How much does Minnesota spend annually on refugee resettlement and related services, and what portion goes to Somali arrivals?

1. How Minnesota’s refugee dollars are structured and who pays what

Federal funding feeds virtually all refugee-specific resettlement dollars in Minnesota: the Department of State provides per‑capita initial reception funds (distributed through national and local resettlement agencies) and the Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) supplies refugee‑specific program grants that states administer; Minnesota’s Resettlement Programs Office distributes those federal dollars to local agencies and coordinates access to mainstream benefits ^{[4] [5]}. The state’s public information and audited reviews make clear that these are federal streams administered at the state level rather than a large dedicated Minnesota state‑tax appropriation for resettlement ^{[4] [5]}.

2. The one‑time per‑person payment that is key to local agency budgets

Local resettlement agencies in Minnesota receive a standard one‑time initial reception and placement payment of $2,375 per refugee to cover immediate needs such as housing set‑up, basic furnishings and short‑term assistance; that per‑capita figure is explicitly stated in Minnesota DHS materials ^[2]. Because this payment is multiplied by each primary arrival, it is the simplest lever for estimating a floor for direct resettlement cash flows to local affiliates when arrival counts are known, but it does not capture ongoing services, state‑administered refugee grants, mainstream public benefits that refugees may use, or private philanthropy ^{[2] [1]}.

3. What the public sources say about total annual funding in Minnesota

A Minnesota resettlement affiliate (Arrive Ministries) states the Resettlement Programs Office receives about $5 million in federal funds each year to support statewide resettlement and integration services, a figure repeated in reporting about Minnesota’s system ^[1]. The legislative auditor and DHS program pages also document that the state administers federal refugee program dollars and distributes them to local partners, but they do not publish a single consolidated annual “state spending” figure that combines per‑person reception payments, ORR grants, mainstream benefit use, and county or nonprofit matches ^{[4] [5]}.

4. Turning arrivals into dollar estimates — an illustrative calculation

The federal government projected 4,080 people would arrive in Minnesota in federal fiscal year 2025 through USRAP prior to the program suspension noted in DHS materials; multiplying that arrival count by the $2,375 per‑person initial payment yields about $9.69 million in one‑time reception payments to local agencies (4,080 × $2,375 = $9,690,000) ^{[3] [2]}. Adding the approximate $5 million in statewide federal refugee services gives an illustrative annual total near $14.7 million; this is an estimate built only from per‑person reception payments and the cited statewide program funds and therefore omits other federal benefit costs, state or county expenditures, and private contributions ^{[1] [2]}.

5. What portion goes to Somali arrivals — the data gap and the method to answer it

None of the supplied sources breaks Minnesota’s dollar flows down by country of origin, so it is not possible from these documents to state definitively what dollar amount or share goes specifically to Somali arrivals; the health and DHS arrival datasets referenced by Minnesota do provide refugee counts by country and county but the excerpts here do not include a Somali dollar allocation ^{[6] [7]}. To estimate the Somali share, one would: (a) obtain the number of primary Somali arrivals for the year from the Minnesota Department of Health or DHS arrival CSVs ^{[6] [7]}, and (b) multiply that headcount by the $2,375 per‑person reception payment to approximate direct per‑person reception dollars, then apportion a share of the ~$5 million state‑administered services pro rata or by documented service use if available ^{[2] [1]}. The sources provided here establish the mechanics (per‑person payment and statewide program funds) but do not provide the country‑specific arrival counts needed to compute the Somali dollar share ^{[6] [7]}.

6. Caveats, alternate perspectives and where to look next

Advocates and resettlement agencies emphasize that per‑person reception payments cover only the first 30–90 days and that refugees also access mainstream benefits (e.g., public assistance, health care) administered separately, which complicates “total cost” accounting and can understate the longer‑term investments and savings associated with integration ^{[1] [5]}. The auditor’s work underscores that federal rules and state administration shape the flows, meaning that most “spending” is federally driven and allocated through state and nonprofit channels rather than a standalone Minnesota budget line item ^[4]. For a precise Somali share, the necessary next step is to pair Minnesota’s arrival‑by‑country dataset (MDH or DHS CSV) with the per‑person payment and service‑grant records; those primary datasets are referenced but not reproduced in the documents provided here ^{[6] [7] [2]}.