Archive for the ‘Lutheran Social Services of ND’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 31, 2011
According to an employee who manages health and wellness programs at Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) in Connecticut it’s almost next to impossible to get mental health care if you have Medicaid. Waiting lists are often longer then the eight months of Medicaid coverage for refugees. Need a translator? Sorry, many therapists don’t work with them. Plus, physicians aren’t trained to work with interpreters. The New Haven Independent tells more:
The soldiers dragged out a pregnant woman and slit open her belly. A witness who was personally tortured for his political activism in Congo is more haunted by that image than his own pain.
Safe in Connecticut now, he has daily flashbacks and wants to see a therapist in order to cope with this memory as well as the stress of leaving his home, friends and family to start a new life in America.
But it will likely take months before he gets help. And if he does his therapist must speak French to communicate with him or be willing to work through an interpreter. To make matters worse, those months of waiting work against him – since he’ll qualify for health coverage for a limited time…
…About 28,000 refugees currently live in Connecticut, according to Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) in New Haven. Many refugees come to the U.S. after suffering through traumatic experiences in their home countries, but financial and language barriers often keep them from getting mental health care.
This is one of many shortcomings in the services offered to refugees, according to a report issued this month by the Congressional Research Service, which was critical of federal resettlement programs that provide short term aid and often do not address the unique problems that refugees face, including trauma histories.
The long-term consequences of not providing refugees with good mental health care are devastating, according to Mary Scully, director of programs for Khmer Health Advocates in West Hartford. She connects untreated mental illness in her clients who came to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s with a wave a physical illness in the Cambodian-American community today. “Now we see the whole gamut of trauma-induced chronic disease,” she said.
The witness and other refugees need to go to providers who accept Medicaid, which covers refugees for their first eight months in the U.S. “It’s almost next to impossible to get mental health care if you have Medicaid,” said Kelly Hebrank, who manages health and wellness programs at IRIS. The providers who do accept Medicaid have long waiting lists, she said.
That waiting list means the duration of therapy is shorter, explained Zurowski. She has advocated nationally for extending the period of Medicaid coverage so that refugees have longer to establish themselves in jobs that offer health benefits. The Congressional Research Service also identified the short duration of Medicaid for refugees as a problem…
…A greater barrier is the refusal of some therapists to work through interpreters. Health care providers may resist using interpreters because it takes time during the appointment, time already limited by insurance regulations, said Dr. Hendry Ton, director of the University of California Davis Transcultural Wellness Center. “It’s almost an incentive not to use an interpreter,” said Ton, who is a psychiatrist. Most physicians, he added, are not trained to work through interpreters. Nor is there any standard of training for medical interpreters…Read more here
I guess I’m not understanding why a physician would need training to treat a patient who communicates through an interpreter. And why would any therapist worth their weight in salt not be willing to work through interpreters?
The interpretation for refugees at medical appointments reminds of a time in 2005 when a Sudanese refugee arrived with a giant mass protruding from his back (approximately 6’”x 5” and sticking out 2-3”) . Firstly, no one from his resettlement agency came to pick him up for his medical specialist appointment for this apparent tumor, so he had to wait another month for a new appointment. This time I took him to his appointment at which there was no scheduled interpreter even though he spoke Sudanese Arabic but almost no English. As a result of the lack of interpretation services medical personnel were not able to inject him for the CT scan as they were not willing to risk being unable to communicate with him in the event he had an adverse reaction to the injection. He then had another appointment at which there was only a Somali interpreter who spoke very little Arabic. Luckily, the CT scan done without the injection was sufficient that the doctor was then able to determine the need for a biopsy.
Once again I took him to the next appointment for the biopsy and, once again, there was no interpreter. The medical personnel then suddenly got the idea to call the Language Line (an over-the-phone interpretation service), although the refugee later complained that the interpreter on the Language Line spoke a Kurdish Arabic that he could not fully understand. As a result of this insufficient interpretation he endured a biopsy into muscle tissue in his back, including cauterization, while not being able to communicate to medical personnel that he had insufficient local anesthesia. He later said that the pain was excruciating. They then scheduled him for an X-ray. Once again, no interpreter arrived.
