Archive for the ‘public/private partnership’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 22, 2012
In 2010, the US Department of State doubled the initial per-refugee resettlement stipend to $1800 (while allowing resettlement contractors to keep $700 of that for overhead). Today they announced (below) that they have raised it again this year. (It would be refreshing if they made some of these announcements before they make the decisions, and not after, to allow for public response). When they decide to give us the rest of the details perhaps they will tell us how much of that increase they will allow for the contractors’ overhead (all of it should go directly to the refugees). If the non-profit agencies – resettlement contractors – actually make real private contributions (once claimed as 25 cents for each dollar given by the State Department, or feds, although no proof offered) then I guess I don’t understand why, at the very least, they can’t pay their own overhead costs.
…We understand that the current economic situation is challenging the ability of federal, state, and non-profit agencies to broadly assist refugees in need. In response, in 2010, the Department of State doubled the per-refugee stipend, and raised it again this year. The refugee admissions program is a public-private partnership. As such, non-profit agencies involved have also increased efforts to raise private resources to support refugees in need. And some businesses are stepping in to assist as well…
Kind regards,
David M. Robinson
Acting Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Read more here
Posted in Assistant Secretary of the PRM, funding, public/private partnership, R&P | Tagged: David Robinson, federal contractors, federal funding, refugees, resettlement | 2 Comments »
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 9, 2012
The State Department’s refugee office is going about its usual way of doing business by having yet another local program visit, this time in Nashville, with local resettlement contractors and their hand-selected refugee clients (this ensures that no one utters any free-spirited or critical comments about the local resettlement contractors, or their government oversight friends). Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) David M. Robinson is in Nashville February 8-9 (reminds me of the former Assistant Secretary’s — Eric P. Schwartz’s — trips to Salt Lake City and Portland and Denver and Phoenix). Robinson answered a few questions two weeks ago during an online live chat. The PRM put out a press release with only 24 hours or less to go before this Nashville visit – apparently in an attempt to keep away all save for insiders.
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
February 7, 2012
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) David M. Robinson will travel from February 8-9, 2012 to Nashville, Tennessee to meet with resettled refugees, refugee resettlement agencies, local and state government officials, and other community members involved in the resettlement of refugees…
If you wish to attend, please contact [the] PRM’s Public Affairs Advisor…by close of business on February 8. Read more here
Posted in Assistant Secretary of the PRM, democracy, Nashville, public/private partnership | Tagged: Acting Assistant Secretary of State, David M. Robinson, federal contractors, Nashville, Population Refugees and Migration, press release, PRM, refugees, resettlement | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 28, 2012
If you follow this blog you might remember reading about the experience a volunteer helping refugees from Myanmar had with the Bowling Green International Center. Cindy Florez, who I spoke to and corresponded with in 2009 and 2010, met the refugees in a refugee camp when she was in Thailand and later drove to Bowling Green to welcome them when they arrived for resettlement. There, she found her friends living in filthy, rundown apartments, overrun with massive cockroach infestations – and commented about the problems on a website. Later, bringing the refugees a carload of donated items she was greeted by a hostile landlord (apparently a Burmese individual, and friend of the Institute?) who ordered her off the property, using the police to illegally remove her from the property (tenants may chose who their guests are, not landowners or police). A mystery person in the building also threw M-80 firecrackers at Florez and her female Karenni interpreter.
Now, two years after we placed a request with the State Department’s FOIA office for that public agency’s monitoring inspections reports of the private resettlement agencies for late 2008 and early 2009, the office has finally responded with a few reports. One of those reports is a March 31-April 1, 2009 inspection of the Bowling Green International Center. It turns out that the State Department monitors were able to conduct the rare once-in-5-or-10-year-inspection without discovering any of the problems that Florez documented in writing and on video (monitors did not find any infestation, even though two of the refugee cases they visited reported these). So, what went wrong?
That remains for the State Department monitors to explain, although their office has frequently repeated that they act only as a “partner” to their resettlement contractors. Even with that lack of authority in the oversight relationship I think it still remains for them to explain why they will not investigate any of the individual cases reported by members of the public and the community (instead, they selected only the usual small random sample, four refugee cases in this case, for home visits).
