Where have all the Somalis been resettled in the US? Minnesota takes the prize!
My plan (ha! ha! if I don’t get distracted!) is to try to do a series of posts to answer the many questions I’m getting from the media in recent days. The US State Department has an extensive data base called the Refugee Processing Center. Sometimes you can access the data and sometimes you can’t!
First a few basic points: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees chooses most of our refugees. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for screening them. The US State Department sends them out via contractors they euphemistically call Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGs). They are not voluntary—you pay them through your tax dollars to place the refugees through their offices in 180 cities across America. The nine major VOLAGs have 350 subcontractors to form an extensive network. The contractors spread the refugees out to surrounding towns if the main resettlement city gets overloaded (especially if ‘pockets of resistance’ form).
Reporters! Find the resettlement contractor contact information in your city by clicking here.
The Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) makes sure the nine contractors are well paid for myriad activities.
Back to the data…
Minnesota ‘welcomed’ 17% of all Somalis resettled in the US since 2005. Three resettlement agencies were responsible: Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services of MN, and World Relief MN (aka Arrive Ministries).
I searched this morning for Somali refugees resettled to which states from February 1, 2005 to February 1, 2015 and here is what I learned: The US State Department distributed Somalis to 45 states and the District of Columbia basically establishing “seed communities” or colonies.
Remember though that this is America and people can move without permission so some originally resettled in one place may have long-since moved. The professionals in the refugee industry call those who move “secondary migrants.” The state receiving the most secondary migrants is Minnesota-–why? because Somalis want to live with their kind of people.
Here is the link for the data base I used for the following information. You will need to put your own search parameters in.
From February 1, 2005 to February 1, 2015 we brought a total of 64,332 Somalis to the US from all over the world!
By the way, our Somali refugees don’t come directly from Somalia, but we pick them up all over the world including from Kenya, South Africa, Malaysia, Malta and even it appears Saudi Arabia (more on that later).
The states not (yet!) getting Somali refugees resettled directly are: Delaware (LOL! Joe Biden was one of the original sponsors of the Refugee Act of 1980), Arkansas, Montana, Wyoming, and West Virginia. We know that ‘secondary migrant’ Somalis are going to Wyoming.
(Any state over 1,000 is in red)
Alabama: 207
Alaska: 224
Arizona: 3,727
California: 2,375
Colorado: 1,803
Connecticut: 696
District of Columbia: 1
Florida: 274
Georgia: 2,720
Idaho: 733
Illinois: 1,284
Indiana: 374
Iowa: 395
Kansas: 254
Kentucky: 1,631
Louisiana: 118
Maine: 1,181
Maryland: 371
Massachusetts: 1,936
Michigan: 1,316
Minnesota: 10,804
Mississippi: 3
Missouri: 2,132
Nebraska: 322
Nevada: 331
New Hampshire: 270
New Jersey: 41
New Mexico: 161
New York: 3,721
North Carolina: 1,212
North Dakota: 690
Ohio: 5,439
Oklahoma: 76
Oregon: 1,492
Pennsylvania: 1,053
Rhode Island: 136
South Carolina: 94
South Dakota: 635
Tennessee: 2,091
Texas: 4,716
Utah: 1,990
Vermont: 368
Virginia: 939
Washington: 3,182
Wisconsin: 813
That should total: 64,332
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