Archive for September, 2010
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 30, 2010
The New York Times has an editorial on the issue of elderly and disabled refugees facing a cut-off of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) due to the 7 year time limit for non-citizens. Some of these elderly and disabled refugees have absolutely no chance of ever passing a citizenship test due to the need for English language skills. We have refugees who arrive here illiterate in their own language and far too old to learn a new language. Some of these elderly people have dementia and other issues. SSI is a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes). It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income. It provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is seeking a one-year extension to help 5,500 refugees who are about to lose benefits.
Thousands of elderly and disabled refugees who receive cash assistance from the Social Security Administration are in danger of losing that lifeline. Their eligibility for benefits expires on Friday. Congress has granted temporary extensions before. It needs to do so again.
The welfare overhaul adopted in 1996 set limits on the time that refugees can receive Supplemental Security Income. Noncitizens normally do not qualify for payments, but refugees, who fled torture and war and could not work because of old age and infirmity, were among those granted an exception on the condition that they become citizens within seven years. That deadline came too quickly for some who were unable to pass the citizenship test in time. Many were homebound and had trouble negotiating paperwork or affording the fees. Others were stuck in limbo because of administrative backlogs…
…Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is seeking a one-year extension to help 5,500 refugees who are about to be cut off. The bill is expected to cost about $22 million, and it would be more than offset by a fee collected for unemployment fraud. It would apply only to those who received benefits through the 2008 extension; new refugees must still meet the seven-year deadline. Read more here
A Bhutanese refugee suggested to me that the U.S. government should enact a rule for refugees with disabilities from the neck up versus those from the head down. In other words, to allow elderly refugees with dementia and other refugees with mental illness or developmental disabilities to avoid the time limit for benefits imposed on non-citizens. A medical specialist would decide who qualified for the exception. I don’t know if there is a diagnostic tool that is useful for determining which elderly and disabled people are cognitively capable of learning English. Of course there is also the financial barrier of affording the $595 naturalization fees, although waivers are available for people unable to afford the fees. Then there is the issue of refugees with physical disabilities that interfere with travel to and attendence at English classes.
**CORRECTION** – The 7-year limit for refugees listed above was actually a 9-year limit, due to the US Congress passing a rule in 2008 (set to expire Sept. 30, 2011) giving qualifying refugees 9-years of SSI if they were noncitizens. See Herald-Leader article:
…Congress extended the deadline once in 2008 so that refugees could receive assistance for up to nine years before becoming citizens. But that extension expires Sept. 30 [2011]… Read more here
**UPDATE** – Effort to extend eligibility fails
An article in the Washington Independent says that the Senate rejected the effort to pass the measure yesterday.
…Yesterday, the Senate considered a measure to extend eligibility for Supplemental Security …Income for some of the neediest refugees. It came up for unanimous consent, but failed to pass in the final hours of the session…
…Groups say they plan to continue to lobby in the lame duck session and next year for Congress to eliminate limits on SSI eligibility for refugees.
Although efforts to extend SSI payments have not encountered serious opposition — the extension in 2008 earned bipartisan support — rights groups have had trouble getting it added to the legislative calendar. “We don’t really hear opposition, we just have difficulty getting support,” Wiley says. Read more here
Posted in Congress, disabled refugees, elderly refugees, SSI | Tagged: citizenship requirements, disabled refugees, Elderly refugees, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, SSI Social Security Income | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 28, 2010
The number of Bhutanese refugees who have departed Nepal for the United States will reach 30,000 sometime in the first week of September, according the US embassy in Kathmandu. But success in the U.S. for the Nepali Bhutanese sometimes seem elusive. According to an article in Fargo Forum newspaper these refugees are grappling with the specter of unemployment, eviction and medical bills. Although North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at least ten refugee families, just among the Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in Fargo, have faced eviction notices.
