections show that the contractors quite regularly are not even complying with the “minimum” standards of the contracts? Other federal government agencies make contractors give back contract money when there is proof of lack of contract compliance. Isn’t that the minimum we should expect? Why would private resettlement contractors have any incentive to prevent continuing and future problems in their services when there are no teeth in the government oversight? That just seems like management 101 to me.
Posted in Assistant Secretary of the PRM, Cooperative Agreement, funding, neglect, openess and transparency in government, public/private partnership, State Department | Tagged: assistant secretary, Cooperative Agreement, David Robinson, government contractors, government contrcats, Population Refugees and Migration, PRM, public/private partnership, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on August 29, 2011
With wrong information about the address of a suspect, Hamilton, Ontario police mistakenly broke into a Karen refugee family’s apartment, throwing a 5 ft 7”, 130-pound, 58-yr-old Karen man to the floor and breaking his nose, before stomping him as a form of “restraint”. Result: three broken ribs and a fractured vertebra. Upon discovering their mistake the officers did not apologise, and waited 30 minutes before calling an ambulance. Later, in court, the four officers broke out in collective amnesia about who did the stomping (obvious obstruction of justice). The Hamilton police department then failed to report the blotched raid to a provincial police watchdog which provides civilian oversight on police matters, until it received extensive media coverage. An article in The Irrawaddy publication has more:
A 58-year-old Karen refugee has filed a lawsuit against the Hamilton Police Service Board in Ontario after he was beaten and assaulted by a police tactical squad during a botched raid on the home of a suspected drug trafficker.
The Karen man, Po La Hay, was resettled to Canada in 2006 from Mae Ra Ma Luang refugee camp in Thailand where he had lived for 10 years. He had applied for resettlement for his three children and himself (his wife had died from cancer some time earlier)…
…In Canada, he quickly found work at a garden center and shared a modest apartment with his children in Hamilton, an industrial town 50km southwest of Toronto.
At 9 pm on May 4, 2010, while Po La Hay was cooking rice, armed police officers dressed in black fatigues burst through the door of his apartment.
Po La Hay said that one or more police officers threw him violently to the ground. His head hit the floor, breaking his nose. He said he was pinned to the floor by an officer while another kicked him repeatedly.
Also in the apartment were his son, Say Blut, 23, who had been asleep in his room, and family friend Panar Noo, 21, was in the bathroom at the time. Panar Noo said he was handcuffed, dragged down the stairs and kicked several times. Say Blut was allegedly handcuffed by the police and locked in his bedroom.
Po La Hay claims that as he lay bleeding and pinned to the floor by several large police officers, another officer entered the apartment and shouted for them to stop—for they had the wrong man.
The suspect, a 36-year-old black man, lived next door, had apparently lied previously about his address to the police. He was caught trying to escape out the back window of his apartment moments after the fracas happened next door.
Po La Hay said that officers released him when they realized their mistake, wiped the blood from his head with a rag, but offered no apology. He said the police did not call for an ambulance for a further 30 minutes.
The following day, nursing three fractured ribs, a fractured vertebra, a broken nose and cuts to the face, Po La Hay went with members of Karen community support groups to the offices of the Settlement and Integration Services Organization (SISO) to report the incident.
On May 6, Hamilton Police Chief Glenn De Caire agreed to meet SISO representatives and a member of the local Karen community.
De Caire expressed sorrow for what happened to Po La Hay Hay, (though he later issued a formal apology via the media) but he defended his officers’ decision to restrain the 5 ft 7” [173cm], 130-pound [60 kg] Karen man based of their information that a potentially dangerous criminal lived in the apartment.
A witness at the meeting said that the police chief responded angrily to a question by a Karen community leader about the alleged assault, and accused the man of “derogatory and inflammatory” comments against his officers.
It is further alleged that Hamilton police did not report the blotched drug bust to the Special Investigations Unit, a provincial police watchdog which provides civilian oversight on police matters, until it received extensive media coverage in Ontario…
…[A judge] said he was very concerned with the recollection of the four officers who were witnesses in the court proceedings and present during the raid at Po La Hay’s apartment. It seems that none of them could remember which one applied the stomp to his ribs.
