Archive for the ‘Vietnamese’ Category
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: evangelicals, Iran, jews, Lamar Smith, Lautenberg Amendment, Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment, oversight, persecution, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 2, 2011
An article at the The American Prospect explains the plight of former Hmong refugees who tried to make a go of it in poultry production in the Ozarks. Despite the farming skills and family values many Hmong brought from Laos — and hoped to use to achieve the American dream — American business markets set the Hmong up for failure.
Shane Tawr doesn’t remember exactly why he first decided to try his hand at chicken farming. Tawr had a government job in Milwaukee but wanted relief from the city’s bustle. He decided in 2004 to head down to the Ozarks, buy a chicken farm, and work for himself, just as many of his Hmong ancestors had done in Laos.
The Hmong, who came to the United States in large numbers as political refugees after the Vietnam War, settled mostly in urban communities in California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Some raised chickens and tended small vegetable gardens, but many worked jobs that kept them near the poverty line. In the early 2000s, chicken producers such as Tyson, which is based in northwest Arkansas, began courting the Hmong, and advertisements about chicken-farming opportunities appeared in Hmong-language newspapers. Roughly 500 Hmong now live in communities throughout Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma and raise breeder or broiler chickens for a handful of companies that operate in the Ozarks… Read more here
Apparently the highly exploitative contract-farming arrangements are not confined solely to Tysons, but practiced by other poultry processors such as Simmons, Peterson, George, etc. Other factors
involved in American businesses exploitation of the Hmong and other immigrants – a long tradition in American business – seem to include greedy realtors and inflated assessments of poultry farms, and “safe for the bank” loans guaranteed by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA). Read more here in a blog written by Daniel Krotz, a former Senior Consultant for the Washington DC based Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED) explains these other factors on a blog at Carroll County News.
…the Hmong began arriving in the United States from Laos following the US exit from Vietnam. The Hmong, valiant allies with the US against communism, became refugees and were settled in the United States to avoid extinction at the hands of our North Vietnamese enemies as punishment for their service to the United States.
and
…Hmong operated farms were destined to fail from the onset or, to be fairly marginal business investments over any period of time, short or long term…
The underlying problem was that the Hmong had purchased farms that were overvalued and with equipment and buildings that were nearly or fully depreciated. The critical information missing from the Pott’s article was that appraisals of farms were too high at the time of purchase, and that area banks made loans even though it should have been fairly apparent to the banks that the Hmong purchasers were entering into fairly risky ventures that had limited potential to ever be
profitable.
Why would banks make loans for potentially high risk business ventures? Probably because, in most cases, the loans were guaranteed by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), which substantially reduced the risk for lenders…
In very general terms, what appears to have happened is that Realtors found a crowd of eager buyers fo farming operations the buyers were not adequately prepared to operate, and passed the buyers along to banks–accompanied by inflated appraisals–who made “safe for the bank” loans because they were guaranteed by USDA FSA. The only losers were the Hmong.
Again, while I cannot characterize how equitable the business relationships between Tyson and the Hmong farmers are, I can say that many of the farmers had similar if not identical contracts with other poultry processors such as Simmons, Peterson, George, etc. Financial outcomes for Hmong farmers was predictably poor regardless of the processing company they worked with… Read more here
Posted in Arkansas, California, Hmong, Hmong, Hmong, Minnesota, ORR, poultry production, US Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin | Tagged: American business, American dream, Arkansas, contract-farming, Daniel Krotz, Farm Service Agency, FSA, George, Hmong, human rights, Institute for Social and Economic Development, ISED, Monica Potts, Ozarks, Peterson, poultry farms, realtors, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, safe for the bank, Shane Tawr, Simmons, Tyson, US Department of Agriculture, USDA, Vietnam | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 21, 2010
New refugee students in South Philadelphia are learning that their new school may be much more dangerous for them than the refugee camps they came from. On December 3rd students at South Philadelphia High attacked 30 Asian students, mostly refugees. The violence sent seven Asian students to hospitals, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Many Asian students who walk into South Philadelphia High on Tuesday morning will be carrying something besides books.