…Community leaders say about 20 percent of Bhutanese of working age in town are unemployed. The newcomers are eager for work, but in an already tough job market, their candidacies can run into extra pitfalls…
…Even some of the Bhutanese who lined up jobs can find themselves living paycheck to paycheck….
…at least 10 families…have received eviction notices. With seven of them to his name, one [Bhutanese refugee] jokes, is “addicted to (the) eviction notice.”…
…Chilling stories about outsized medical bills have spread through the community. A retinal detachment surgery Kashi’s wife needed in the Twin Cities, for instance, set the family back about $12,000, which he’s vowed to pay off gradually.
“If we are sick, we don’t go to the hospital – this is our scary part,” says [one Bhutanese refugee]…
Pierre Atilio, until recently a longtime immigrant advocate at Cultural Diversity Resources in Moorhead, says refugees across the board are grappling with economic survival.
In December, he accompanied an Iraqi widow to the Salvation Army. She resettled in the area with her teenage daughter and son in his 20s in 2008. Of the trio, she alone had lined up a job, four months after arriving here: a $7.50 an hour housekeeping gig.
It was a Friday; save for the Salvation Army intervention, she would have been evicted that Sunday.
“You are confronted with poor people with fear in their eyes,” Atilio says. “And they are in America, the most powerful country in the world.”
The new-American services team at LSS says 2008 and early 2009 was a rough stretch for refugees. New arrivals weren’t landing jobs, and some who came earlier saw their hours or positions cut…
…And the recent crop of refugees has dodged actual evictions, a fact LSS is proud of, says [LSS refugee services director] Sinisa Milovanovic: “Within a year to a year and a half, we don’t see people contacting us anymore.” Read more here
I’m not sure I understand why LSSND is proud that ten of the Bhutanese refugee families have faced eviction notices when North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate and many more jobs than any other state. Yet, as I’ve found, in the refugee resettlement culture everything seems to be relative. If they have “less” evictions among their refugee clients they feel proud. But in Fargo? The place has cheap rents, low cost-of-living, and relatively plentiful jobs compared to any other place in the nation.
Posted in Nepali Bhutanese, North Dakota, Lutheran Social Services of ND, employment/jobs for refugees, Lutheran | Tagged: North Dakota, refugees, resettlement, unemployment, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Fargo, refugee resettlement program, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, Bhutanese refugees, Nepalese refugees, eviction, medical bills, Salvation Army | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 27, 2010
A group of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in Fargo who were cheated out of their wages have won a complaint they placed with the North Dakota Department of Labor, according to an article in Fargo’s Forum newspaper.
A group of young Bhutanese refugees took their case all the way to the North Dakota Department of Labor this summer – and won.
The department recently found in favor of four workers who say they were paid a fraction of what they earned working for a Fargo business called the Happy Norwegian Cleaning Crew.
The owner, Kristi Ness, approached (a Fargo immigrant assistance group] and…said she could use workers for a new business.
The Happy Norwegian Cleaning Crew had landed a contract to clean the bakery at [a local grocery store] in south Fargo. Tika Lamitarey and three other Bhutanese jumped at the opportunity.
Lamitarey says it wasn’t until three months and, in his case, 225 hours of work later, that the workers got their first paychecks. His was for $700, some $1,100 less than what his time sheets suggest he was owed…He and the other workers quit in June [then] they put together wage claims with the Labor Department.
“I was so optimistic when I first came to America,” Lamitarey wrote to Kathy Kulesa at the department, “but nowadays my optimism is transferred into an oasis of pessimism and failure.”
Kulesa said Ness did not respond to two letters asking for a response. Last month, the department ruled in favor of the workers and referred the case to the state’s attorney general for collection.
…“She used us, thinking we are new American and we can’t do anything,” he says… Read more here
Apparently the refugees resettlement agency Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSSND) then got involved and tried to bring the two parties together for negotiation.
