Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
An article in the Palm Beach Post chronicles the state of refugee resettlement in Palm Beach County, Florida. A director at the Youth Co-op Inc. refugee resettlement agency claims that although the area has no low-income housing for people who are not yet legal residents, that the government has decided to place Iraqi refugees here as part of trying to disperse them around the country.
…With the U.S. troop reduction making life in Iraq more dangerous for people like Al-Fatlawy, the U.S. government is allowing those who supported its cause to migrate. And the South Florida branch of the nonprofit Youth Co-op Inc. has worked with the government and two international groups to bring the refugees to Florida.
One would think that Al-Fatlawy would feel safer here than in Iraq. But although no one is trying to kill him, he and some other Iraqis here say they feel anything but secure…
…”A lot of the time we wonder why they sent us here to Florida,” said Usama Redha, 37, a journalist who worked for U.S. publications and also said his life was threatened. “There are few jobs and there is no Iraqi community here. It has been very difficult for us. Maybe they should have sent us to a different place.”…
…”Things are tough right now even for native-born Americans,” said Sharol Lewin, refugee-programs director for Youth Co-op, which started decades ago as a youth organization but now works with political refugees of all ages. “But it isn’t any worse here than in other parts of the country.”
As for the lack of other Iraqis in Palm Beach County, she doesn’t disagree. The largest Iraqi communities in the U.S. are in Michigan, Chicago and the San Diego area, with Atlanta, Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth building sizable populations.
“But the government wants the Iraqis to settle in all different parts of the country just as immigrant groups in the past did,” Lewin said…
…Lewin said her organization can help with emergency food and clothing needs, but there is no low-cost housing for people who are not yet legal residents. The Iraqis were warned that they would have to take care of themselves, she said… Read more here
I guess I’m not necessarily buying that “the government” is to blame here – the government being the State Department’s Office of Admissions. Perhaps its true that the government agency wants to spread the refugees out, but its the resettlement agencies that decide where they want to resettle refugees in the U.S., along with a rational plan for that resettlement. The national refugee resettlement agencies have to make a proposal each year to the Office of Admissions. So why did the Youth Co-op, Inc. and its national affiliate, the USCRI, decide that Palm Beach County, with no low-income housing for residents who are not yet legal residents, was a rational resettlement site? Why did the Office of Admissions then okay that?