He was later diagnosed as having a hemangioma (most of the time a benign tumor of the capillaries or blood vessels – although rare for being of this large a size and at this location in the muscle of the back) and scheduled for an injection by an interventional radiologist in order to shrink the tumor. Unfortunately, he was so traumatized by this time by the earlier biopsy without sufficient local anesthesia that he then refused to go back to the doctor. All during this time his resettlement agency seemed oblivious to his case. At no time during my interaction with this refugee did anyone from his resettlement agency ever try to help him navigate the health care system, provide him with rides to the doctor or even a bus pass when he ran out of passes, or anything else that would have been helpful. They seem to have no awareness or interest in his plight. He later moved out of town having never returned to the doctor for treatment, and I sometimes wonder what his fate was.
Posted in Congolese, Connecticutt, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), language, Lutheran Social Services of ND, mental health, New Haven, North Dakota | Tagged: Connecticut, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, interpreters, IRIS, Medicaid, mental health, physician, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, therapists | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 30, 2011
The revolving door between government oversight and refugee resettlement agencies is alive and well. The Fargo Forum reports that Linda Schell, the former state refugee coordinator for the North Dakota, has now been hired by Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSSND):
Linda Schell has been named assistant state refugee coordinator for New American Services, a program of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Fargo.
Schell has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Denver.
She was most recently the state refugee coordinator for the North Dakota Department of Human Services and has more than 30 years of experience in the public and nonprofit sectors. here
I met with Ms. Schell one time to discuss LSSND’s chronic neglect of their refugee clients, and Ms. Schell’s seemingly inability to curtail that neglect. Ms. Schell offered no feedback or solutions and instead spent the hour taking notes. When we later requested the notes via an Open Records request, to find out what was going since no one was telling us anything, Ms. Scheel’s state agency told us that the notes no longer existed. Why would someone takes detailed notes for an hour only to destroy them? Or were they destroyed after we requested them but before the state agency replied to us?
What can be said is that Ms. Schell spent years protecting LSSND and is now being amply rewarding for her loyalty with a private sector job with LSSND. And on and on it goes…
Posted in Lutheran Social Services of ND, neglect, North Dakota, revolving door | Tagged: Fargo, Linda Schell, LSSND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, North Dakota, North Dakota Department of Human Services, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, state refugee coordinator | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on December 6, 2010
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection civil servants have now responded to my FOIA request by releasing the 11 page report about their detention of Somali refugee(s) in Grand Forks – albeit the report is almost completely redacted. Apparently I am no longer considered a “commercial entity”, the excuse they used to delay release of the report for a month-and-a-half. I asked them what reason they had to ever consider me a commercial entity, and no response. They simply release the report suddenly and don’t answer the question.
Notice that one excuse used for the hundreds of redactions is that it would pose an “undo invasion of people’s privacy.” Yet they have even redacted the number of arrests, whether the person/people were male or female, and his/her/their citizenship status. How on earth would any of that be an undo invasion of privacy? It wouldn’t. We would have no way of knowing who the person/people are. If this public agency was operating on the up and up they would only have removed information that would show a person’s/people’s identity, e.g. name, address, date of birth, social security number, etc.
What we obviously have here is what we have seen at other government agencies — violation of U.S. laws (e.g. the Freedom of Information Act) simply to protect their own public servant hides and to avoid any accountability to the public, rather than protecting information that truly needs to be withheld. In other words, these government workers have a private interest in the information being hidden from the public, rather than any real public interest. That’s your money.
Remaining unanswered is why the Grand Forks Police asked for identification from members of the public who were merely watching the police at work. Also unanswered is why the U.S. Customs and Border Protection would then detain a person or people who had not engaged in any suspicious activity, let alone any illegal activity.
