About 200 Yemeni Jews were brought as refugees to the Monsey, New York area within the last few years. The Yemeni’s did not have a “well-founded fear of persecution” and so they did not qualify for the refugee program.
It is true that one Yemeni Jew was murdered in Yemen, which bothered some people in the U.S. The killer was mentally ill. Of course, the parents of the slain man were distraught. In The Yemen, “Blood Money” is sometimes given to relatives of a murder or rape victim in exchange for the relatives declining to ask for the death penalty. The Jewish parents refused the blood money as they wanted the death sentence. The relatives said if the blood money was all they could get, certainly far short of justice, they should go to Israel. The parents did not say, “ we should just give up on justice in Yemen and go to New York.” God did smile upon the parents of the victim as they did get their wish for a death sentence for the murderer who was soon killed.
Prior to bringing the Yemeni Jews to the U.S., sympathetic Americans said “The Yemeni Jews are in grave danger, they just don’t know it yet.” Exasperated but worn-down Yemeni Jews, content with their lives in Yemen, constantly hounded to leave their homeland, would cave in and say “Okay, already, I will leave Yemen but first someone has to buy my house.”
Someone setting the selling of his house as a precondition to leaving Yemen is a rational person who is not in fear. Such persons do not qualify as refugees. Some State department personnel are visibly upset by this fraud because it cost U.S. taxpayers money, wrongly defamed the Yemen, and abused the Refugee program. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society likely did not initiate this fraud but they were financial beneficiaries as they did set up an office in Monsey and disbursed cash, food stamps, housing and so on to the newly-arrived Yemeni Jews. Refugees get government funded housing. Since the census reports that the media house in Monsey is value at $570,000, one wonders the total amount of federal government spending on this project.
A search on the web for the total cost of the Yemeni Jews to Monsey project was fruitless.
The Yemeni-Monsey fraud properly damages the reputation of the entire refugee program and makes me think that fraud is likely the norm in the U.S. Refugee program. The responsible government agency should reveal the total cost to the public, but of course it will not. An investigation by Non-State Department personnel is in order.