Tennessee: Refugee agency places immigrants in jobs
Americans would love to have!, Posted by Ann Corcoran on February 4, 2016
And, adding insult to injury, the biggest
chunk of their funding comes from you—the taxpayer!
This
story from The Tennessean is meant to give the
impression that this program of World Relief (National Association of
Evangelicals) is doing wonderful humanitarian work by helping immigrants
and refugees with advanced degrees find good paying jobs.
But, if you are
like me, you reacted to this story by immediately asking these questions: What about
Americans who have advanced degrees and no work? What about all of
our children, recent college graduates (with big student loan debt), who
can’t find jobs? Shouldn’t they come first?
Not according
to World
Relief’s REACH program or The Tennessean. As is too often the case,
one must read through refugee sob stories and eventually the reader learns that
there are 10,000 immigrants in Tennessee who need high level jobs—-ahhhhhh!
10,000! I wonder how many Americans with advanced degrees are
competing with them for limited job opportunities? Of course The Tennessean
would never give us that number!
And, the
American job seekers don’t have the services your tax dollars provide the
immigrants through REACH. Here is what World Relief (a so-called Christian
charity) does for the immigrants according to The
Tennessean.
REACH, in Nashville, connects immigrants to mentors, who seek to
introduce them to local individuals in their field, and coaches them through
licensing processes. The organization also offers training on resumes and
interviews. Between licenses and networking, it typically takes between nine
and 12 months for an individual to move from a survival job to a professional
one.
REACH, launched in 2011, has been able to help as many as 100 people a
year. Among them are Coptic Christians fleeing Egypt, Kurds from Iraq and those
coming from Congo after fleeing ethnic persecution in Rwanda.
Watch an unidentified REACH employee explain
how they helped ‘Ahmed’ get a $93,000 a year job! Here is what a reader said this morning about
this story: I have a very close
friend, also an Ivy League masters graduate who is struggling to find a job in
the Middle Tennessee job market. In fact, I have several friends, middle-age,
well educated, intelligent, hard-working contributors to their communities who
live in Middle Tennessee, and who are either unemployed or underemployed.
But the newspaper and the Chamber of
Commerce isn’t taking up their cause.
Neil MacDonald
of the Chamber of Commerce told The Tennessean: “If we want to continue to
compete on an international basis, it’s essential we continue our growth in
diversity.” (Huh?) Nor do my friends
have federal contractor agencies helping them find jobs. And my friends aren’t wired-in either. They
too are struggling.
At least the refugees and their federal
contractors can blame the receiving community for not being more “welcoming”
and ensuring that new arrivals get the jobs they thought would be waiting for
them when they arrived.
According to this article, there are 10,000 refugees in Tennessee who can’t find the jobs they want. Predictably, federal refugee
resettlement contractor World Relief and the refugees themselves blame the
receiving community as “unwelcoming” because circumstances haven’t unfolded as
they had planned.
But, this, of course, doesn’t stop World Relief from keeping their own
cash flow going by bringing ever more refugees to the area.
And the Nashville Chamber of Commerce is
telling us that businesses here value “diversity” over workers that are raised,
educated and have roots in our Tennessee communities.
Speaking of World Relief’s financial position, World Relief Nashville directs people
to its national headquarters where we can examine
recent financial documents and their Form 990s.
Here
we learn that in 2014, World Relief (National
Association of Evangelicals) is a $61 million a year operation and that $41
million comes directly from US taxpayers.
They could not supply all of these benefits to
job-seeking immigrants if you (or the good-for-nothing Congress!) weren’t
willing to pay for it. Go
here to see who else is funding World
Relief’s REACH job hunting program. More on
MacDonald, here. See 83 previous posts on Nashville by
clicking here.
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