Posted in immigration documents, Lutheran Social Services of ND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, North Dakota, openess and transparency in government, police, Somali, U.S. Customs & Border Protection | Tagged: Andrea Kepple, Department of Homeland Security, Dept of Homeland Security, detention, FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, Grand Forks, Grand Forks Police, North Dakota, public servants, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, Somali refugee, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 30, 2010
I just received another letter today from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection about my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. A public servant named Dorothy Pullo, Director of FOIA Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in reply to my letter of November 3, 2010 claims that I indicated my belief that, “a message was being sent to residents by the involvement of the U.S. Border Patrol.” As I didn’t make any such statement in my letter I can only assume that Ms. Pullo is again internet surfing in a desperate bid to figure out how to overide my statements to her, rather than simply reading my letter. (I wonder if I’m going to be charged again for this additional internet surfing?) Notice, however, that I never made any such statement in my posting. I said that the Grand Forks Police were sending a message to anyone who dared stand and watch them by making those residents show documents.
Ms. Pullo also claims that, “your argument that the documents requested are to be used to assist refugees and educate the public about refugees is unconvincing”, and, “It appears likely the requested documents would be used in a manner consistent with interests of you and Friends of Refugees thus placing your request in the commercial-use requester fee category.” Thus I will need to pay at least $91.60 for them to press the print button on their computer and mail the 11 page document to me.
This is funny because that’s all I do – assist refugees and educate the public about refugees. Ms. Pullo offers no reason for why she would think I have any “commercial” interests in helping refugees or educating the public about refugees, probably because she has no real reason to think so.
I think what we have here is yet another government bureaucrat, whose salary we pay and who supposedly ought to be serving us, who thinks its her job to withhold government documents from the public and not abide by U.S. laws (Freedom of Information Act). Abiding by the law must seem like such an inconvenience to her.
Posted in Dept of Homeland Security, immigration documents, Lutheran Social Services of ND, North Dakota, openess and transparency in government, police, Somali, U.S. Customs & Border Protection | Tagged: Department of Homeland Security, Dorothy Pullo, FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, Grand Forks, Grand Forks Police, police, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, Somali refugees, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 29, 2010
After I saw an article last month in the Grand Forks Herald about the Somali refugees that Border Patrol detained I posted on the incident, here. U.S. Customs & Border Protection agents detained the Somali refugees, one of whom had just arrived in the U.S. a month earlier, for failure to carry original copies of their immigration documents on their person.
Last week I put in a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Customs & Border Protection for the incident report. According to the agency’s response they consider me a “commercial” entity! They also demand that I pay $91.60 for the 11 page report, but only if I first send them written permission from the refugees in question. Hmmm.
What’s interesting about this is that, as you can see from my request, I requested the information as an individual. Apparently U.S. Customs & Border Protection personnel took it upon themselves to do some internet sleuthing on me, and then charged me for the hour of their time that it took. Of course a watchdog group like ours that isn’t even a nonprofit would hardly qualify as a commercial entity. In addition, they claim it would take two employees TWO MORE HOURS of their time to press the print button and put the eleven page report in an envelope to me. Interesting.
Still unanswered is why a Grand Forks police officer asked Somali residents of Grand Forks to show their identifications merely for watching the police question a Grand Forks Somali woman resident, Mulki Hoosh, about a parking violation. The Grand Forks police officers then called in Border Patrol agents to detain four Somali residents who could not produce original copies of their I-94 or green cards. According to Hoosh the police said that they asked the Somali residents for their identification because they had “come to the scene of an investigation”. Apparently the police consider anyone just standing and watching them as suspicious. It’s clear that this is a warning to all residents that police civil servants will not allow residents to observe them at work without retaliation. Yet if people can’t watch the police in action how will we know whether they are acting according to the law? I guess I could understand if there were just one or two officers and they asked people to disperse, but in this case the police are deeming residents suspicious merely for standing and watching.