According to the Hamilton Spectator, Currie said the collective evidence of the witness officers “strains credulity and raises the specter of a cover up.”… Read more here
A Canadian blogger named Lorne points out police organizations’ penchant for secrecy and concealment, reminding me of this continuing theme we see from government refugee resettlement oversight agencies. He doubts that anything will ever change until these government agency leaders recognize that a large part of their mandate is accountability to the public.
Posted in abuse, Canadian refugee resettlement pgrm, Karen, openess and transparency in government, police, safety | Tagged: Burmese, Hamilton, Karen, Panar Noo, Po La Hay, police, refugees, resettlement, Say Blut | Leave a Comment »
Posted by nancylee1 on August 13, 2011
I often wonder why there is almost no outcry against the wars…no call to end these horrific ventures made by the United States and its allies that have shattered and ended the lives of millions and destroyed their future. As a result of all the atrocities against humans and their environments, can someone tell me who wars enrich? Who is safer? Who is better off financially? Spiritually? Mentally? If nothing positive has come of all the years of violence, why continue?
Millions upon millions of people are refugees because of these endless wars. They have lost everything from family members to homes to occupations to health. Organizations in the U.S. and other countries that receive government funding help refugees to start over from losses sustained from the devastation of wars they had no part in starting.
These organizations, founded on being caretakers, extol the good they do serving refugees. They speak from a high moral ground and urge us to respect and admire them for their unselfish work. They point out to us how much society expects them to do, and with very little funding. They are quick to do studies about how necessary preservation of their budgets is in these times of economic downturn.
Yet where are their voices when it comes to asking for the cause of all this suffering to end?
Where are their voices telling of all the physical and mental illness refugees are subject to because of the wars? Why is there no mention that the wars need to end so that the money that pours into continuing them is instead used to build societies that care for and employ people? Is it spiritually correct to mop up a small part of the mess and not try to stop it at its root cause?
Wars are business and refugee rescue is business too. If it weren’t, there would be a vast outcry beyond the red portions on the spreadsheet and how it is not adding up.
To illustrate how these wars and their effects are nothing but business, please watch this interview with Richard Wolff on Democracy Now.
To read about how adversely the war in Iraq affected its people, please read this article by Murtaza Hussain.
I hope that as people become more educated about how much harm the wars really cause more voices will join each other in the streets to call for an end to these wars. Without greater awareness the wars will go on uninhibited.
Posted in Uncategorized, Refugees in US, NGO's (Non-governmental organizations), health, mental health, faith-based, religion, funding, immigration services, openess and transparency in government, immigration assistance | Tagged: refugees, Iraq, resettlement, war, Richard Wolff, Murtaza Hussain, Democracy Now | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 30, 2011
The U.S. Department of State has decided to guarantee funding to the private resettlement agencies this year as if 60,000 refugees had arrived, although the federal government expects less than 55,000 to enter the country this fiscal year. The State Department and their friends in private industry at the agencies are justifying the temporary change in policy by claiming that the agencies rely on per-refugee grants to pay staff, and they would otherwise be unable to keep staff due to the new security screenings that have drastically lowered the number of arriving refugees. (The State Department instituted a similar change in policy in 2001 after the cutoff of refugee arrivals following the terrorist attacks on September 11th.) An article in Christianity Today has more about the issue:
More than 77,000 refugees were expected to come to the United States in 2011. Instead, fewer than 55,000 will arrive, because of new security screening implemented abruptly this winter.
The U.S. State Department works with 11 agencies—including five Christian organizations—to help refugees start their new lives in America. The average number admitted annually since 1980 is 98,000, according to the Refugee Council USA.
Like many other resettlement offices, the World Relief branch in Durham, North Carolina, relies on per-refugee grants to pay staff. When no refugees arrived in Durham between late February and April, the office cut employee pay by 8 hours a week. Nationally, World Relief and Church World Service offices have experienced significant layoffs because of a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy.
