Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Iranian’ Category

Was Canadian ex-resettlement agency chief fooled by staff? Or was he manipulative, controlling and unwilling to countenance dissent?

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 3, 2012

The intent of this blog to make it seem that refugee resettlement agencies are somehow corrupt in general – most are not – but rather to look at cases that involve valid criticism. The case of the collapsed Canadian refugee/immigrant agency, SISO, in Hamilton, Ontario is a case that offers a glimpse into what can go wrong when things do go wrong.

Morteza Jafarpour, who founded and headed the agency is apparently a man of contrasts. Early in his adult life he spent three of his formative years in an infamous Iranian prison as an enemy of the fledgling Islamic republic – apparently for being an atheist and speaking out against human rights abuses. Later, he immigrated to Canada as a refugee, delivered pizzas to survive, and later from the ground up spearheaded a campaign to make Hamilton, Ontario an immigration destination – with no doubt, the associated economic vitality sought by community leaders. The agency had a spectacular rise along with an equally spectacular implosion in 2010, involving charges of $4-million embezzled from the Canadian federal government. Jafarpour claims that two staff members fooled him and the refugee agency’s board and its auditors about the alleged siphoning of funds, and he merely, unwittingly, signed off on fake invoices (is that degree of incompetence believable?). As well, people report Jafarpour’s good qualities, his charisma and being highly knowledgeable. During the midst of the agency’s collapse he adopted two children of a former agency client who was viciously murdered by her ex-husband. Yet, others describe the Mercedes-driving Jafarpour as not only charismatic, but also as “manipulative, controlling” and unwilling to countenance dissent – as a person who “charms you, then controls you and leaves you in the dark.”

Former managers claim they raised financial red flags about the organization, which senior managers ignored or resisted. What is the truth? We’ll find out more during and after the upcoming trial. In the meantime an article at the Hamilton Spectator has many new details:

Morteza Jafarpour believes fraudsters stole a “significant amount of money” from SISO while he was in charge of Hamilton’s largest immigrant settlement agency.

But the embattled 52-year-old is adamant he had nothing to do with the crime… a “sophisticated series of schemes” over several years defrauded …the [Canadian] federal government of more than $4 million. The fraud was pulled off, police say, through faked invoices, payroll and employee information.

“I found out two of my staff were stealing money from SISO, extensively,” said Jafarpour…“Unfortunately, I didn’t know anything about that.”

Jafarpour said he never witnessed or suspected criminal wrongdoing at SISO while he was at the helm…

…When asked how he missed the alleged siphoning of funds, Jafarpour said he was fooled along with SISO’s board and its auditors, adding that if he unwittingly signed off on fake invoices, he’ll take responsibility for his mistakes.

He’s confident he’ll prove his innocence, however.

“I am a proud refugee, a proud Canadian, and I am going to fight,”…

…The Iranian refugee’s first stint behind bars is what led him to his vocation and relocation.

Jafarpour has often told the story about when, in 1983 as a 23-year-old student activist, he was locked up and beaten inside Tehran’s infamous Evin prison. He spent almost three years there, apparently for being an atheist and speaking out against human rights abuses following the 1979 revolution that ousted the monarchy and turned his homeland into an Islamic republic ruled by clerics.

It was a formative experience for Jafarpour…

…The second time Jafarpour was in a jail cell… was in 2010…on a charge of uttering a death threat against a SISO coworker…[the charge was] ultimately withdrawn by the Crown.

Steve Varey doesn’t believe the latest charges will stick, either.

“All the SISO drama, the charges, it’s set me back, made me sad,” said the retired Scotiabank vice-president. “But I’ll buy you three martinis and a pretty good steak if he’s ever convicted of anything.”

Varey first met Jafarpour more than a decade ago through the Bay Area Leadership program, a volunteer leadership training initiative. He wasn’t initially a big fan of the passionate newcomer advocate who always showed up late for meetings. “We thought very little of each other for a while,” said Varey with a laugh.

But eventually, Varey said, he bought into Jafarpour’s vision of making the city Canada’s immigration destination. “At some point I thought, ‘Wow, this guy holds the key to the future of Hamilton,’” he said. “Morteza, I thought, was the one leading that charge.”…

…Varey claims no knowledge of the financial details involved in SISO’s spectacular flame-out, which included $1.4 million in improper or invalid expenses found through federal audits even before the RCMP laid fraud charges.