Funny how that works. I’m sure other public servants would also love to have the power to get rid of observers.
Posted in immigration documents, Lutheran Social Services of ND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, North Dakota, Somali, U.S. Customs & Border Protection | Tagged: Border Patrol, FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, Grand Forks, police, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, Somali refugees, U.S. Customs & Border Protection | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 28, 2010
The number of Bhutanese refugees who have departed Nepal for the United States will reach 30,000 sometime in the first week of September, according the US embassy in Kathmandu. But success in the U.S. for the Nepali Bhutanese sometimes seem elusive. According to an article in Fargo Forum newspaper these refugees are grappling with the specter of unemployment, eviction and medical bills. Although North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at least ten refugee families, just among the Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in Fargo, have faced eviction notices.
…Community leaders say about 20 percent of Bhutanese of working age in town are unemployed. The newcomers are eager for work, but in an already tough job market, their candidacies can run into extra pitfalls…
…Even some of the Bhutanese who lined up jobs can find themselves living paycheck to paycheck….
…at least 10 families…have received eviction notices. With seven of them to his name, one [Bhutanese refugee] jokes, is “addicted to (the) eviction notice.”…
…Chilling stories about outsized medical bills have spread through the community. A retinal detachment surgery Kashi’s wife needed in the Twin Cities, for instance, set the family back about $12,000, which he’s vowed to pay off gradually.
“If we are sick, we don’t go to the hospital – this is our scary part,” says [one Bhutanese refugee]…
Pierre Atilio, until recently a longtime immigrant advocate at Cultural Diversity Resources in Moorhead, says refugees across the board are grappling with economic survival.
In December, he accompanied an Iraqi widow to the Salvation Army. She resettled in the area with her teenage daughter and son in his 20s in 2008. Of the trio, she alone had lined up a job, four months after arriving here: a $7.50 an hour housekeeping gig.
It was a Friday; save for the Salvation Army intervention, she would have been evicted that Sunday.
“You are confronted with poor people with fear in their eyes,” Atilio says. “And they are in America, the most powerful country in the world.”
The new-American services team at LSS says 2008 and early 2009 was a rough stretch for refugees. New arrivals weren’t landing jobs, and some who came earlier saw their hours or positions cut…
…And the recent crop of refugees has dodged actual evictions, a fact LSS is proud of, says [LSS refugee services director] Sinisa Milovanovic: “Within a year to a year and a half, we don’t see people contacting us anymore.” Read more here
I’m not sure I understand why LSSND is proud that ten of the Bhutanese refugee families have faced eviction notices when North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate and many more jobs than any other state. Yet, as I’ve found, in the refugee resettlement culture everything seems to be relative. If they have “less” evictions among their refugee clients they feel proud. But in Fargo? The place has cheap rents, low cost-of-living, and relatively plentiful jobs compared to any other place in the nation.
Posted in employment/jobs for refugees, Lutheran, Lutheran Social Services of ND, Nepali Bhutanese, North Dakota | Tagged: Bhutanese refugees, eviction, Fargo, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, medical bills, Nepalese refugees, North Dakota, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, Salvation Army, unemployment | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 27, 2010
A group of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in Fargo who were cheated out of their wages have won a complaint they placed with the North Dakota Department of Labor, according to an article in Fargo’s Forum newspaper.
A group of young Bhutanese refugees took their case all the way to the North Dakota Department of Labor this summer – and won.
The department recently found in favor of four workers who say they were paid a fraction of what they earned working for a Fargo business called the Happy Norwegian Cleaning Crew.
The owner, Kristi Ness, approached (a Fargo immigrant assistance group] and…said she could use workers for a new business.
The Happy Norwegian Cleaning Crew had landed a contract to clean the bakery at [a local grocery store] in south Fargo. Tika Lamitarey and three other Bhutanese jumped at the opportunity.
