Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
The wait for refugees in San Diego needing to take english as a
second language (ESL) classes has increased by nearly 14-times. The head of the US Department of HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (that would be Eskinder Negash) claims he “was caught off guard by the size of the problem”, and did not offer any immediate solutions. Yet, the California state government has been in deep financial troubles for two years now. An article in Fronteras has more:
SAN DIEGO — On a recent Friday morning, students of Iraqi descent practiced phrases they might need for a job interview in the language lab at Cuyamaca College…
…English as a Second Language, or ESL, courses, are in high demand at Cuyamaca, which is located in San Diego’s East County.
“We had enough students on the wait list to double the program,” said Alicia Muñoz, Cuyamaca’s ESL coordinator. In fact, over the past two years, the wait list for ESL classes has increased by nearly 14-times.
Most of the demand comes from recently arrived Iraqi refugees. More than 13,000 Iraqis have relocated to San Diego County since 2005, making it one of the largest refugee communities in the country…
…But budget cuts – affecting community colleges across the state – have forced schools to cancel classes in many subjects, including ESL. At the same time, the demand for these classes has skyrocketed. And it’s not just community colleges that are feeling the strain.
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob has gotten an earful of concerns from elementary schools, hospitals and other public institutions in her district. They all say that they don’t have the funds to address refugee needs, especially on shrinking budgets.
“There have not been adequate resources available to serve this population,” Jacob said.
The supervisor recently hosted a meeting of refugee resettlement officials and service providers to discuss the problem…
…After the meeting, the head of the federal office of refugee resettlement admitted he was caught off guard by the size of the problem. He didn’t offer any immediate solutions, but conversations between Jacob’s office and service providers are ongoing… Read more here
A year-and-a-half ago we wrote to the ORR about a refugee who was unable to use medical health care in Sacramento – that too, explained a California state official, was related to budget problems. If the ORR had investigated the case – or even talked to anyone in California – wouldn’t they have discovered the budget problems by now, and the effects on refugees? How do they manage to be completely out of touch with the problems that refugees in San Diego (the largest resettlement site in the US) are experiencing?
Another issue we put in a complaint to the ORR about is the issue of discrimination in hiring by faith-based refugee resettlement agencies (World Relief and Catholic Charities). World Relief claimed they could not hire a Muslim former refugee in Washington state because “he might not feel comfortable while they prayed at staff meetings.” Yet, federal regulations prohibit worship on the public dime. The ORR claimed it was investigating, yet has stonewalled since we placed the complaint in April 2010. We wrote once again in April 2011 to find out what progress they were making, Mr. Negash’s Deputy Director, Ken Tota, did not even bother to respond.