Varey said all he can do is look at his personal interactions with the former SISO head.

He pointed to the Jafarpour family’s decision in 2010, in the midst of growing financial woes at SISO, to adopt two children of Muruwet Tuncer, a former agency client who was viciously murdered by her ex-husband…

…Several former SISO employees told The Spectator they feel betrayed by Jafarpour, not to mention the rest of the senior managers and the board of the bankrupt agency…

…Ahmed Mohammed said he understands why some people remain fiercely loyal to Jafarpour, even after SISO’s demise.

“I cannot deny it, I thought he was a very good guy for a very long time,” said Mohammed, a manager in SISO’s resettlement assistance program until 2009. “He is knowledgeable, he is charismatic, you want to believe what he says … The guy seemed to be the perfect success story of a new Canadian.”

But Mohammed said over nine years he learned his boss was also “manipulative, controlling” and unwilling to countenance dissent.

“He charms you, then controls you and leaves you in the dark,” Mohammed said. “And if you disagreed with what he was doing, you had to leave.”

Mohammed, who now works in a similar capacity for Wesley Urban Ministries, said he was laid off from SISO in 2009, shortly after he brought “financial irregularities” to the attention of senior managers and the board.

Other former managers, such as Liban Abdi, say they also raised financial red flags about the organization in 2009 that were ignored or “resisted by senior managers.”…

…[Jafarpour] feels the media has prejudged his case. He said he’s looking forward to “the full story” coming out at trial.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever see the inside of a cell again.

“You may question my style of managing SISO … my ability to run an organization. These are performance issues we can argue about,” he said. “If I have done anything wrong, I will take my part for that … But I am not going to go down. At the end of this story, my head will be up.” Read more here

Posted in Canadian refugee resettlement pgrm, invalid or improper expenses, Iranian | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

What was the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment of 1989? Should it be renewed?

Posted by Christopher Coen on December 1, 2011

The Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment of 1989 and the issue of whether Congress should renew it is up before us again (the last temporary extension of the measure expired on May 31, 2011). San Antonio’s Express-News reports that US Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee with oversight over immigration policy, is holding up the renewal of the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment:

In 1989, Congress passed legislation authored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., codifying the U.S. interest in assisting [people to] escape persecution...

…Congress has routinely renewed the refugee measure for 22 years. This year, as in the past, Lautenberg attached the legislation as an amendment to the foreign operations budget. But Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee with oversight over immigration policy, has stopped the Lautenberg Amendment dead in its tracks.

Smith raises two categories of objections. The first have to do with fairness. Smith contends that the 2,000 or so refugees who enter the United States annually under the Lautenberg Amendment receive preferential treatment in comparison with the other 73,000 refugees the United States takes in.

But that’s precisely the point of the amendment — to recognize special situations of persecution and open a relief valve to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

Smith’s second area of concern is that the amendment has never been subjected to oversight. Is the refugee program being run wisely and efficiently? Are people entering the United States under false pretenses?

Oversight hearings are entirely appropriate. We are confident that after hearing the facts about the refugee program, Smith will agree that the Lautenberg Amendment is a judicious and compassionate policy for legal immigration... Read more here

To understand this amendment we must first understand the meaning of the word “refugee” as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act – the basic body of immigration law:

Refugee – any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. here

The Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment then added more language in trying to help people experiencing persecution within their country of nationality, and in circumstances that are not easy to prove. A member of a category group:

“…may establish a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion…by asserting a credible basis for concern about the possibility of such persecution.”

The category groups were Jews and certain Christians from the former Soviet Union (FSA), as well as certain refugees in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. A 2003 update to the law made the category also available to refugees from Iran – mostly Christians, but also Jews, Bahais, Zoroastrians and other persecuted minorities. Presently the US allows in only about two thousand people annually this category.