In February, World Relief Durham was preparing for new refugees when the arrival flights were suddenly deleted from the tracking system. Resettlement director Andrew Castle says he called headquarters and heard that there were hundreds of unexpectedly canceled flights, attributed to a new DHS policy that requires a pre-departure check to make sure refugees are still eligible to come to the U.S.
“It seems … that even the State Department was somewhat caught off guard,” said Dan Kosten, chair of the Refugee Council USA…
…The State Department responded to resettlement agencies’ concerns about the low number of arrivals by guaranteeing funding for 60,000 refugee admissions. This ensures that agencies will be able to retain staff, no matter how few refugees actually arrive on U.S. soil… Read more here
I guess my question is why the agencies are unable to pay overhead and keep staff during a slowdown in arriving refugees if they are still allowed to use $700 of the State Department’s $1800 per refugee grant. In addition to that, they are supposedly required to give significant private resources of their own toward refugee resettlement. Couldn’t those private resources be diverted from the money they will not need to spend on refugees who will not arrive this year? We will have to continue to speculate until the State Department decides to open up and show the real numbers.
Posted in ceiling limit, refugee annual, Dept of Homeland Security, funding, NGO's (Non-governmental organizations), openess and transparency in government, public/private partnership, Raleigh-Durham, State Department, World Relief | Tagged: Andrew Castle, Dan Kosten, Durham, federal grant, government grant, RCUSA, Refugee Council USA, refugee resettlement, refugees, resettlement, security procedures, security screening, State Department, terrorism, World Relief | 5 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 29, 2011
In this week of federal debt trauma in walks an employee of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to tell us how federal employees at his agency get overtime pay in exchange for not working. But of course all of us who care about refugees and immigrants, for the human beings they are, already know this about government agency workers, as well as their friends in private industry at the resettlement agencies. Many of them do whatever they want to do, and they suffer no consequences whatsoever. That is why we so desperately need passage of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. Read more in Joe Davidson’s Washington Post column.
During a period when some in Congress and their related policy wonks think federal employees are overpaid, here comes Christian Sanchez, a Border Patrol agent who says he was punished for refusing overtime pay.
His bosses suggested that he get psychological help.
Instead, Sanchez has become a whistleblower, and on Friday he plans to tell gathering on Capitol Hill that he was retaliated against because he would not take overtime for doing no work.
Sanchez is an example of what the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower advocacy organization, calls “pocketbook whistleblowers.” They allegedly have suffered retaliation for actions that could save the government money.
This emphasis on guarding Uncle Sam’s pocketbook allows whistleblower advocates to broaden the appeal of legislation designed to expand legal protections for employees who disclose government waste, fraud and abuse. Supporting whistleblowers becomes more than helping individual employees who have been mistreated by the system — it becomes into an act of fiscal responsibility.
That approach could increase chances for the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. It’s come close to passage during the many years it has lingered in Congress, but proponents have not been able to push it across the finish line.
In a letter last month to President Obama and Congress, a group of federal whistleblowers urged them to approve the legislation, telling them that “you have allowed potentially billions of tax dollars to be wasted because all federal workers know they cannot speak up without engaging in professional suicide.”
Sanchez is speaking up, and he has paid a price.
There is little work to do at the Port Angeles, Wash., station, where he is assigned, he said. He calls it a “black hole” where agents have “no purpose, no mission.”
“The worst fraud on taxpayers is that we are getting paid overtime not to work,” Sanchez said in a prepared statement. When he first started working at the station, “I noticed it was common practice for everyone to get paid overtime not to work… Read more here
Our own experience with Customs and Border Protection also demonstrated how completely corrupt and debased that federal agency is. Before either the Left or the Right try to spin this case for their own interests, I’d like to remind everyone that for decades both the Democrats and the Republicans have repeatedly contributed to corruption by installing their own cronies in the federal agencies and courts, while turning a blind eye to the damage these people have done to the people and the nation.
I nominate Christian Sanchez as hero of the month. It helps to restore my faith in humanity when I see that our country still has people like this among our ranks.