In pockets and purses, they’ll tote a pamphlet called “Staying Safe.” It was given to them by community leaders who ran a special orientation aimed at teaching the students an important lesson: what to do if they’re attacked at school.
Knowing how to report harassment or assault is a skill most would prefer not to need. But it’s the reality of life at the school, where 30 Asians were attacked by groups of mostly African American students Dec. 3.
The violence sent seven Asians to hospitals and led about 50 to stage a weeklong boycott… here
A community leader told the students that she doesn’t know if changes will do anything to make them safer, in spite of the school being outfitted with extensive new security and programming.
…Last week, school administrators held new-student orientation, a day complete with cheerleaders in uniform and volleyball-team hopefuls knocking a ball around the gym.
The Asian session was a study in contrast. At FACTS charter school in Chinatown, three dozen students from Myanmar, China, Nepal, Vietnam, and elsewhere gathered to listen and talk.
“You guys are walking into the continuing story,” Nancy Nguyen, head of the local chapter of Boat People SOS, told the students. “We don’t know if the school is better. There are a lot of changes, but we don’t know if it’s better.”
The changes include security cameras and programming additions such as an Asian arts initiative and an in-school center for immigrants. A new antiharassment policy is in the works. The Justice Department, which recently informed the district it found merit to the Asian students’ civil-rights complaint, could impose more change.
At FACTS, organizers explained what harassment looks and sounds like, a raw introduction to students new to American culture and schools. Harassment, students heard, can be based on the place of your birth, the accent of your speech, or the shape of your eyes.
The instruction cut close to the bone, particularly when the leaders distributed a list of racial slurs and told the students: It’s wrong. And you need to know that slurs can escalate quickly and violently.
That’s common knowledge to children raised in America. But immigrants can be too limited in English to recognize racist language – and the danger it may portend.
Most of the students were heading into ninth grade at the school, which is 18 percent Asian and 70 percent African American. Some were hearing for the first time that Asians could be targets.
“If they come to beat us up, I’ll just go to the principal,” said Ghanashyam Gautam, 14, who emigrated from Nepal two years ago…
…The training program broke into subgroups. In one, a dozen students from Nepal squeezed around a table, all eyes focused on Nguyen, the Boat People SOS leader.
“I want to let you know what happened,” she began, telling the story of Dec. 3, ending with how Asian students stayed out of school…
…A discussion ensued in Nepalese. One boy wanted to know, if someone punches him, what should he do? Run away?
The first thing, Nguyen answered, is to get to a safe place. Write down everything that happened. And call one of the Asian leaders.
“It’s important for you guys to let us know if something happens,” Nguyen said…
…At times, the students’ moods turned somber, as if they were asking themselves: What am I getting into at the school?
Again, we see the refugee resettlement program resettling refugees into urban areas that are obviously not safe for them or their children. Their ability to stay safe in these environments is much less than the average American’s due to newness to the communities, language barriers, lack of knowledge of rules, etc. Many of these refugees are already suffering from stress-related mental illnesses such as PTSD due to the conditions that originally brought them to refugee camps. If seven students hospitalized for injuries in one day, or a 15-year-old refugee boy murdered in a St. Louis ghetto, isn’t enough to get bureaucrats to reconsider things, what would it take to change their minds?
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, dangerous neighborhoods, Dept. of Justice, mental health, Nepali Bhutanese, Philadelphia, safety, school for refugee children, schools, Vietnamese | Tagged: asian students, Asian students' civil-rights complaint, Bhutanese refugees, Boat People SOS, Burmese refugees, Nepalese refugees, Philadelphia, PTSD, refugee children, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugee students, refugees, South Philadelphia High, south philly, U.S. Justice Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 16, 2010
We just received a State Department inspection report from April 2007 which shows that Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (LFSC) in Greensboro was already neglecting their refugee clients a year-and-a-half before they got caught by the local media (here). Previous coverage is here, here and here.
