Refugees headed to 180 towns, but avoid D.C. and other expensive cities

The Washington Times ^ | November 17, 2015 | Stephen Dinan

[jazusamo]

As President Obama presses communities to accept Syrian refugees, his current hometown of Washington, D.C., is likely to be spared much of the pain.

There are about 180 communities across the U.S. that welcome refugees, but some of the more obvious cities, including San Francisco, New York and, yes, Washington, aren't high on the list because they are just too darn expensive for the refugees.

Instead, the top major cities are places such as Atlanta, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, Chicago and Boston, the State Department says. And there are a host of medium-sized cities as well: Boise, Idaho, Nashville, Tennessee, Tucson, Arizona, Buffalo, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania, are all on that list, the department said in September as it laid out plans to take 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year.

Handling refugees spans multiple government agencies, with the State Department involved on the front end, Homeland Security overseeing the vetting and the Office of Refugee Resettlement within Health and Human Services responsible for resettling the refugees once they're here.

The ORR is the same office that is handling the ongoing surge of illegal immigrant children on the border over the last few years, and it relies on a network of nine non-profits -- six of them faith-based -- to place the refugees in communities that can handle them.

[jazusamo]

Sounds like there’s been quite an influx of them in the entire area and that they’ve made an impact on it, a lot of it not good. Glad to see they got that killer but it’s sad he only got 25 years.

With their beliefs and sharia law I imagine it’s affected most everyone living in that area and it’s a shame.

Appreciate the rundown on what’s happening there, it’s been about 30 years since I moved north but I enjoyed going there for our annual tournament, a nice area and golf course.

[Myrddin]

I spent many years in the area. 1957->1961, 1962->1963, 1965->1966, 1969->2002, 2009->2014. The breaks were for time in Honolulu, HI/Federal Way, WA/Springfield, VA. Navy family. Moved my household to Idaho in Dec 2000. Still have employment ties to San Diego.