…After the determination, Ness sent a letter to the department stating she had tried to pay the workers during an August meeting at Fargo’s Lutheran Social Services. Lamitarey, a student at North Dakota State University, said he and his friends left the meeting when Ness started negotiating about the amounts…
We spoke to the Bhutanese refugee Tika Lamitarey and asked who had placed in the job. He said that an immigrant assistance organization had referred him to the job six months after his arrival. We asked if LSSND had done anything to help him find a job before that and he said that they had only once helped him apply for a job, at a local hospital. Of course that might explain why he was still unemployed and desperate for a job six months after his arrival.
This phenomena of groups of refugees being cheated out of wages is nothing new to me. I assisted a group of Lost Boys of Sudan refugees in Chicago when a company that handled security at O’Hare International Airport cheated them out of their wages as well. People target refugees for this abuse because they deem the refugees as vulnerable and not able to fight back as easily as native workers.
Posted in Nepali Bhutanese, North Dakota, Lutheran Social Services of ND, employment services, employment/jobs for refugees, Lutheran | Tagged: Bhutanese refugees, Fargo, LSSND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Nepalese refugees, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 25, 2010
The State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Eric P. Schwartz took a trip to Salt Lake City and Portland on September 7-8 ostensibly to meet with resettled refugees, state and local officials, and resettlement agency representatives. He reports his observations of the trip in a September 22nd letter posted on the State Department website.
I wanted to report to you on my September 7-8 visit to Salt Lake City and Portland, to meet with resettled refugees, state and local officials involved in refugee resettlement, resettlement agency representatives and others who are concerned and engaged in these issues in both communities. I was delighted to be accompanied for the Portland portion of my trip by U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley. In addition, Barbara Day of PRM’s Admissions staff joined me for both portions of the visit.
Both cities are great models of our public-private partnership, supported by volunteers who are deeply committed to the humanitarian mission of resettlement and by communities that strongly support the effort. They host Bhutanese, Iraqis, Burundians, Burmese, Congolese and many other refugee groups, and continually seek to enhance the support provided to new arrivals. It was gratifying to hear that the State Department’s doubling of the reception and placement grant – provided to support refugees for the first one to three months after their arrivals – has dramatically enhanced the ability of local agencies to provide critical initial support to refugees. here
So the resettlement contractors give great praise to Mr. Schwartz for doubling funding this year for refugees’ first 30-90 days (although when they talk to the press they only complain that they need more government funding) and Mr. Schwartz feels intense gratification. I guess I’m more interested to know if the resettlement agencies are now meeting minimum service requirements since the State Dept. has doubled their funding. Mr. Schwartz doesn’t seem to have looked into that.
He then takes a look at the “Salt Lake City innovation”, the State Dept’s experimental funding of local resettlement agencies for two years of case management for refugees (here and here). No discussion however about any qualitative measurements of what refugees have gained from extended case management, e.g. are employment outcomes increased, are refugees’ incomes increased, are refugees’ English language abilities increased, is out-migration (to other states) decreased, are more refugees learning to drive, owning cars, or finding better housing arrangements?
Case management: Supported by funding from the State of Utah, Salt Lake City has adopted a two-year, case-management approach, in which voluntary agency case workers formally sustain their intensive engagement with newly arrived refugees not for several months (as is generally the case in other states), but, rather, for two years….this system greatly enhances the ability of the refugee, over time, to access services effectively, and increases his or her overall sense of well-being… the Salt Lake City innovation seems like an important contribution that could serve as a model for others.
Then he discusses the problem of overseas cultural orientation. Refugees keep arriving in the U.S. reporting to have received all sorts of misinformation about American culture and the life they should expect to have once they get here, even though the State Department pays its private partner organizations IOM and the IRC to give the refugees quality cultural orientation lessons.
Overseas cultural orientation: Despite the State Department’s efforts to enhance our overseas cultural orientation programs for refugees who will be traveling to the United States, I continued to hear reports from refugees that the pre-departure process did not give them an adequate sense of –and preparation for— the challenges they would be confronting after arrival. PRM’s Admissions team is currently engaged in a critical review of our cultural orientation programs worldwide, which I expect will help us make significant improvements this coming year.
I’ve noticed that when I read about resettlement agencies blaming refugees’ misconceptions about American culture on the overseas orientation (as opposed to the orientation that the State Dept. requires resettlement agencies to do here once the refugees arrive) the agencies never mention the IOM or the IRC. I guess they don’t want the public to know that these “partner” agencies are obviously falling down on their responsibilities. Better instead to make it sound like some mysterious oversees group is misleading the refugees, or just providing poor orientation services. Shouldn’t it be our concern if the IOM and the IRC aren’t doing a good job? After all, we’re paying for it. I think we should measure their services by how well-informed refugees are once they arrive here, and not by how hard the agencies tried or some other subjective criteria. Also, why isn’t Mr. Schwartz taking a look at the problems with cultural orientation provided by resettlement agencies to refugees upon their arrival in the U.S. here, here, and here? It seems there are some severe problems in that phase as well.
Then Mr. Schwartz takes a look at English-language training for refugees.
English-language training for new arrivals: The most critical obstacle for successful integration of refugees may be lack of English language proficiency. Thus, it is essential that newly arriving refugees have access to the English language training that will enable them to enter the workforce and contribute to their local communities. In Salt Lake City, in Portland, and in the other cities I’ve visited over the past year, I heard repeatedly that even when English language programs were available, they could not be easily accessed by refugees compelled to find employment as quickly as possible. Some local communities have developed innovative English language training efforts linked to the workplace, but we at the federal level should consider ways to facilitate such innovations.
I think Mr. Schwartz got ahead of himself a bit by doubling resettlement agencies’ funding and only then looking at their services’ quality. Why this late analysis of English-language training? We’ve long known that these classes are often poor quality. Not only do refugees have a problem accessing them due to lack of time, transportation, and day care, but these classes are often taught by teachers who cannot speak the refugees’ languages (imagine trying to learn Chinese from an instructor who can’t explain anything to you in English). We also regularly hear from refugees who already have some English ability who say that agencies place them in classes that are too easy for them. We’ve heard these same complaints repeated by refugees for nine years now and the State Department has never responded to these complaints when we’ve brought them to their attention.
In the weeks and months ahead, we will pursue action in these and other areas, and, as always, we at PRM would very much welcome your observations and perspectives.
Of course that’s easily to say, but then why hasn’t the State Department responded to our many letters documenting the poor services that refugees have received in the U.S. from the private refugee resettlement agencies? I challenge Mr. Schwartz to act on his words and show us his welcoming of our observations by digging all our letters out of his files and for once responding to them in a substantive way.
Posted in "Salt Lake City innovation", Assistant Secretary of the PRM, community/cultural orientation, cultural adjustment, cultural orientation, pre-departure, Eric P. Schwartz (former Asst Sec.), ESL & ELL, funding, IOM, IRC, Oregon, PRM, public/private partnership, R&P, Salt Lake City, State Department, Utah | Tagged: "Salt Lake City innovation", Assistant Secretary of State for Population Refugees and Migration, Barbara Day, doubling of the reception and placement grant, English-language training, Eric P. Schwartz (former Asst Sec.), Eric Schwartz, ESL, International Organization for Migration, International Rescue Committee, IOM, IRC, Overseas cultural orientation, Portland, pre-departure cultural orientation, PRM, refugee case-management, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, Salt Lake City, State Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 23, 2010
A Fort Wayne Baptist minister is criticizing refugee resettlement efforts in that city, according to a piece at Indiana’s NewsCenter. He says that refugees have been left on their own without sufficient cultural education by the Catholic Charities refugee resettlement agency.