Lamitarey says it wasn’t until three months and, in his case, 225 hours of work later, that the workers got their first paychecks. His was for $700, some $1,100 less than what his time sheets suggest he was owed…He and the other workers quit in June [then] they put together wage claims with the Labor Department.
“I was so optimistic when I first came to America,” Lamitarey wrote to Kathy Kulesa at the department, “but nowadays my optimism is transferred into an oasis of pessimism and failure.”
Kulesa said Ness did not respond to two letters asking for a response. Last month, the department ruled in favor of the workers and referred the case to the state’s attorney general for collection.
…“She used us, thinking we are new American and we can’t do anything,” he says… Read more here
Apparently the refugees resettlement agency Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSSND) then got involved and tried to bring the two parties together for negotiation.
…After the determination, Ness sent a letter to the department stating she had tried to pay the workers during an August meeting at Fargo’s Lutheran Social Services. Lamitarey, a student at North Dakota State University, said he and his friends left the meeting when Ness started negotiating about the amounts…
We spoke to the Bhutanese refugee Tika Lamitarey and asked who had placed in the job. He said that an immigrant assistance organization had referred him to the job six months after his arrival. We asked if LSSND had done anything to help him find a job before that and he said that they had only once helped him apply for a job, at a local hospital. Of course that might explain why he was still unemployed and desperate for a job six months after his arrival.
This phenomena of groups of refugees being cheated out of wages is nothing new to me. I assisted a group of Lost Boys of Sudan refugees in Chicago when a company that handled security at O’Hare International Airport cheated them out of their wages as well. People target refugees for this abuse because they deem the refugees as vulnerable and not able to fight back as easily as native workers.
Posted in employment services, employment/jobs for refugees, Lutheran, Lutheran Social Services of ND, Nepali Bhutanese, North Dakota | Tagged: Bhutanese refugees, Fargo, LSSND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Nepalese refugees, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 3, 2010
Grand Forks police called in Border Patrol apparently on four Somali refugees after the men were unable to show the kind of identification that the law requires all immigrants to have on their person (I-94 card or green card). Three of the men were then taken into custody and held until a lawyer was able to prove their immigration status. According to the Grand Forks Herald:
Four men were questioned Thursday by U.S. Border Patrol agents outside a Somali-owned cafe on South Washington Street. Three were handcuffed and taken into custody until their immigration status could be determined, a Border Patrol spokesman said.
Somalis at the scene about 3 p.m. Thursday said the men are Somali immigrants, and one who was questioned was Ali Hussein, owner of the Washington Cafe, 2017 S. Washington, employees and friends said.
…It began when a Grand Forks police officer saw a parking violation by a vehicle in front of the cafe on the frontage road, Sgt. Kevin Kallinen said. Something caused the officer to call in the Border Patrol for assistance, Kallinen said.
…the Border Patrol agents began demanding documents from any Somali they saw walking nearby…
…Brent Everson, a Border Patrol spokesman, characterized the agents’ actions as asking to see the kind of identification all immigrants are required to have on their person.
…After the incident, several Somalis expressed dismay and anger, saying it was heavy-handed law enforcement singling out Somalis.
One of the men detained came to the United States only a month ago and does not yet understand English…
…Everson said the three men’s identities would not be released by the Patrol. He could not confirm the men were Somalis. But he said they were kept in the patrol’s holding cells in its new facility near the Grand Forks International Airport until their immigration status was determined.
He said all immigrants must keep documentation of their status on their person at all times. The Border Patrol regularly holds information sessions with college students, for example, to let them know they should always have their visa with them.
…Robin David, president of the board of the local Global Friends Coalition that works with new immigrants, said she doesn’t know exactly what happened Thursday.
But she knows that many immigrants, after living here for a year or more, get accustomed to not carrying immigration documents with them at all times.
…David said informal estimates have 300 or more Somalis living in greater Grand Forks. Many first immigrated to other parts of the United States and have moved here since, she said.
