Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Arizona and other states ask resettlement agencies to reduce number of Iraqi refugees they accept
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?“)
