Annual ORR Reports to Congress - 1998

Executive Summary

The Refugee Act of 1980 (section 413(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act) requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit an annual report to Congress on The Federal Refugee Resettlement Program. This report covers refugee program developments in Fiscal Year 1998, from October 1, 1997 through September 30, 1998. It is the thirty-second in a series of reports to Congress on refugee resettlement in the U.S. since FY 1975 and the eighteenth to cover an entire year of activities carried out under the comprehensive authority of the Refugee Act of 1980.

Admissions

Approximately 76,746 refugees and Amerasian immigrants were admitted to the United States in FY 1998. An additional 13,348 Cuban and 534 Haitian nationals were admitted as entrants.

Reception and Placement Activities

In FY 1998, ten non-profit organizations were responsible for the reception and initial placement of refugees through cooperative agreements with the Department of State.

Domestic Resettlement Program

Refugee Appropriations: In FY 1998, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) provided $420 million in new budget authority to assist refugees and Cuban and Haitian entrants. Of this, States received about $189.0 million for the costs of providing cash and medical assistance to eligible refugees and entrants.

Social Services: In FY 1998, ORR provided States with $67.0 million in formula grants, $10 million in special funds to States to assist refugee TANF recipients, and $53.8 million in discretionary grants to States and non-profit organizations for a broad range of services for refugees, such as English language and employment-related training.

Targeted Assistance: ORR provided $54.5 million in targeted assistance funds to supplement available services in areas with large concentrations of refugees and entrants.

Unaccompanied Minors: Since FY 1979, a total of 11,566 minors have been cared for until they were reunited with relatives or reached the age of emancipation. The number remaining in the program as of September 30, 1999 was 299.

Voluntary Agency Matching Grant Program: Grants totaling $30.9 million were awarded in FY 1998. Under this program, Federal funds are awarded on a matching basis to national voluntary resettlement agencies to provide assistance and services to refugees.

Refugee Health: ORR provided funds to State and local health departments for refugee health assessments. Obligations for these activities and technical assistance support amounted to about $4.84 million in FY 1998.

Wilson/Fish Alternative Projects: ORR provided $4.7 million to fund privately administered alternative projects in Kentucky, Nevada, and California in order to help refugees find employment and reduce assistance costs.

Cuban/Haitian Initiative: ORR provided three States, Florida, Nevada and New York, with $19 million in funds to increase services to Cuban/Haitian entrants in the areas of access to health, mental health, improved education for youth and crime prevention and employment.

Key Federal Activities

Congressional Consultations for FY 1998 Admissions: Following consultations with Congress, President Clinton set a world-wide refugee admissions ceiling at 83,000 for FY 1998.

Refugee Population Profile

Southeast Asians remain the largest group admitted since 1983, with approximately 627,300 refugees, including about 73,880 Amerasian immigrant arrivals. Nearly 422,000 refugees from the former Soviet Union arrived in the U.S. during this period.

Other refugees who have arrived in substantial numbers since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980 include Afghans, Ethiopians, Iranians, Iraqis, Poles, Romanians, Somalis, and those from the former Yugoslavia.

Six States have Southeast Asian refugee populations of 20,000 or more and account for about 59 percent of the total Southeast Asian refugee population in the U.S. The States of California, Texas, and Washington continue to hold the top three positions.

Economic Adjustment

The Fall 1998 annual survey of refugees who have been in the U.S. less than five years indicated that about 56 percent of refugees age 16 or over were employed as of September 1998, as compared with about 64 percent for the U.S. population.

The labor force participation rate was about 59 percent for the sampled refugee population, compared with 67 percent for the U.S. The unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, compared with 4.5 percent for the U.S. population.

Approximately 60 percent of all sampled households were entirely self-sufficient. About 19 percent received both public assistance and earned income; and another 19 percent received only public assistance.

Approximately 37 percent of refugees in the five-year sample population received medical coverage through an employer, while 36 percent received benefits from Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance. About 22 percent of the sample population had no medical coverage in any of the previous 12 months.

The average number of years of education was the highest for the former Soviet Union (12.2 years), while the lowest was for Southeast Asian countries other than Vietnam (2.9 years). About five percent of refugees reported they spoke English well or fluently upon arrival; but another 69 percent spoke no English at all.

Approximately 38 percent of refugee households in the five-year sample population received some sort of cash assistance. The most common form of cash assistance was supplemental security income, received by about 22 percent of refugee households. About 33 percent of refugee households received food stamps, and 16 percent lived in public housing.

1998 REPORT TO CONGRESS

Director's Message

Fiscal Year 1998 was a busy and productive year for the Office of Refugee Resettlement as we began to see the realization of our refocused attention on: 1) holistic services leading to economic and social self-sufficiency; 2) the necessity for bi-lingual/bi-cultural service providers; 3) the benefits of measurements and accountability; and 4) the focus on partnerships.

Refugee services have traditionally been targeted at finding the earliest possible employment for adult refugees. While we were pleased with the advent of welfare reform which encouraged all welfare-dependent families, including refugee families, to move to work quickly, this was something the refugee program had been doing all along and with ever-increasing success.

Therefore, we were able to refocus some of our attention and funding to encourage expansion to a more holistic program of services for refugees. In 1998, we began to see results and to see that these services were making a difference in refugees' lives by helping them to more fully integrate socially and economically into U.S. society.

A very important factor in providing comprehensive and effective services has been the ORR requirement that refugees receive services from providers who speak their language and understand their culture. The bi-lingual, bi-cultural requirement was implemented in 1995, has greatly enhanced refugees' progress toward full self-sufficiency, and will continue.

Further, this was the fourth year that ORR had participated in the Government Performance Results Act (GPRA). This not only brought about a new level of accountability, but has provided refugee service providers with significant baseline data of their past accomplishments and assists them in developing goals for the future. This is an important tool for keeping the focus on results.

Throughout my tenure at ORR, I have strongly encouraged partnerships of all types because I believe they are essential in order for this program to do its best for refugees. We are now seeing strong public/private partnerships developing at the local level with very good results, and I continue to support and promote their development.

For the future, I see the need to continue expanding partnerships of joint responsibility for refugee services, and the need for greater flexibility at all levels of the refugee program, national, State and local.

The following pages describe the exemplary work of our many partners in resettlement, and the excellent opportunities provided to refugees who have begun new lives in the United States.

Lavinia Limon
Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement