Who Pays? Where Does the Airfare Come From? UPDATE

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Old Grafton
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Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:07 am

Re: Who Pays? Where Does the Airfare Come From? UPDATE

Post by Old Grafton »

Here's an update, at least partly, to the original question: Who pays? Well, some of it, WE DO, DAMMIT!!!!

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I'm not old--It's too early to be this late.
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Jericho941
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Re: Who Pays? Where Does the Airfare Come From?

Post by Jericho941 »

Old Grafton wrote:I guess I wasn't sufficiently clear--I understand that if greencard holders and legal residents have any brains they'll have round tickets, passports jajajaja... etc--I'm talking about the supposedly desperate-at-all-costs-stranded-in-Europe/Africa-I-gotta-get-to-'Merica-from-this-shithole-war-zone-etc.-where-we're-all-starving-so-we-can-vote-Hillary hundreds of thousands the libs all want here for Kumbaya. Who's paying for all that airfare?? Some Somali goatherder bringing in his four wives and eleven chilluns has enough dinars for sixteen economy-class tickets to the promised land? I call bullshit. These refugees aren't all stowing away in steerage on Carnival Cruise Liners to get here--Somebody is fronting this; who is it?
So, after looking in on this a bit further, it seems that most of the refugees are paying their own way. Most of the Syrians are refugees from the war or Assad, not because the war made them poor. E.g. a guy whose house was blown up in Aleppo is not necessarily poor, he just has to go somewhere, and if that means fleeing the country, he can sell his car if he has one. Or the same goes for someone who might be fairly well-off, but ran afoul of the Assad regime. As long as you still have a smart phone and a wallet, you can get pretty much anywhere. I imagine that's often the case for refugees from other countries as well.
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blackeagle603
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Re: Who Pays? Where Does the Airfare Come From? UPDATE

Post by blackeagle603 »

Refugees and some immigrants get loans for travel to the US (and other resettlement countries) through the International Organization for Migration (IOM). http://www.uscripayments.org/

The San Diego World Relief office was in our facility for 20+ years. Most we know are paying back the IoM. They pay on them and replenish the funds for others to make their trips.

Our little church is in the ground zero zip code for resettlement since the Vietnamese boat lift in 75. Other cities like NOLA and Minneapolis are big arrival ports for refugees now too but in any given wave of refugee influx San Dog is still top or near top entry point. East San Diego is the new Plymouth Rock. Some stay but many move on to other states as they find work. We hosted 285 families between 75 and 1990. Now there are 4 NGO's in San Diego that contract with the State Dept to coordinate resettlement.

Several case workers are members of our fellowship. It's not a good paying gig -- it's a labor of love. They're all saying of the Trump EO pausing refugee resettlement "Whew, about time." Need a breather and to give the system case load and local rental market a breather.
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