Meeting Recap March 2

Twenty eight Rotarians attended this week’s meeting.  There were three guests:  Greg Nelson brought John Dini a Hubbard Woods business man, Ned Meisner brought Kirsten Gordon a garden designer and Keith Reed’ guest was Catherine Inserra, the youth minister at Trinity United in Wilmette.   Deputy Fire Chief John Ripka was present representing the Village.

 

Don’t forget our big “Kids Against Hunger” project is coming up on March 11^th – PARTICIPATE – DONATE!!!  There is a real need for workers on the 3^rd shift (2 – 4 p.m.)

 

The speaker for the day was Craig Mousin who has degrees in both law and theology.  After a number of years at a large Chicago law firm he founded and directed the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center in 1984.  He has combined his training in the law and theology into his life’s work. Craig presented a brief summary of refugee resettlement in the United States.  There are one million legal refugees in our country.  To seek refugee status you must have been persecuted or have reasonable fear of persecution.  Once a refugee gets to the U.S. they can ask for asylum.  During 2017 Obama authorized the acceptance of 110,000 refugees but it is expected that Trump will cut that number to the 50,000 range. 

 

In Germany there is no vetting until the refugee arrives.  For the United States it can take up to 2 years of vetting before refugees are allowed into our country.  There are checks by the various intelligence agencies and the State Department that include long, intensive personal interviews.  There are at least three biometric checks - fingerprinting, eyeball scans and DNA testing.  There are also FBI, Homeland Security and Department of Defense screenings in addition to medical screenings.  Craig was asked if that is the normal vetting then what could be extreme vetting, he was unable to answer what else could be done to improve the process.

 

Craig reported that Jordan has 1,000,000 refugees while Germany has accepted 745,000.  Illinois has resettled 126,000 refugees from 86 countries since 1975.  There are nine resettlement agencies in Illinois.  They offer as many as 13 types of services for refugees, including health, housing, financial, educational, employment and social services.

 

As our country has made it more difficult to gain legal entry, the number of undocumented immigrants has risen.  Craig made a point of stating that immigrants of any type are responsible for less crime than native-born citizens.  Undocumented immigrants contribute $11 million to our country’s economy.