Buffalo, NY refugee contractors jumping for joy as
refugee arrivals pick up, by Ann Corcoran
6/12/17
…and they seem especially pleased to announce that they are getting
them from those terror-producing countries—a flow that the Trump Administration
was trying to curtail.
WASHINGTON – President Trump’s promise to cut in half the number of refugees
coming to America – and therefore Buffalo – has turned into a dream
unfulfilled.
Buffalo offers proof of it. State
Department figures show the city welcomed 376 new refugees between Trump’s Jan.
20 inauguration and last Wednesday. That’s a 32 percent reduction from the 554
who arrived a year before, but nothing close to a 50 percent reduction.
Yippee! More refugees coming to
Buffalo from Africa and the Middle East. Ms. Scott works for a subcontractor of
Church World Service.
What’s more, 149 of those new arrivals come from Iran, Iraq, Somalia,
Sudan or Syria – nations subject to Trump’s travel ban before the federal
courts ruled it was unconstitutional.
And now, the city’s refugee
resettlement agencies are gearing up for a growing wave of refugees under a new State
Department announcement that further undercuts Trump’s promise.
“We had a very busy May, and we will
have a very busy June,” said Karen Andolina Scott, executive director of
Journey’s End Refugee Services, one of Buffalo’s four refugee resettlement agencies.
Church World Service, the national
refugee agency affiliated with Journey’s End, “was able to send us more people
than we thought,” Scott added.
Now Buffalo stands poised
to welcome a growing number of refugees in the next few months. That’s
because the State Department last month quietly abandoned the weekly
refugee admission quotas that had been in place earlier in the year. [I’m highlighting this (above)
because I have readers who still don’t believe this happened.—ed] Congress fully-funded refugee resettlement
for the remainder of FY17 and Trump signed it!
Budgetary constraints previously
limited the number of refugees coming to America in the current fiscal year.
But a State Department spokesman said the temporary budget bill that Trump signed
on May 5, which funds the government through Sept. 30, includes full funding
for the nation’s refugee resettlement program.
That returns the annual cap for
refugees coming to America the same as the one Obama set: 110,000 for the year
ending Sept. 30. [This part is
still up in the air, however, a reminder that this number—110,000—is a ceiling
not a target!—ed]
Refugee resettlement advocates doubt the nation will receive that
number. They said it appears the
Department of Homeland Security, which vets prospective refugees, slowed down
that process in several countries in wake of Trump’s earlier actions, which in
turn could slow refugee arrivals in the United States.
Still, local resettlement agencies
expect the pace of new refugee arrivals to grow in the coming months. Yippee! Their paying “clients” are
arriving! More here. I have a fairly large archive on
Buffalo (here) and its problems (similar to Utica). Go here for the list (not sure if it is complete) of
resettlement contractors working near you.
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/buffalo-ny-refugee-contractors-jumping-for-joy-as-refugee-arrivals-pick-up/
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