Trump refugee admissions slowdown
shows US refugee program built on budgetary quicksand, by Ann Corcoran
6/6/18
No new resettlement site in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
but where is State Department site list? It has been missing for
awhile! What is up with that. I thought we were going to have more
transparency for communities that are (or might become) refugee placement towns
and cities.
We have been hearing that as many as 100 of the 350 or so offices are to be closed, and we would like to know which ones! Where is the transparency? Come on State Department, what are you hiding? There are really only two reasons for not making this information available: incompetence or they want to hide something.
We have been hearing that as many as 100 of the 350 or so offices are to be closed, and we would like to know which ones! Where is the transparency? Come on State Department, what are you hiding? There are really only two reasons for not making this information available: incompetence or they want to hide something.
This is former State Department Director
of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Larry Bartlett, proudly standing in
front of the site map that PREVIOUSLY was posted annually at Wrapsnet along
with a directory list of sites.
This
morning I saw this brief mention about Ann Arbor that had been fingered as a
possible new resettlement site at the end of the Obama Administration when his
State Department was planning as many as 40 new sites (older ones getting
overloaded?).
Michigan Live: Samaritas,
Michigan’s largest refugee resettlement agency, had planned to open an Ann
Arbor office and that’s now on hold because there are not enough refugees
coming to the area any more, according to John Yim, supervisor of new Americans
in Michigan for Samaritas.
(For
new readers Samaritas is the Lutheran resettlement agency. Why did they
change their name? Who knows.)
You
might want to visit this post in which I reported on the State Department’s “New Site Development Guide” published
under Bartlett’s leadership. The
Ann Arbor mention reminded me to check Wrapsnet the
most recent map (like the one Bartlett is showing-off in the photo) is from
FY16, but the full contact list is missing.
It
hasn’t been available for awhile, so how is anyone supposed to know if their
town or city has a refugee office? I suspect its absence is also
hampering the refugee industry activists. Don’t we all have a right to know
where refugees are being placed and which of the hundreds of subcontractors are
still open for business? The old list is here
at my blog.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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