Friends of Refugees’ presented a list of recommendations to the National Security Council for President Obama’s comprehensive review of the U.S. refugee resettlement program (here).
Here are the specific recommendations for the State Department:Funding increase — The only circumstances under which the government should provide a substantial increase in the public’s already huge share of the funding for refugee resettlement is if there is a guarantee from the resettlement agencies and the PRM that “minimum required” services of the PRM contracts will be provided to the refugees, with appropriate and comprehensive mechanisms to ensure this. The PRM must also guarantee that a firm set of penalties will be enforced against any resettlement agency caught failing to meet the minimum terms of their contracts, and that PRM inspections of resettlement agencies will now be done on a more frequent basis (not once every 8-13 years as currently practiced). The PRM must also promise that inspections will not be pre-announced (advance notice of inspection as is currently practiced allows resettlement agencies to clean up and cover-up), that PRM monitors will speak with any refugees that community members have reported being neglected by their resettlement agencies, and that PRM monitoring reports will be made public in a timely basis (instead of the current three-year FOIA delays). The reports should be posted on the PRM website as soon as practical after completion. They must also promise that there will be no more continued efforts to shield refugee resettlement agency failures from public scrutiny by failing to include vital information in the monitoring reports. They must also promptly returns calls from members of the media.
Revolving door — In addition, the problem of refugee resettlement agencies’ inner influence of the PRM via the revolving door needs to be seriously addressed. Almost all of the Refugee Admissions Office officials and monitors are former refugee resettlement agency employees, with corresponding interests and sympathies. This is not healthy for a truly objective oversight relationship with the resettlement agencies, whom they are entrusted to monitor from a neutral, critical vantage point.
For example, our group regularly forwards, to the PRM, refugees’ reports of neglect at the hands of their resettlement agencies, reports that involve agencies failing even to provide the minimum required services. We never ask for any confidential information about refugees clients, but we do ask to be told what the PRM has done to address the problems in general. Yet, the PRM does not even bother to respond. There is so little accountability in the current system that the PRM has considerable capacity to do nothing without any significant risk that they will be held accountable. The “public/private partnership” arrangement, which pairs mostly public funding with a tiny amount of private funding, has been expanded in thinking to neutralize the necessary government authority to oversee and enforce even basic rules of the program. The near familial relationship they have with the VOLAGS and resettlement agencies must come to an end.
- The PRM must start reform by finally beginning to enforce all minimum requirements.
- Increase frequency of monitoring visits to resettlement agencies to at least once very 2-4 years, instead of the current once every 8-13 years.
- Monitoring visits must no longer be pre-announced, but should be surprise visits, so that real, typical conditions at those agencies may be observed.
- They must stop forwarding to resettlement agencies details of specific refugee cases that have been reported as neglected or abused before government oversight agencies have first had a chance to look at the case files for those cases.
- Resettlement agencies are allowed to have anchor relatives and sponsors perform core refugee resettlement services, yet are still paid for providing these services. This encourages the agencies to dump as much work as they can on anchor relatives and sponsors. In monitoring reports we repeatedly see that resettlement agencies must be continually warned by monitors that core services are ultimately the responsibility of resettlement agencies, not anchor relatives. The resettlement agencies should transfer R&P money to anchors after resettlement agencies have verified core services and material items have been provided, instead of keeping the money as they currently do.
- The PRM must provide an action plan on how they will address the weaknesses of the programs, and then post these on their website for the public to view.
- VOLAGS investigating themselves (their affiliates) does not work. The PRM must investigate immediately when problems are reported by the media and the public. VALAGS will still be required to monitor their affiliates and report problems before they reach these crisis level.
- Add to Operational Guidance list: Irons, curtains, wallets, phones and phone service, stamps & envelopes, dictionaries, umbrellas, vacuums (an LSSND refugee’s Fargo apartment with children was heavily infested with roaches because there was no vacuum for a mostly carpeted apartment), phones & phone service, high-chairs for children, watches. (We wrote to Theresa Rusch, Director/Refugee Admissions, on August 13, 2005 about the need for these items to be in the Operational Guidance. She never responded)
- In addition, the Operational Guidance has no specific requirements for basic children’s items, e.g. cribs, toddler beds, play pens, car seats, boosters, high chairs, strollers, diapers, blankets, bottles, sippy cups, etc. (Our case study of LSSND shows that these items are rarely provided to refugees with children. The PRM does not consider LSSND as out of the ordinary, as the agency was not admonished for any serious deficiencies in the PRM’s most recent monitoring report).
- Competency standards for community/cultural orientation, with periodic tests of refugees’ knowledge. Add more necessary basics, e.g. teach how to address envelopes, American bills and coinage, need for filing income taxes, rights when dealing with the police, basic Constitutional rights, understnding their apartment leases and what the rules are for moving out, how to deal with a hostile landlord, how to change address at post office, need to turn off utilities when moving, van tours of town to show refugees where things are (not just pointing to places on a map), where to gets quarters for laundry, etc.
- Performance rewards and punishments for refuge workers to incentivize work, since they have no paying customers. (Safe jobs for refugee workers are bad news for refugees.)
- Religion-affiliated refugee resettlement agencies should not ask potential volunteers from the community about their religious or “spiritual” status or views, or asking volunteers to be committed to their religious or spiritual values, e.g. a dedication to the mission of Jesus. All interested members of the community should be welcomed without having to submit to a religious interrogation in person or on an application. (Some cities and towns in the U.S. only have faith-based refugee resettlement organizations, e.g. Spokane, which has World Relief and Catholic Charities. Why should any member of the community who wishes to help this public refugee program be discriminated against by these private contractors?)
- Refugee clients should rate the work of their resettlement agencies, and their feedback should be posted on the PRM website for the public to read. The PRM should tie those ratings to numbers of refugees to be placed with the agencies., i.e. unhappy refugees means less refugees assigned to the resettlement agency.
- The PRM must require that refugee resettlement agency caseworkers give their business card to each refugee case, listing their name, phone number, and hours they may be contacted. Voice mail messages left by refugees must be returned within 24 hours. An emergency after-hours phone number must also be listed.
- Refugees must never be required to sign any forms, including apartment leases, without an thorough explanation of what they are signing and with an interpreter present if they have limited English, as the majority of refugees have.
- Travel loan repayment letters must be provided in English as well as written in the refugee’s language.
- Posting PRM refugee resettlement agency monitoring reports on the State Dept. website, and timely.
- Opening up funding increase considerations to the public, instead of just relying on the resettlement agencies to decide how much government funding they should receive.
- Allowing the public from local communities to give their input into local refugee resettlement efforts.
- Establishing a hotline for the public to report “hotspots” in the program, and posting those comments where the public can view them.
- Requiring resettlement agencies to show how much of their funding for refugee resettlement is from various government agencies, and how much is from truly private sources (990 forms since 2008 no longer have this simple disclosure), including what percentage comes from each (in-kind donations and donated labor must be subtotaled). Posting this information on the PRM website.
- Providing email addresses or a web form for the public to reach employees of the PRM’s Office of Admissions.
- Disclose in detail all PRM funding for each VOLAG and resettlement agency, and make it easily accessible to the public.
- Reduce number of refugees being resettled to states that community groups and members of the public report as having a state refugee coordinator and/or other state officials who are un-responsive and/or ineffective at resolving refugee abuse and neglect. (Evidence such as emails may be requested that demonstrate non-responsive or ineffective state officials, regardless of whether or not this evidence comes from state residents or non-residents.)
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