Posted in Congress, funding, Government Accountability Project, immigration services, Obama administration, openess and transparency in government, police, revolving door, U.S. Customs & Border Protection, Washington | Tagged: Border Patrol, Christian Sanchez, Congress, Customs and Border Protection, Democrats, federal government, Government Accountability Project, immigrants, Port Angeles, refugees, Republicans, Washington, whistleblower, Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 30, 2011
Time and again when I’ve found refugees living in deplorable conditions and receiving sub-par resettlement services I’ve noticed government agency partners working in unison with private resettlement contractors to stonewall, and to whitewash refugees’ complaints. An article by a journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation illustrates this same phenomena at work on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Government oversight staff and their contractors’ primary concern seems to be protecting their reputations and careers, and secondarily, concern for refugees’ welfare. Instead of spending their time asking themselves why they’ve failed refugees they instead focus their energy on defense, PR, and silencing refugees’ voices. Here is an exerpt from the article:
Four months after he touched down in Australia, Clement Saidi says he’s finally arrived…
The flight from Tanzania, where Clement and his family [Congolese refugees from a pygmy tribe] had spent 12 years in a refugee camp, should have meant an end to squalor.
Instead, the Humanitarian Resettlement Program provided them with what was effectively slum housing.
Theirs was among five homes found by an Ernst and Young report commissioned by the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen to be in a ‘state of disrepair’.
One of these homes was deemed uninhabitable. There was ‘no hot water, holes in the roof, window panes missing in a bedroom for children and wholly inadequate heating’…
I found Clement, his wife and three of their children. My meeting with them was arranged by Sister Diana Santleben, a feisty refugee advocate. She’s had a series of battles with Navitas, the company which holds the contract for refugee resettlement services in the Hunter region. She and the local MP Sharon Grierson have for years been raising concerns about the service provided, and now she says openly that she’s on a mission to get the company out of the refugee housing business.
I was there to follow up on the recommendations in the Ernst and Young report. I wanted to meet for myself some of the people affected.
Simple, right? Apparently not.
Clement Saidi’s story almost didn’t make it to air.
After I interviewed him I called Navitas, whose subcontractor Resolve FM was until very recently responsible for accommodation services for refugees in the region.
The Ernst and Young report on the services they provided did not, in Chris Bowen’s words, ‘make for pretty reading’.
In addition to the inadequate housing, rents were often well above market rates and there were suggestions that refugees had been overcharged for repairs and utilities. The Department of Immigration was criticised too, for its management of the issues.
The Minister put the contractors and Departmental staff on notice, ordered a forensic audit of Resolve FM and a nationwide review of refugee resettlement services.
When I called Navitas the reaction was defensive. The company accused me of not having had consent from the refugee family to interview them. This was before they even knew which family we were talking about. They found out soon enough, by calling around all possible suspects. Navitas suggested Sister Diana had forced Clement Saidi into speaking to me. I replied that I had indeed obtained informed consent.
I clearly identified myself, did not misrepresent the ABC and informed Clement when the recording began and ended.
The company said it was very concerned about the fact that no interpreter was present at the interview. Clement’s English is limited, but I was confident I would be able to use small sections of the interview to illustrate his story…
I found myself getting a lecture from Navitas on what it meant to interview someone who has limited English.
The refugee may not have expressed himself correctly, the company said. It was important to treat these people with respect. Did I understand how his knowledge of English compared with mine? Refugees were vulnerable, the company said.
After I talked to Navitas, they talked to Sandi Logan. Mr Logan is the Immigration Department’s spokesman…
My experience with Clement Saidi was increasingly beginning to suggest that the Immigration Department and its contractor see similar threat levels even when the media speaks to a refugee who is not in detention.
“Shd we be concerned?” Sandi Logan tweeted. “Journalist w nun i/views African refugee today. No informed consent provided. Refugee says journo ‘was from department’.”
This seemed to indicate that the Department was prepared to go public with an accusation solely on the word of Navitas, without asking the journo concerned – me.
Mark Colvin tweeted back to ask Logan if he’d checked this version of the events with the reporter. “We’re emailing,” Sandi Logan tweeted and promptly sent me an email.