In the past decade, more than 700 Somalis have immigrated from their homeland to North Dakota, most to Fargo but many to Grand Forks, refugee officials have said. here
The way I’ve seen this problem avoided elsewhere is that resettlement agencies will instruct refugees to carry their immigration documents with them or will copy the refugees’ I-94 cards and have them carry the copy. Has Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota’s Grand Forks sub-office been doing that?
Of course the other problem here is that the law apparently requires immigrants, including refugees, to carry the original document, and not just a copy – as copies are more easily forged. Having assisted refugees for almost ten years, however, I’ve seen the enormous problems that result when a refugee then loses their wallet or purse, or the document falls out of their pocket. It costs a couple hundred dollars and years to get the I-94 replaced.
Either way I’d like to know why the police decided to call Border Patrol. Its seems like overkill. Also, why was the Border Patrol asking for immigration documents from every Somali just walking by? Don’t they need probably cause to believe that someone has committed a crime before they can stop them? Both the Grand Forks Police and the Border Patrol owe the public a prompt explanation.
Posted in immigration documents, Lutheran Social Services of ND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, North Dakota, police, Somali | Tagged: Border Patrol, Grand Forks, immigration documents, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, North Dakota, police, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, Somali refugees | 7 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on August 13, 2010
According to volunteers in Grand Forks Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota’s (LSSND) sub-office in the city has not been adequately assisting their refugee clients. We’ve heard directly from other volunteers about the agency’s poor treatment of their refugee clients. Now other volunteers are complaining to the local newspaper. According to a Grand Forks Herald article:
…a Grand Forks volunteer who has been working with a refugee family since late last year said [LSSND] lacks the staff, resources and commitment to meet its stated goal: helping new arrivals from Iraq and other countries achieve self-sufficiency within eight months.
JoAnna Panther, a retired social worker, said that Lutheran Social Services’ nonprofit resettlement agency “hasn’t been living up to its end of the bargain” with the refugees.
“My concern is people aren’t being treated with dignity,” she said. “They’re being herded into the country” and not receiving enough support before they’re expected to be self-sufficient.
…Panther said she has been frustrated trying to help her refugee family find employment.
“They get these folks over here and then let them sink or swim,” she said. Too much is left to volunteers, she added, with not enough professional case management. here
The reporter then trots out the refugee resettlement agencies’ claim that they don’t get enough government funding to properly help refugees, however, he then mentions that the State Department doubled their per refugee funding this year (as of January 1 the funding amount went from $900 to $1800 per refugee for refugees’ first 3 months).
The reporter also got the runaround when he questioned the high staff turnover at LSSND’s Grand Forks office. LSSND Grand Forks referred the question to the LSSND headquarters in Fargo. LSSND headquarters then refused to answer the question.
Tara Dupper took over in May after the departure of former coordinator Dawn Barwin and other staff.
…Dupper…referred questions about the staffing shakeup to the Fargo office…
…Officials at the Fargo center, which supervises the Grand Forks resettlement office, declined to discuss the staff changes.
Posted in employment services, faith-based, funding, insufficient assistance with daily tasks, Lutheran, Lutheran Social Services of ND, neglect, North Dakota, R&P, State Department | Tagged: Grand Forks, LIRS, LSSND, Lutheran immigration and refugee services, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department | 4 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 2, 2010
Darci Asche, the community liason for Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSSND), advised the Jamestown, ND community about what their reactions should be to incoming refugees, here.
Representatives from local agencies and businesses attended an informational session Wednesday to learn about Somali culture and how best to serve those people here.
Meet in the middle, was the advice Darci Asche said is most helpful. Asche is the community support services supervisor for Lutheran Social Services in Fargo. Several refugee groups reside in Fargo, including a group from Somalia. Both cultures should attempt to give and take, she said.
