Buffalo's refugee renaissance takes a hit as influx of new arrivals drops

[WNYresident]

Buffalo's refugee renaissance takes a hit as influx of new arrivals drops

WASHINGTON — The number of refugees resettled in Buffalo dropped to its lowest level in 11 years in the first half of 2018, as the Trump administration continued to shrink the federal program designed to help people driven from their homes move to America.


Some 245 refugees from across the world resettled in Buffalo and its suburbs in the first six months of the year, down from 460 in the first half of 2017 and 549 in the same period a year earlier, State Department data shows. Executives at the refugee resettlement agencies in Buffalo said they expect the decline to continue.


"It's really dire," said Marlene A. Schillinger, president of Jewish Family Service of Buffalo and Erie County, one of the region's four refugee resettlement agencies. "They're dismantling the whole system."

https://buffalonews.com/2018/08/19/n...o-11-year-low/

Obsiye, herself a refugee from Somalia, said she can think of at least 20 people who are waiting for loved ones. Karen M. Andolina Scott, executive director of Journey's End Refugee Services in Buffalo, said her agency has hundreds of pending family reunification cases, and other agencies also report large numbers of refugees in Buffalo who hope their family members can make it to the city someday.

In general are the people who come here on assistance? Even if it's for a temporary for a year.

The cut in refugee resettlement also is affecting the larger Buffalo community. A medical clinic and a dental clinic that catered to new arrivals closed their doors in recent months, and landlords that had planned on developing housing for refugees have canceled their plans, said William Sukaly, program director for the refugee resettlement program at Catholic Charities.

Why did the medical clinic and dental clinic close? Wouldn't there be business in general for the clinic? The current refugees who came here could still use the clinics so what happened?

One thing I do not agree with and I don't see any valid reasoning to do so is develop housing for refugees while we have homeless and elderly who may be in need of housing. Unless what they are referring to is housing fully paid for by refugees. Not rental assistance than never ends.

Meanwhile, employers who often hire refugees — such as local hotels and factories that hire unskilled labor — are having trouble doing so.

Why is this? What happened to the current refugees that have been filling these positions? Or is it more that tax incentives stopped for hiring refugees?

"Employers are calling us weekly, looking for employees," Sukaly said.
Those could be signs of an emerging trend.

The signs could be increased wages. Pay a little more and maybe you'll get some employees. I'm still curious what happened the refugees who had these jobs. Did they just up and leave who they were working for?

"We cannot grow an economy with a population that is shrinking and above working age," said Eva M. Hassett, executive director of the International Institute of Buffalo, which also resettles refugees in the city.

Hassett pointed to numerous studies that have, over the years, shown that refugees make good workers, that they often start small businesses and that they boost local economies. A decade after Buffalo's big refugee influx started, The Buffalo News found in 2016 that job growth and business starts in the West Side neighborhoods where many refugees live exceeded the countywide rates.

You also can't grow and economy based on subsidized living if that's the case.


Could it also be that tax incentives were given to hire refugees over existing people in our community? If there were no incentives then forgive me saying that.

[joe d.]

"Employers are calling us weekly, looking for employees," Sukaly said.
Those could be signs of an emerging trend.
The signs could be increased wages. Pay a little more and maybe you'll get some employees. I'm still curious what happened the refugees who had these jobs. Did they just up and leave who they were working for?

More than likely..they learned the system and realized they were better off sitting on their a$$ and getting Soc Services Assistance , courtesy of E.C. Taxpayers, rather than work for the same money daily and...oh ya pay taxes ....like us... the citizens of this county, state and federal govt.