An African American minister says Fort Wayne needs to do a better job teaching the growing Burmese population how to live in our culture.
Reverend Michael Latham is singling out a local charity that helps Burmese refugees settle here.
Part of Reverend Latham’s message—don’t blame the Burmese people, blame the fact they aren’t getting proper training on the way we live in this country.
Latham says he learned of problems with Burmese residents at the Autumn Woods Apartment complex off South Anthony Boulevard…
..Latham, former president of Fort Wayne’s NAACP chapter, says he visited the complex to see conditions firsthand.
He says when he witnessed a Burmese woman eating food off the ground near a trash bin, he decided to organize a public meeting seeking solutions.
He thinks Catholic Charities should be doing more cultural training with the refugees on the American lifestyle.
Kathleen Smith/Autumn Woods Tenant: ” We go on walks and we see kids going to the bathroom outside, because they don’t know better.”
Reverend Michael Latham/Renaissance Baptist Church: ” I would like for Catholic Charities to know, to bring the number of people that they brought into our community and have dropped them off, to me, is a sad indictment on even the Catholic Church.” here
But Debra Schmidt at Catholic Charities says that her agency didn’t bring most of the Burmese refugees to Fort Wayne; that the refugees are secondary migrants from other states. Anyway, it’s hard to find the refugees and help them, and plus, she doesn’t know which states the Burmese refugees came from. And besides, she doesn’t know what they need.
Debra Schmidt/Catholic Charities: ” The majority of the families that are living in those complexes are what we call secondary migrations, and those are people who are refugees who have been re-settled into other states and cities in this country, and have moved to Fort Wayne, so the difficulty in working with the population now is, where do they come from and what are their needs?”
Schmidt says for every Burmese refugee intentionally settled in Fort Wayne, there are close to three more who chose to live in Fort Wayne as secondary migrants.
Schmidt says it’s extremely difficult to track or assimilate that population.
These weak excuses are tiresome. What do they mean that most of the refugees are from other states but they don’t know where the refugees came from? Does it matter which states? Why? Why is it so hard for Catholic Charities to find these refugees when residents don’t seem to have any problem noticing the refugees and their obvious adjustment problems? It’s not as though these refugees spread themselves out across the nation. They are clumped-together in a city long known as a Burmese refugee magnet city.
Voice of America has an article about what other agencies are doing to aid these secondary refugees. Maybe Catholic Charities could learn something from them.
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Catholic, Catholic Charities of Fort Wayne, cultural adjustment, faith-based, Fort Wayne, refugee magnet city, secondary migration, refugee | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 22, 2010
An article in WHYY News and Information gives more information about the welcome that newly arrived refugees face in Philadelphia. Some refugees have waited as long as three months just for health screening.
The Philadelphia region is seeing a new influx of political refugees from the South Asian nation of Bhutan. Like other refugees, they are entitled to eight months of medical coverage. But providing that care is a challenge.
Jefferson Family Medicine dedicates Wednesday afternoons to refugees. Nearly three years ago, when the clinic opened, many of the refugees came from Myanmar, then a few Iraqis, some Eritreans. Now, it’s the ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan. Clinic director Dr. Marc Altshuler says one of the first steps is to make sure everyone has had their shots.
Altshuler: The kids cannot go to school without vaccines, and if the kids don’t go to school the parents can’t go out and get a job.
The Nationalities Service Center, a resettlement agency, helped launch the Jefferson clinic. Now, demand for the clinic’s services has the agency looking for other providers capable of the same type of one-stop care…
…Newly arrived refugees should have an initial health screen within 30 days, but it took more than three months for Bagi Adhikari and her adult son Kamal to get in to see Dr. Packer… here
So a question becomes why continue to place more new refugees in Philadelphia if health screenings are delayed so dangerously long? It’s not like the city is a particularly safe place for the refugees’ children, here. Of course resettlement agencies such as the Nationalities Service Center isn’t going to advertise to the State Department that their area has late health screenings and dangerous schools. That will have to wait until the State Department does one of its once-in-a-decade inspections. Even then, the State Dept. will simply note the problems and suggest that the Center make some attempt to correct it. In the meantime years have passed in which refugees have gone months at a time without medical care, and have also been harassed, attacked, and assaulted on the streets and in the schools. That’s how our refugee resettlement program operates.