As usual the State Department’s Office of Admissions enacted no penalties whatsoever. They advised the resettlement agency’s national partners (Church World Service, and Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service) to do their own monitoring instead. This wolf-guarding-the-chicken-coop “self-monitoring”, which has proved so disastrous in the financial and oil industries as well, then led to the situation we had at the end of 2009 and early 2010 with refugees in Greensboro still being placed in dilapidated apartments, scrounging dumpsters for furniture, and wearing shorts and flip-flops in December, three months after they arrived.
According to the report LFSC Greensboro was in “partial compliance” with their State Department refugee contract documents (yes, they are federal contractors, not non-contractor “partners”). Refugees were found in poor quality housing, lacked necessary furnishings, had incomplete resettlement orientation, and there was poor case file documentation. Three of four refugee families visited were found in poor quality housing and lacked furnishings (that’s 75% of the sample). All four families did not seem to have undergone a complete orientation (100%), and three of the four could not name their case worker (75%).
A Burundian refugee man had furniture in his apartment that was in such extremely poor condition that State Department inspectors had to ask him about it. He indicated most of it came from dumpsters. He said he asked LFSC for a mattress several times, but they ignored his request, and after two weeks he found himself a mattress in the trash and brought it home (think bed-bugs). His window was cracked, he had no idea who his LFSC case worker was, and had not received any immigration information (the requirement to tell the Department of Homeland Security when he got a new address, how to get a green card, etc.). He said he wanted to go to Georgia because LFSC wasn’t helping him (this is what is known as “secondary-migration” and resettlement agencies and stated refugee coordinators are quick to complain to the federal government that they need more money to deal with it, but look at this case for why it so often occurs).
A Liberian refugee and his son also did not know who their case worker was, and did not receive any information on immigration issues.
A Montagnard (Degar – indiginous Vietnamese) minor female refugee who arrived to join her parents was found in a poor condition two-bedroom apartment (occupied by the family prior to the minor’s arrival) which was crowded with seven family. She had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the living-room with her parents.
Another Montagnard refugee woman with four children who arrived to join her husband did not have any heat because of dismantled baseboard heating units which emitted a bad smell (gas leak?). The family did not have adequate clothing storage and had only three chairs for six people. She also had not received any orientation from LFSC.
Is it really a surprise that this agency then continued on in its ways for another year-and-a-half before things got so out of hand that community members started complaining, and a newspaper started covering what was happening? They got caught neglecting refugees in April 2007 but there were no significant consequences. The agency would not have shut down if it had not been caught, and would probably still be abusing refugees. Suzanne Gibson-Wise, the negligent CEO of LFSC, probably just went on about her arrogant ways — buying blackberries, getting wireless internet installed at her home, sitting on her personal commode. Where are the teeth in the State Department’s inspection process? No serious consequences means nobody cares. Isn’t that obvious?
The problem is that nobody learns from these incidents. The system trashes refugees’ new lives in America, the volags continue on in their negligent ways, all the while doing little other than advocating for more public money with inadequate accountability requirements, and the government agencies continue to keep up secrecy so the American public won’t understand what the problems are.
We need change we can believe in.
Posted in beds, Burundian, Christian, clothes, community/cultural orientation, Cooperative Agreement, CWS, employment services, faith-based, funding, furnishings, lack of, Greensboro, housing, overcrowding, housing, substandard, immigration services, Liberian, Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (2), Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas, Montagnard/Degar (indigenous mountain people), North Carolina, State Department | Tagged: Burundian, Church World Service, CWS, Liberian, lutheran family services in the carolinas, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Montagnard, volag, volags | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 15, 2010
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) has done it again. YET ANOTHER one of their offices or affiliates was found out of compliance with the bare minimum requirements of the State Department refugee contract (the Cooperative Agreement and its attachments) - this time in Raleigh, North Carolina here.
The State Department found that this USCRI field office was “non-compliant” with many aspects of the contract, including core (basic) services that were not always provided within required time frames, core services delegated to churches without a co-sponsorship agreement, and case files that were seriously deficient. In addition two of the four refugee homes (apartments) visited by the State Department inspectors were roach-infested and needed maintenance.