 The problem with the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment was that powerful US political groups, e.g. Jews and evangelical Christians, abused it to help people they favored emigrate to the US. It allowed people to enter the US as political refugees from the FSA even after glasnost (openness) and perestroĭka (restructuring) often made moot any claim to persecution. Preferential treatment was indeed given to these people, which left some people with a bad feeling about the amendment. The Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment, however, remains the only option for legitimately persecuted groups who stay trapped inside their countries of nationality in circumstances of persecution not easy to prove. I would agree that Congress needs to inspect the oversight of the refugee program to check the many shortcomings that we explore on this blog, but not in the context of the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment. I also question why the category is only open to persecuted groups from a select handful of countries.

Posted in Bahá'i, Cambodian, evangelical, former Soviet republics, HIAS, Iranian, Jewish, Laos, legislation, Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment, Vietnamese | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Catholic Diocese of Arlington switched from one form of neglect to another

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 16, 2011

It looks as if the Catholic Diocese of Arlington switched from one type of disorganization to another from 2008 to 2010. A new State Department inspection report from 2008 indicates that the agency was placing refugee clients in Fredericksburg in housing with roach infestations, leaking windows and ceilings, and even demanded that a refugee sign an apartment lease without explaining it to her. She refused to sign it. A Burundian refugee father said that he appealed to the agency for six months to help him find a job but only worked about three days cleaning up shops.

Yet, two years later in 2010 local churches and volunteers were observing some very different forms of refugee neglect. Now, the agency was placing refugees in apartments without food or furniture and not giving refugees help with transportation. What is the rhyme and reason to these fluctuations?

If we assume that the State Department inspections — usually as rare as once in ten years — are at all effective, then what does it mean if noting one set of problems, and hopefully addressing them, simply leads to a sprouting of different problems?

One thing I know is that the State Department has no penalties for resettlement agencies’ failure to abide by even the minimum requirements of the government contracts. Could it be that the resettlement agency personnel sulk and pout over any criticism, and then temporarily fix the problems and then slack off on other minimum requirements? The reigning philosophy at many resettlement agencies seems to be that all problems are caused by 1) insufficient government funding (don’t raise the issue of the private funding they are supposed to raise to augment the public funding), 2) they don’t like having to do documentation of the services they claim to give refugees (who does like doing intensive paperwork?), 3) refugees are just so needy, and 4) hey, we just set up a new satellite office, so things won’t run well for a few years (what? refugees won’t even get food and a few used furnishings? why not?).

Whatever is happening, this case shows the limited effectiveness of current oversight in which 1) there are no penalties for failure to abide by contract obligations, 2) inspections are pre-announced, and 3) inspections are so rare that new problems can emerge in as a little as a few months or a year or two and the government inspectors won’t know until they come back ten years later.

It looks like we’re sorely overdue for a revamping of these inspections.

Posted in beds, Burundian, Catholic, Catholic Diocese of Arlington, churches, community/cultural orientation, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, employment services, faith-based, food, fractious relationships with volunteers, fredericksburg, furnishings, lack of, housing, substandard, Iranian, language interpretation/translation, lack of, rats and roaches, State Department, transportation, volunteers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Jewish Family Service of Seattle’s $3.6 million expansion project

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 20, 2011

Jewish Family Service of Seattle is conducting a lavish new expansion project while seeming to have little money for basic services for refugees. According to CHS Capitol Hill Seattle Blog the $3.6m project is actually a downsized version of what the organization originally planned for.

Following key approvals of permits by the city last week, East Madison is about to see the start of its third major active construction project. An important provider of social services throughout the region, Capitol Hill’s Jewish Family Service this month start work on a $3.6 million project to build a 19,000 square foot expansion on the parking lot adjacent to their current offices at 1601 16th Ave… Read more here

Yet, according to the most recently available State Department monitoring/inspection report for Jewish Family Service of Seattle the agency did not give refugees the minimum-required services required by a State Department contract. The agency did not bother to visit many of the refugee clients at home, even though they are only required to visit one time within 30 days of the refugees’ arrival. Monitors found one refugee man sleeping on the floor of a living room because the agency had not provided a bed. The agency claimed the refugee’s brother said he had an extra bed for the refugee, but since they had not visited the refugee they did not realize that this was not the case. The same refugee also said the agency never gave him an orientation and that they did not have anyone on staff who spoke his language, Farsi. He also said that he had a kidney stone but was not receiving adequate services, partly because each time he went to the hospital he saw someone different. Apparently Jewish Family Service of Seattle was not monitoring his case adequately.