The refugees can have serious health problems while they sit for months without medical care. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is also a common ailment.
…The ailments differ with each refugee group but latent tuberculosis, malnutrition and malaria are common. When the Adhikaris arrived last winter, both were a little underweight…
…Altshuler: We spend time asking ‘Why did they become refugees?’ cause that can help us figure out … Were they exposed? Were they beaten? But the bigger picture is, are they sometimes at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder because of what they went through? …
…Altshuler: We see significant mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder. We’ve been trying to collect a lot of data on the refugees that we’ve been seeing, and I think our rates of PTSD are probably two to three times higher than the national rate.
All are adjusting to a new city and culture; Altschuler says some also have stubborn, decades-old hurts that resurface once they’re safe…
…The Nationalities Services Center recently hosted a training session for health providers on the medical and mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers.
It seems as though the main reason the US refugee resettlement program resettled refugees to Philadelphia is because a national volag, the USCRI, happens to have an office there – Nationalities Service Center. Is that really a “rational plan for resettlement”? That’s what the volags have to prove to the State Department each year in their annual report (see Guidelines for Participants).
Strategy for Site Selection
Headquarters should have in place a coherent strategy for selecting resettlement sites and placement of individual refugee cases. That strategy should show evidence of adaptability to new circumstances, e.g., influx of new ethnic groups, welfare or economic changes in any given location. Such strategy should also provide adequate justification for continued use of a site with poor employment outcomes.
But the USCRI essentially just recommends all the places where it already has affiliate offices as good refugee resettlement sites. Therefore, long after South Philly is no longer a rational place to resettle refugees, the State Department continues to let its contractor (USCRI) place refugees there.
Posted in State Department, USCRI, Burma/Myanmar, Nepali Bhutanese, Iraqi, health, mental health, Philadelphia, late health screenings, safety, Eritrean, PTSD, Nationalities Service Center | Tagged: USCRI, State Department, refugees, resettlement, refugee resettlement program, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, tuberculosis, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Philadelphia, south philly, Iraqi refugees, Burmese refugees, Bhutanese refugees, Nepalese refugees, PTSD, Eritrean refugees, Nationalities Service Center, refugee health screening, Post-traumatic stress disorder, malnutrition, malaria | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 21, 2010
New refugee students in South Philadelphia are learning that their new school may be much more dangerous for them than the refugee camps they came from. On December 3rd students at South Philadelphia High attacked 30 Asian students, mostly refugees. The violence sent seven Asian students to hospitals, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Many Asian students who walk into South Philadelphia High on Tuesday morning will be carrying something besides books.
In pockets and purses, they’ll tote a pamphlet called “Staying Safe.” It was given to them by community leaders who ran a special orientation aimed at teaching the students an important lesson: what to do if they’re attacked at school.
Knowing how to report harassment or assault is a skill most would prefer not to need. But it’s the reality of life at the school, where 30 Asians were attacked by groups of mostly African American students Dec. 3.
The violence sent seven Asians to hospitals and led about 50 to stage a weeklong boycott… here
A community leader told the students that she doesn’t know if changes will do anything to make them safer, in spite of the school being outfitted with extensive new security and programming.
…Last week, school administrators held new-student orientation, a day complete with cheerleaders in uniform and volleyball-team hopefuls knocking a ball around the gym.
The Asian session was a study in contrast. At FACTS charter school in Chinatown, three dozen students from Myanmar, China, Nepal, Vietnam, and elsewhere gathered to listen and talk.