The State Department’s refugee office seems to grasp the concept of a representative sample of refugees, selecting refugee cases themselves from the files, or at least not allowing the contractor to select the refugee cases — in contrast to the ORR allowing resettlement contractors to hand-select refugees to speak at the Annual Consultation. I’ll give them credit for that. For this inspection of the USCRI Raleigh field office they selected four refugee cases to visit.
The first refugee case was a Burmese family — a husband, a wife, and their four-year-old daughter. They said the USCRI had placed them in an apartment without food (the Operational Guidance to Resettlement Agencies requires resettlement agencies to give the refugees food upon the their arrival). The inspectors also noticed that the case file notes indicated in one place that USCRI purchased food for the family before their arrival, and in another place indicated they purchased it after their arrival. Suspicious, they then found an altered Food Lion receipt in the file to make it seem that USCRI had purchased the food before the refugee family’s arrival. Nice try.
The second refugee case was a Burmese refugee family consisting of a husband, wife, and three young children. The wife said no one from USCRI had talked with her about employment, and that the family didn’t have beds for the adults or youngest child, nor a couch, until a week after they arrived. The family’s apartment also had second-floor windows that were in disrepair, presenting a danger to the young children. The USCRI listed a church as the responsible party for certain core services even though USCRI Raleigh does not use co-sponsors. The church was supposedly responsible for registering the school-age child for school, yet there was no notation when that had happened.
Another Burmese refugee said USCRI placed him in a heavily roach-infested apartment, with roaches crawling in every room. Again there was no food in the apartment upon arrival. He said his couch had broken springs, he had inadequate clothing storage, and the stove had broken burners.
A Montagnard (Degar – Vietamese highland people) refugee woman who arrived with her son told inspectors that USCRI Raleigh, similarly, never gave her any help to find a job. The USCRI also assigned her to the church that was not an official co-sponsor, and later a church volunteer ruined her efforts to get Medicaid, failing to take her to the interview in the required time-period and failing to bring the proper paperwork to the interview. USCRI also visited this refugee woman a week late (since home visits are only required to be done once in the first 30 days, that means this one didn’t happen until the refugee woman had been here for over 5 weeks!).
In addition, the agency’s case files were an utter and complete mess. Two files had no case notes at all, and a third contained only one post-arrival case note. Another case file began nearly two months after the refugee’s arrival, and four others ended only one month after the refugees’ arrival, even though the core-service period is 90 days. The agency also failed to document referrals to employment assistance, ESL, and whether or not they had provided food and home furnishings.
Unbelievably there is no sign that the State Department did even its usual wrist slapping by temporarily suspending assignment of refugees to this negligent USCRI field office.
Sadly, I suppose that this type of contract-cheating and refugee neglect from the State Departments “partners” is so common that it just doesn’t seem to call for much of a response.
Posted in beds, Burma/Myanmar, churches, Cooperative Agreement, employment services, food, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, substandard, Montagnard/Degar (indigenous mountain people), neglect, North Carolina, ORR, Raleigh field office, Raleigh-Durham, State Department, USCRI | Tagged: Burma/Myanmar, Cooperative Agreement, Degar, employment assistance, ESL, field office, Medicaid, Montagnard, NC, North Carolina, ORR, Raleigh-Durham, refugee, refugees, roaches, State Department, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI, Vietamese | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 13, 2010
Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines has decided to continue resettling refugees in Iowa (here and here). This decision comes on the heels of Lutheran Services in Iowa deciding to stop refugee resettlement and the State Department pulling funding from the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services (an Iowa state agency that was long given an acceptation to the requirement that refugee agencies be non-profits and add private funding to resettlement efforts).
According to the Des Moines Register:
Catholic Charities decided Wednesday it will push on alone in resettling refugees, extending Iowa’s history as a sanctuary for refugees from war-torn, poverty-stricken nations.
The group’s decision comes months after the only other organizations that had been resettling refugees in Iowa – Lutheran Services in Iowa and the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services – pulled out of resettlement. That put Iowa’s future as a refugee haven in limbo.