Part of what probably went wrong was an extensive clean-up before the monitors’ arrival, after the community member caught this resettlement contractor providing substandard services. No doubt other problems include the rarity of the monitorings and the great weight given to resettlement contractors’ own written records as “proof” of services they provided.
Finally, I notice that the report states that this refugee resettlement agency “reports a collaborative relationship with the state refugee coordinator” without mentioning that the “state” refugee coordinator is just another private refugee resettlement contractor – Catholic Charities of Louisville.
Posted in Bowling Green, Catholic Charities of Louisville Inc., housing, substandard, International Center in Bowling Green (Western Kentucky Refugee Mutual Assistance Association), Karenni, missed immunizations for refugee students, Office of Admissions, public/private partnership, rats and roaches, State Department, transportation | Tagged: Bowling Green, Catholic Charities of Louisville, International Center, karenni, monitoring, refugees, resettlement, State Department, Western Kentucky Refugee Mutual Assistance Association | Leave a 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 December 28, 2011
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle identifies the many Iraqi refugees who have been attacked in East Oakland. In response, the State Department’s PRM spokeswoman, Beth Schlachter, reminds us about its lax, partner-friendly regulations by saying that the department’s guidelines for relocating refugees don’t even consider crime rates (funny how that works). A reader commenting on the article reminds us that Bosnian refugees had similar problems in the 90s, so the private resettlement agencies and their friends at government oversight agencies have obviously long-known about this problem. Refugees from Burma/Myanmar in the area have also experienced muggings and robberies, as have refugees from Bhutan/Nepal. The article details the situation in Oakland for Iraqi refugees:
…In June 2008, [Ghazwan Al-Sharif] moved in with two other Iraqi refugees, sharing a two-bedroom apartment in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood – a situation arranged by the nonprofit International Rescue Committee…
…One night, he decided to walk home alone. Two men attacked him, bashing him in the face with a metal object and robbing him of some money, his cell phone and his ID. He was left screaming on the ground, his face gushing blood.
He said the police never identified his attackers.
Al-Sharif, 40, is one of more than 50 Iraqi refugees who have been moved to East Oakland by the International Rescue Committee. The nonprofit’s officials say they won’t settle refugees in unsafe neighborhoods, but Al-Sharif and dozens of other Iraqis blame the organization for exposing them to an unfamiliar type of violence – one perpetrated by gangs rather than political militants…
…Like many of his fellow Bay Area refugees, Al-Sharif does not believe the International Rescue Committee has done enough. “Why are you putting them in Oakland and letting them suffer?” he said, referring to his fellow refugees. “I want to be safe. … I can find work and manage to survive, but I need to be safe.”
Oakland as refuge
Oakland has a long history of hosting immigrants from around the world. Affordable housing, easy access to city services, efficient transportation such as BART, and an accepting, multicultural society make the city a great place for refugees, said rescue committee spokeswoman Melissa Winkler.
But the nonprofit receives only $1,800 in federal funding to provide each refugee with housing, employment and other basic needs. That doesn’t go far in the Bay Area, and refugees are expected to be financially self-sufficient within four months.
That’s why the IRC chose to resettle many of them in Oakland, where housing is often inexpensive…
…Unfortunately, the city also has one of the country’s highest crime rates, according to federal statistics and other studies.
Beth Schlachter, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the State Department, said government guidelines for relocating refugees don’t consider crime rates. The requirements for “decent, safe and sanitary housing,” she said, extend only “from the apartment itself to the building or apartment complex they’re living in.”…
…[Harith Al-Kaiate, 47] hasn’t forgotten the time a nighttime gunfight near his home left his car, which was parked outside, riddled with bullets…
…Ragheed Abdulameer, 32, another recent arrival, [was] robbed at gunpoint earlier this year just a few blocks from his home at East 24th Street and 14th Avenue…One of Abdulameer’s friends has yet to bring his wife and children from Iraq, believing they’re safer in Basra. The friend declined to be interviewed or identified for this article, saying he fears retaliation from federal authorities and the rescue committee.
More than a dozen Iraqi refugees who have been resettled in Oakland say they live in varying degrees of fear.
“Had I known about this place, I’d never have agreed to come,” said Oday Fatah, 33…
…the only solution for you is to get beaten or mugged and then you can get out,” quipped Al-Sharif, who says he became depressed and attempted suicide after he was mugged. His condition persuaded the International Rescue Committee to help relocate him to San Francisco.