In Fargo, for example, employers allowed for prayer time during the business day. Muslims are required to pray five times a day and one of them is at about 1:30 p.m. Also, employers allowed for long gloves and other uniform adjustments at businesses where loose clothing like shawls and headdresses could pose a hazard. Muslim women are required to cover most of their body including wrists and ankles.
Adjustments like those are part of the challenge of migration, Asche said, but the benefits include more taxpayers, new businesses, new employees, more children in schools with declining enrollment and more residents offset the population loss in cities where populations are declining.
“My philosophy is the more diverse, the more exciting a place is,” Asche said. About 15,000 people reside in Jamestown and of them, more than 96 percent are white, according to census data from 2000.
…So far, about 30 Somalis have moved here, but about 400 have applied for housing since March, said Dave Klein of the Stutsman County Housing Authority. Many of them may have applied for housing in several cities, but the influx has created a waiting list for available residences in Jamestown, Klein said. Local people seeking housing come first, Klein said, but the housing authority also seeks to help refugees.
“We’re here to help and find ways to encourage people to be here in Jamestown,” he said.
Some local people may express concern about tax dollars benefiting refugees because some of them need housing assistance, Medicaid or other social services. But for Asche, no American immigrant started without help. The benefits of an employed new citizen outweigh the tax burden. Plus, benefits in this state are limited, she said.
“If anyone were looking for a free ride, North Dakota would not be the place to go,” she said.
Dave Klein of the Stutsman County Housing Authority says that local people are first in line for housing assistance, but his statement is a bit misleading because refugees living in Jamestown are local people.
Darci Asche of LSSND makes the sweeping claim that no American immigrant started life here without help, but government welfare programs are certainly relatively new compared to our long history of immigration. I know that my own ancestors were poor farmers and miners who received almost nothing upon their arrival to this country. In the old days charities helped immigrants, and did so with private charitable funds. I don’t think we have to misconstrue history to advocate for refugee support.
The “limited benefits for refugees from our tax dollars in North Dakota” argument is not really honest either as most of the money is federal money. North Dakota is a net importer of federal dollars, as are most rural states, for a large assortment of welfare for the general population as well as for refugees — Medicaid, food stamps, cash assistance, HUD funds, heating assistance, WIC, etc.
It’s interesting that Asche says refugees wouldn’t come to North Dakota for a free ride because certain benefits in the state are limited, but missing here is that most refugees have no say in coming to North Dakota — LSSND and it national affiliate LIRS just places them there. Refugees who come voluntary from other states via “secondary migration” number about 165 per year, while LSSND and LIRS place about 500 per year there involuntarily (almost no one would choose to resettle In North Dakota by choice when you factor in the climate, the lack of employment and consumer protections, and the old-boy power structure evident at almost every level).
LSSND Asche’s comment on the importance of diversity apparently does not apply to their view of diversity of opinion. Our group since 2001 has called attention to their repeated and obvious neglect of their refugee clients, and each time they met us with stonewalling or hostility.
The most ironic issue brought up in this article though is that some refugee resettlement groups advocate for religious freedom in the employment place, e.g. LSSND advocates that employers accommodate Muslim workers, while other resettlement agencies like World Relief and Catholic Charities of Washington DC advocate for their right to discriminate in hiring based on religious beliefs. Which position is the U.S. refugee resettlement program advocating? There seems to be an eery silence emanating from federal government refugee program agencies.
Posted in Catholic, Catholic Charities of Washington DC, Christian, discrimination in hiring, employment/jobs for refugees, evangelical, faith-based, funding, Islamic, LIRS, Lutheran Social Services of ND, Matching Grant program, North Dakota, religion, secondary migration, refugee, Somali, World Relief | Tagged: Catholic Charities of Washington DC, discrimination in hiring, immigration, jamestown, LIRS, LSSND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Medicaid, Muslim, ND, North Dakota, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugees, resettlement, secondary migration, refugee, Somali, somalis, Stutsman County Housing Authority, World Relief | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
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