Catholic Charities will resettle between 100 and 130 people annually.
That’s far fewer than the more than 900 refugees resettled in Iowa during the last fiscal year, when Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services jointly resettled refugees through Refugee Cooperative Services.
Lutheran Services said it could not afford to continue its program.
Catholic Charities said that it is facing a “financial burden” due to refugees not being able to find jobs in the current economy, and the group having to pay their rent for a longer time. This, even though the State Department doubled per capita (per refugee) funding as of January 1, 2010. (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services via their Office of Refugee Resettlement also provides refugees with up to 8 months of cash assistance to help pay rent, as well as a large array of other refugee funding).
If Catholic Charities had stopped resettlement – and that was a possibility, given the financial burden – it would have ended a prolific era of refugee resettlement in Iowa. Thirty thousand refugees have made Iowa home since 1975
….Refugee resettlement makes up about 17 percent of the work of Des Moines’ Catholic Charities, or $450,000 of a $2.7 million budget.
The refugee expenses include administrative costs as well as direct assistance such as help paying rent. Catholic Charities will hire three employees for refugee resettlement, which entails assisting refugees with housing, transportation, learning American culture and finding jobs.
Catholic Charities will focus on receiving refugees with Iowa ties instead of so-called “free cases” – refugees with no familial ties in the United States.
“We’re taking a risk, but we’ve been really careful to set this up so it will be successful,” said Nancy Galeazzi, executive director of Catholic Charities. “We have had to be smart about what we can handle. But it’s the right thing to do.”
The organization will benefit from a decision this year by the Department of State to increase the money it directs to resettling agencies. Instead of getting $900 per refugee, resettling agencies now get $1,800.
One continuing concern is refugees’ difficulty in finding jobs in the sour economy. In that case, Catholic Charities continues to pay their rent. But that’s built into the plan, Galeazzi said.
Sol Varisco-Santini, who heads refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities, recently sat in on the weekly resettlement meeting in Washington, D.C., and watched agencies who resettle refugees in the United States allocate the week’s 2,100 arrivals. She wanted Iowa to still be part of that equation. To do that, Catholic Charities decided to focus on fewer refugees.
“One hundred thirty is much more manageable for Iowa than 900,” Varisco-Santini said. “Even though the percentage of people we’re helping is very small, we think it is worth it.”
The meeting she sat in on is the weekly meeting at the Refugee Processing Center (RPC) in Arlington, Virginia. The RPC is a State Department agency at which the private refugee resettlement agencies are allowed to decide where incoming refugees are placed in the U.S. and who will take which refugee “free cases” (refugees with no family or sponsors in the U.S.). Resettlement agencies often fail to mention this process via the RPC, and instead tell refugees, community members and the media that they have no control over how many or which refugees they resettle locally.
The article also refers to the chance that refugees will continue to arrive in Iowa via “secondary migration” (after first being resettled to other states, and then migrating on their own to Iowa).
John Wilken, director of the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, applauded Catholic Charities’ decision to continue resettling refugees. But he predicted a rise in secondary migration – refugees who resettle outside Iowa, then move here to be close to family. Wilken estimates some 1,000 additional refugees came to Iowa through secondary migration in 2009.
“When you take a state with a long history of resettlement and reduce its capacity by 80 percent, what do you do with all the cases who wanted to come here but can’t?” Wilken said. “The fact our numbers are down here does not stop the individuals being processed from getting resettled. They’ll just be assigned somewhere else.”
Posted in Catholic Charities, Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines, faith-based, funding, Iowa, LIRS, Lutheran Services in Iowa, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), State Department, Sudanese, USCCB, Vietnamese | Tagged: $1800, 8 months, Bureau of Refugee Services, cash assistance, catholic charities, Des Moines, Diocese of Des Moines, free case, Health and Human Services, IA, Iowa, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, per capita, refugee, Refugee Processing Center, refugees, resettlement, RPC (Refugee Processing Center), State Department | 5 Comments »
Christopher Coen
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