“You guys are walking into the continuing story,” Nancy Nguyen, head of the local chapter of Boat People SOS, told the students. “We don’t know if the school is better. There are a lot of changes, but we don’t know if it’s better.”
The changes include security cameras and programming additions such as an Asian arts initiative and an in-school center for immigrants. A new antiharassment policy is in the works. The Justice Department, which recently informed the district it found merit to the Asian students’ civil-rights complaint, could impose more change.
At FACTS, organizers explained what harassment looks and sounds like, a raw introduction to students new to American culture and schools. Harassment, students heard, can be based on the place of your birth, the accent of your speech, or the shape of your eyes.
The instruction cut close to the bone, particularly when the leaders distributed a list of racial slurs and told the students: It’s wrong. And you need to know that slurs can escalate quickly and violently.
That’s common knowledge to children raised in America. But immigrants can be too limited in English to recognize racist language – and the danger it may portend.
Most of the students were heading into ninth grade at the school, which is 18 percent Asian and 70 percent African American. Some were hearing for the first time that Asians could be targets.
“If they come to beat us up, I’ll just go to the principal,” said Ghanashyam Gautam, 14, who emigrated from Nepal two years ago…
…The training program broke into subgroups. In one, a dozen students from Nepal squeezed around a table, all eyes focused on Nguyen, the Boat People SOS leader.
“I want to let you know what happened,” she began, telling the story of Dec. 3, ending with how Asian students stayed out of school…
…A discussion ensued in Nepalese. One boy wanted to know, if someone punches him, what should he do? Run away?
The first thing, Nguyen answered, is to get to a safe place. Write down everything that happened. And call one of the Asian leaders.
“It’s important for you guys to let us know if something happens,” Nguyen said…
…At times, the students’ moods turned somber, as if they were asking themselves: What am I getting into at the school?
Again, we see the refugee resettlement program resettling refugees into urban areas that are obviously not safe for them or their children. Their ability to stay safe in these environments is much less than the average American’s due to newness to the communities, language barriers, lack of knowledge of rules, etc. Many of these refugees are already suffering from stress-related mental illnesses such as PTSD due to the conditions that originally brought them to refugee camps. If seven students hospitalized for injuries in one day, or a 15-year-old refugee boy murdered in a St. Louis ghetto, isn’t enough to get bureaucrats to reconsider things, what would it take to change their minds?
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, dangerous neighborhoods, Dept. of Justice, mental health, Nepali Bhutanese, Philadelphia, safety, school for refugee children, schools, Vietnamese | Tagged: refugees, refugee resettlement program, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, Philadelphia, south philly, refugee children, Burmese refugees, Bhutanese refugees, Nepalese refugees, PTSD, South Philadelphia High, refugee students, asian students, Boat People SOS, Asian students' civil-rights complaint, U.S. Justice Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 19, 2010
Authors Alisa Roth and Hugh Eakin write in They Fled from Our War that state refugee coordinators are requesting that the State Department not resettle Iraqis in their states. Charles Shipman, Arizona’s refugee coordinator, is the supposed source of this information.
…Robin Dunn Marcos, who heads the Phoenix office of the International Rescue Committee, said that the IRC has become something more akin to a welfare office. Without work the refugees “can’t survive. They can’t pay the rent or the utilities, never mind buy toothpaste and toilet paper.” Confronted with stories such as Bushra’s, Charles Shipman, Arizona’s refugee coordinator, has had to ask the refugee agencies to reduce the number of Iraqis they are agreeing to resettle in the state, despite the US’s pledge to take in another 17,000 in 2010. “And I know every other state is making the same request,” he said. “I’m not sure where those additional refugees will end up”… here
I don’t get it. Does that mean that the state refugee coordinators don’t want more Iraqi refugees, or don’t want more refugees of any nationality?
