Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Lewiston’ Category

Lewiston Mayor-elect Demagogued Somali Refugees, Claims He Was “Tired and Overly Emotional”

Posted by Christopher Coen on December 16, 2011

Lewiston, Maine Mayor-elect Bob Macdonald ended the election campaign with comments on election night that included a claim that he wanted to make changes so that the city is less attractive to layabouts and deadbeats, many of whom didn’t speak English. Lewiston has been a secondary migration site for Somali refugees for ten years. After demagoguing the immigrants MacDonald said that people need to “work together, instead of sniping”. He said that he had been “tired and overly emotional”, but not to worry because now, “This is Bob Macdonald, happy face.” An article in the Bangor Daily News has the story:

LEWISTON, Maine — Mayor-elect Bob Macdonald apologized to the city Thursday for his election-night comments — but his apology wasn’t enough for some members of the city’s immigrant community.

Abdifatah Ahmed, a local landlord and pharmacist, said Macdonald ought to apologize for his tone throughout the mayoral campaign, not just his election-night comments.

During his campaign, Macdonald said he wanted to make the city less attractive to layabouts and deadbeats, many of whom didn’t speak English…

…Somali immigrants, refugees from the civil war in Somalia, began arriving in Lewiston 10 years ago.

Macdonald called Thursday’s news conference to announce a surprise for his opponents after he was elected mayor on Tuesday…

…[He made] a full apology for his election-night comments. Macdonald said he had spent the entire day Tuesday at the polls and was tired and overly emotional.

“This is Bob Macdonald, happy face,” he said Thursday. “And from now on, until I end my time in office, it will be Bob Macdonald, happy face, the face of Lewiston.”…

…“Let’s work together, instead of sniping,” he said. “That doesn’t do any good. We can go back and forth, but that doesn’t help the people of Lewiston.”… Read more here

Posted in Lewiston, secondary migration, refugee, Somali | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert apparently misinformed

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 26, 2011

Larry Gilbert, the Mayor of Lewiston, Maine spoke about refugee resettlement at a Senate hearing on immigration reform today. He claimed, incorrectly, that federal refugee assistance cannot be redirected when refugees migrate to new locations (secondary migration). In fact it is transferable. Further, he claimed that the assistance is inadequate, apparently unaware that the State Department just last year doubled initial resettlement assistance to $1800 per refugee. An article in the Morning Sentinel has more:

WASHINGTON – Lewiston’s experience with an influx of Somali immigrants shows the economic energy they can bring, but also the need for the federal government to do more to help the new residents settle into their new life, says Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert.

Gilbert testified Tuesday at a Senate hearing on immigration reform, a session that mostly focused on the system for attracting and retaining high-skill foreign workers in fields such as computer sciences and engineering.

But Gilbert was one of three mayors from around the country invited to address the broader topic of the economic impact of legal immigrants on local communities…

…more support, some of it from the federal government, is needed to help the immigrants living in Lewiston in areas such as workforce training and learning English, Gilbert said.

Aid from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is often available to help immigrants adjust to their new lives. However, the assistance is good for just eight months and does not follow an immigrant to a new city. If an immigrant starts receiving the assistance in, say, Atlanta, and then leaves that city after several months to live in Lewiston, the aid is cut off, Gilbert said.

This makes it harder for immigrants to find jobs and creates more of a hardship on the secondary migration city, Gilbert said.

The “inadequate federal funding associated with a refugee resettlement program simply does not meet the many needs of our refugee residents,” Gilbert said.

The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Read more here

Posted in Congress, funding, Lewiston, secondary migration, refugee, Somali, State Department | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Competent cultural orientation crucial for refugees’ adjustiment

Posted by Christopher Coen on November 16, 2010

There is an interesting article in a Lewiston, Maine newspaper, the Sun Journal. It discusses the phenomena that many refugee parents deal with once they arrive to the US and find they can no longer control their children. It turns out that because other cultures rely on corporal punishment to control children, refugees arriving in the U.S. simply need to be taught the usefulness of simple non-corporal punishment techniques for controlling children’s behavior — such as grounding and time-outs.

…Ambiya Bule, 34, is another parent involved in the Bantu Youth Association. She has five children, ages 1 to 14. She was born in Somalia, lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for 13 years, moved to Colorado in 2004, and to Lewiston in 2009.

She smiles broadly when she says she recently became a U.S. citizen.Bule joined the association so her children could play soccer and keep out of trouble, and she could get help parenting in a new land.

“Here, there is no parenting for us,” she said through an interpreter.

Warsame explained that parents have lost the disciplinary ways they knew in Africa.

“It’s different here,” he said. “Back home if they do something bad, we can use the cane or stick. But here, the only punishment we can do is talk to them.”

The look on Bule’s face indicated that talking doesn’t always work.

Through the association, parents are learning to set household rules and take away privileges, Warsame said. When his daughter misbehaves, he tells her she can’t watch television. But the concept of grounding is new; it didn’t exist in their old world… Read more here

Posted in children, cultural adjustment, Lewiston, Somali Bantu | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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