The rescue committee agreed to move another refugee and his family after he was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting outside a Fruitvale mini-mart earlier this year, Climent said.
[Iraqi refugees who make it to the US] almost certainly suffered horrendous trauma in their home country.
“They’ve survived, and they’ve come to the U.S. to start a new life, and if you settle them in an environment like that, you bring back all these things,” Abdulkhaleq said… Read more here
Posted in dangerous neighborhoods, Iraqi, IRC, Oakland, PRM, public/private partnership, safety, San Francisco, State Department, suicide | Tagged: crime, International Rescue Committee, Iraqi, IRC, mugging, Oakland, refugees, resettlement, shooting, State Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 23, 2011
Human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation”. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act became law in 2000 to help organizations offer services to survivors of trafficking, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has awarded millions of dollars in grant money to organizations claiming to give services to trafficking victims. Yet, recent audits of six grant-receiving organizations show that they had more than $2.72 million in unsupported, unallowable or questioned costs. An audit of Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights in Chicago, which the DOJ awarded $2 million, revealed that this refugee organization did not have adequate documentation for $902,122 in salaries and $174,479 in fringe benefits. An article in InfoZine has more:
Six audits completed between 2007 and 2009 reported more than $2.72 million in unsupported, unallowable or questioned costs of the $8.24 million total the Department of Justice awarded to the six grant recipients.
“These select individual audits signal to me that there is a bigger problem,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. “The inspector general audited seven trafficking grantees and found serious problems in all seven.”
During the hearing on the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which provides grants and resources for trafficking victims, advocates, law enforcement and prosecutors, Grassley questioned whether the Department of Justice is awarding money to the appropriate organizations.
“Holding grant programs accountable will help to ensure that services really go to those in need,” Grassley, the senior Republican on the committee, said in a statement. “Before we reauthorize another dollar, we need strong oversight language included in legislation – to ensure that failing grantees will not be rewarded with additional taxpayer dollars.”
Human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation,” according to the National Institute of Justice’s website.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act became law in 2000 to help organizations spread awareness, provide services to survivors of trafficking, investigate trafficking and support the prosecution of traffickers.
Not all grant recipients appear to be handling their money appropriately, however. One audit discovered that the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs in Chicago, which was awarded $2 million, did not have adequate documentation for $902,122 in salaries and $174,479 in fringe benefits… Read more here
Posted in Chicago, Dept. of Justice, funding, Heartland Alliance, human trafficking, invalid or improper expenses, public/private partnership | Tagged: Department of Justice, grant, heartland alliance, Human trafficking, questionable costs, refugees, resettlement, Trafficking Victims Protection Act, unauthorized expenditures | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 16, 2011
The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement will temporarily remove all the immigrant and refugee children from St. Michael’s Home for Children operated by Catholic Charities in Houston due to an investigation into “sexual activity” involving three children at one of the organization’s shelters. The organization allegedly assigned staff members in charge of supervising children with other assignments, which left the children to their own devices. An article in the Houston Chronicle has the story:
Federal authorities plan to temporarily remove all of the immigrant and refugee children from St. Michael’s Home for Children operated by Catholic Charities in Houston amid an investigation into “sexual activity” involving three children in one of the organization’s shelters, officials said.
The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places children and teenagers caught crossing the border without family members into temporary care, so far has removed 22 of the 46 children housed at the three shelters in Houston and plans to continue removing the rest, officials with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said Friday.
Kenneth Wolfe, an ORR spokesman, said the agency made the decision to temporarily remove the children based on its own monitoring and a state investigation…
…Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the state conducted an investigation after being notified of the incident on July 13. The state investigator documented deficiencies at the facility, including faulting the administrator for assigning staff members in charge of supervising children with other assignments, which left the children alone “where they acted out inappropriately.”…
…U.S. immigration officials placed 6,074 immigrant and refugee children in the care of ORR in 2009, the most recent data available. More than half of those – some 3,200 – were detained in Texas, the statistics show… Read more here
Posted in Catholic, child protective services, children, faith-based, Houston, ORR, public/private partnership | Tagged: catholic charities, chilren, houston, immigrant, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, refugees, resettlement, St. Michael's Home for Children, Texas | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 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 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 »
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