In it, he gave a briefing on multicultural settings and expressed his concern about my treatment of Clement Saidi, because he said he was “responsible for our service providers’ clients’ well-being in their media interactions.”
It was hard not to be sceptical. Where was the concern when these same people were languishing in appalling over-priced and over-crowded accommodation?…
Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of that discussion, let’s be clear.
Clement Saidi has been accepted as a refugee…
His days of not being free to speak should have ended the moment he set foot in this country…
Refugees like Clement Saidi are people, with faces and voices – and opinions – of their own.
Isn’t it time the Government – and the companies it pays handsomely to look after them – stopped trying quite so hard to stop us seeing and hearing them?
Barbara Miller is a reporter with ABC Radio Current Affairs and regular contributor to AM, The World Today and PM. Read more here
Hear the radio report and read a related article on the ABC Network.
Posted in Australian refugee resettlement prgm, Congolese, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, neglect, openess and transparency in government, public/private partnership, Sudanese | Tagged: Australia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Barbara Miller, Chris Bowen, Clement Saidi, Congolese refugees, Department of Immigration, Diana Santleben, English proficiency, Ernst and Young, government contractor, human rights, journalist, media, Navitas, Newcastle, public/private partnership, refugee, refugee advocate, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Resolve FM, Sandi Logan, SHARON GRIERSON, slum housing, slum lord, slumlord | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 14, 2011
I submitted a question for George Rupp, president and CEO of the IRC, for his interview today by the PRM’s Assistant Secretary Eric Schwartz.
“Why does the IRC partner with local churches in their attempts to convert Bhutanese refugees to Christianity, for example, IRC’s partnership with The Word at Southern Hills church in Abilene, Texas?”
Unfortunately this comment seems to have magically disappeared from the list of submitted questions (funny how that works). Yet, I base the question on a news article from Abilene that I linked to in January. Personally I think that these refugees’ Hindu and Buddhist beliefs are serving them just fine and I don’t understand why our government and its contractors, therefore we as a society, are partnering to give these new Americans a new religion, which they haven’t requested.
So then I submitted another question, which this time they actually posted:
“A 2007 State Department PRM monitoring report for the IRC office in Baltimore indicates that the IRC and another resettlement contractor frequently placed refugees into an East Baltimore apartment complex that had evidence of questionable maintenance and security standards (housing that is safe, sanitary, and in good repair is supposedly a State Department refugee contract requirement). Monitors also noted that the IRC had failed to give a three-member Meskhetian Turk refugee family a crib and other supplies for their infant son. I note, again, that these items are listed as “minimum” required items in the State Department contracts. Why does the IRC fail to meet so-called “minimum requirements” of their obligations to refugees in the public/private partnership?”
The State Department did not select this question for use in the interview — of course — yet this question was also based on a document – one of the State Department’s own monitoring reports – so it’s not like I just make this stuff up. Again the State Department doesn’t want to discuss the issue.
I think there’s an obvious problem here when our government feels free to filter out substantive questions that it may not feel comfortable with, or which may not convey the message it wishes to control, but isn’t the supposed intent of our constitutional democracy to allow public input? I think we need to be concerned when a part of our US Department of State feels free to disregard that fundamental principle.
Posted in State Department, PRM, Nepali Bhutanese, Meskhetian Turks (Ahiska
Turk), Christian, Eric P. Schwartz (former Asst Sec.), Assistant Secretary of the PRM, churches, neglect, housing, substandard, household items, missing or broken, public/private partnership, furnishings, lack of, openess and transparency in government, children, Abilene, Buddhist, Hindu, Baltimore | Tagged: Abilene, Assistant Secretary of Population Refugees and Migration, Baltimore, Buddhist, censorship, Christian, constitution democracy, Conversations with America, conversion, Eric Schwartz, George Rupp, Hindu, International Rescue Committee, IRC, Meskhetian Turk, monitoring report, Population Refugees and Migration, PRM, public/private partnership, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, State Department, The Word at Southern Hills | 4 Comments »
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 »