Monitors also noticed that the agency had one of the lowest employment rates for refugees in the country. It also became clear during the monitoring review that more than half of the cases had not received a home visit, although many of the files contained a cursory home visit form that thay had completed only a week or two before the visit, despite the fact that many of the refugees had arrived four to five months earlier. Monitors later learned that they had completed these ”home visit” forms not during a home visit but during a phone conversation with the refugee.

Posted in beds, employment/jobs for refugees, faith-based, furnishings, lack of, home visits, Iranian, Jewish, Jewish Family Service of Seattle, language interpretation/translation, lack of, lavish new offices, Seattle, State Department | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Helping refugee women navigate the health care system in Phoenix

Posted by Christopher Coen on September 8, 2010

The Refugee Women’s Health Clinic in Phoenix is the subject of an article in The Arizona Republic. The clinic set up a system to guide refugee women through each step of the process to show them how the system works, so they can learn to navigate it on their own. Refugees seem to benefit greatly from a hands-on approach to refugee resettlement, rather than a tough love approach that leaves refugees lost – an important lesson for refugee resettlement agencies.

Volunteers…are the lifeblood of the Phoenix clinic, working hands-on to guide refugees through every step of their appointments. Many of them…are refugees themselves. They understand the fears and frustrations these women feel about navigating something totally alien: the American health-care system.

The clinic has served more than 400 patients since it was opened in October 2008 by the Maricopa Integrated Health System as part of its larger women’s clinic. The clinics are funded through the county health system.

Crista Johnson, the clinic’s medical director, said she recognized the need for more hands-on involvement when patients began wandering around MIHS for hours at a time, not knowing where to pick up prescriptions or get blood work done.

The clinic, which now has five volunteers and five translators, is an important resource for Arizona’s refugees, whose population is growing as its demographics shift. There are 3,260 refugees in the state, according to the Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program. Somalis, Cubans and Sudanese historically have dominated Arizona’s refugee population, but since 2008, there has been a surge from Bhutan, Myanmar, Burundi, Iraq and Iran…

…For most refugees, scheduling an appointment is a foreign process – like everything else about their new lives here.

The ultimate goal is to empower patients to navigate the health-care process by themselves, Johnson said.

Until then, patients are guided every step, starting with a knock on the front door.

Employees at apartment complexes remind every patient of her appointment the day before and call for a taxi to pick her up on the day of the appointment.

Once the cab drops a patient off, hospital volunteers accompany her as she waits in the reception area. They help her fill out insurance paperwork and start friendly conversation.

A volunteer or an interpreter stays with every patient throughout the appointment, taking care of her other children while her temperature is taken or translating from behind a curtain in the exam room as she gets a pap smear.

Then, volunteers take every patient to pick up her prescriptions or get X-rays. Before patients leave the clinic, Nizigiyimana schedules follow-up appointments and calls for taxis to take them home.

Georgia Sepic owns and manages a Phoenix apartment complex in which 97 percent of residents are refugees. Sepic said she emphasizes the importance of routine health checkups to her residents…

…Refugee women are skeptical and fearful of authority, Nizigiyimana said, because many of them have experienced rape, torture or trauma. Volunteers like Abdalla try to minimize the patient-provider mentality by approaching the women as friends… here

I notice that at one apartment complex in Phoenix refugees make up 97 percent of the residents, which is interesting following on the heels of refugee housing segregation in Boise, in another article.

The mention that refugee women are often skeptical and fearful of authority is something that is central to refugee resettlement. Countless times I have witnessed resettlement agencies who play with refugees’ fears in order to intimidate refugees not to complain when the resettlement agencies neglect their contractual responsibilities. Another common practice is questioning refugees after they have spoken to community members who are critical of resettlement agencies. Resettlement workers will pepper refugees with questions about who they spoke to, why they spoke to that person, and what they said – sending a clear message that refugees are not to voice any of their concerns or complaints to members of the community. The refugee program should never tolerate any refugee resettlement agency that uses refugees’ fears to coerce them.

Posted in Arizona, Burma/Myanmar, Burundian, Cuban, health, intimidation of refugees, Iranian, Iraqi, Nepali Bhutanese, Phoenix, Somali, Somali Bantu, women | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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