***UPDATE*** Mr. Shipman apparently told Arizona refugee resettlement agencies not to reduce the number of Iraqi refugees they were agreeing to resettle in Arizona, but to reduce the number of all refugees they were agreeing to resettle (if we can believe a Rheis Thibault in the comment section of the post “Arizona – a refugee haven?“)
Posted in Arizona, Iraqi, IRC, Phoenix | Tagged: Arizona, Charles Shipman, International Rescue Committee, Iraqi refugees, IRC, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, They Fled from Our War | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 18, 2010
A string of continuing suicides among Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in the U.S. convinces me that the refugee resettlement agencies need to begin making some efforts in suicide prevention.
The latest to occur is a suicide by hanging of a 35-year-old female Nepali-Bhutanese refugee in Buffalo, NY, reported in Nepal News. The woman had just arrived in the U.S. in June.
A Bhutanese refugee resettled in New York, USA committed suicide by hanging herself at her apartment, Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS) reported.
Nirmala Gurung, 35, committed suicide at her apartment when her spouse was not at home, RSS reported quoting Prakash Dhamala, a Nepali journalist based in the US.
The reason for the suicide is not known. Gurung had gone to the US in June this year under the third country settlement scheme for the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. here
The incident follows the suicide of another Nepali-Bhutanese refugee in Nashville, and another in Pittsburgh, here.
Resettlement is an extremely stressful experience for refugees, especially for those who have a history of depression or stress-elated disorders brought on by previous trauma. We need to have a suicide prevention hotline that refugees can call and be able to speak with someone, if necessary, in their own language. Resettlement agencies should give each refugee a card with the hotline phone number. I searched the internet for information about suicide prevention efforts for refugees and I cant find anything.
If anyone knows of any efforts by the resettlement agencies in suicide prevention for refugees please let us know.
*UPDATE* Dec. 3, 2010 - A refugee commits suicide in Phoenix.
Posted in Buffalo, mental health, Nepali Bhutanese, suicide | Tagged: bhutanese, Buffalo, Nepalese refugees, Nepali-Bhutanese refugees, refugee suicide, refugees, resettlement, suicide, suicide prevention | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 16, 2010
The numbers of refugees resettled to South Carolina has increased steadily since 2006, and most refugees are resettled to the Columbia area, according to an article in The Augusta Chronicle. Lutheran Family Services in South Carolina had problems in 2004 when residents of Cayce said they did not want Somali Bantus in their community.
South Carolina has about 150 refugees in the program now, with about 40 percent from Burma and 40 percent from Iraq.
If refugees have a family or friend in some part of South Carolina, they are typically sent there.
About 75 percent come with no ties and stay in the Columbia area. Numbers of refugees fleeing war or persecution have increased steadily since 2006, when the Palmetto State had 123 refugees, with recent federal funding per year about $370,000, according to federal data.
Sometimes residents pose a challenge.
The most notable resistance in South Carolina took place in 2004, when residents of Cayce said they did not want Somali Bantus in their community.
Residents said their schools could not accommodate the refugees’ children and that their tribal culture and Muslim faith were too foreign.
“LFS decided not to challenge that,” Jazic said. “We did not want to put refugees in a situation where they would not be welcome. Thank goodness there were others who said, ‘We can deal with it and work it out.’ ” here
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, faith-based, Iraqi, Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas, Somali Bantu, South Carolina, unwelcoming communities | Tagged: Cayce, Columbia, Lutheran Family Services in South Carolina, Palmetto State, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, Somali Bantus, South Carolina, south carolina Department of Social Services, South Carolina DSS | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
The New York Times has an editorial on the issue of elderly and disabled refugees facing a cut-off of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) due to the 7 year time limit for non-citizens. Some of these elderly and disabled refugees have absolutely no chance of ever passing a citizenship test due to the need for English language skills. We have refugees who arrive here illiterate in their own language and far too old to learn a new language. Some of these elderly people have dementia and other issues. SSI is a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes). It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income. It provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.
