Catholic Charities eyeing Arkansas for new
resettlement site, by Ann Corcoran, 5/23/16
Not enough
hours in the day to keep up anymore. The US State Department and its
contractors are on a roll trying to set up new resettlement sites to
accommodate Obama’s increased numbers especially the mostly
Syrian Muslims on the way.
Frank Head
(Catholic Charities) helped start a new group Canopy NWA for the purpose of
creating a new refugee resettlement office in northwest Arkansas.
Here is news
from the
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Arkansas took in about 1 out of every 1 million refugees
who sought shelter worldwide last year — 13 of the 14.5 million refugees
accounted for by the United Nations.
A local group
called Canopy NWA wants to raise that number despite a contentious atmosphere
about the country’s obligation to alleviate what the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner on Refugees has called a severely unfair burden on a
few countries.
“We’re talking about one or two families a
month,” Frank Head of Catholic Charities said at the group’s May 4 meeting.
“People wouldn’t even notice if we didn’t talk about it.” [I am sure
they would like to get the refugee flow moving before people start talking
about it!—ed]
The U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops is one of the nine charitable organizations
authorized to accept refugees into the country through agreements with the U.S.
Department of State.
The group
operates in Northwest Arkansas through Catholic Charities Immigration Services.
Catholic Charities sent a representative to the May 4 meeting, held at the Good
Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville. So did the Lutheran Immigration and
Refugee Service, another of the nine authorized groups.
Nina Zelic,
director for refugee services for the Lutheran organization, told the dozen
interested attendees her group is evaluating the region as a potential site for
opening another chapter. More
here.
If you are from
Arkansas, you need to educate your governor. It looks like he thinks this
is some sort of private initiative!
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