Archive for the ‘Pennsylvania’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 26, 2012
In 2010, about 3,500 lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) refugees were resettled in the U.S. – including about 125 in Pennsylvania – and about 1,000 LGBT asylum seekers are also entering the country.Most LGBT people who come here as refugees or seeking asylum don’t identify as LGBT, making sensitive resettlement services trickier to apply. In Philadelphia the Nationalities Service Center is resettling some of these refugees. An article in the Philadelphia Daily News explains:
…refugees classified as lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) [are being] resettled in Philadelphia by the Nationalities Service Center, the city’s largest refugee-resettlement agency…
…Until recent years, LGBT refugees in the U.S. were more likely to identify their persecution as ethnic, religious or political, said Juliane Ramic, the NSC’s director of social services.
On Dec. 6, President Obama issued a presidential memorandum directing the first-ever U.S. government strategy dedicated to combating human-rights abuses against LGBT people abroad. On the same day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in Geneva about the need to protect LGBT people. “In many ways, they are an invisible minority,” she said. “They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed.”
The NSC in Philadelphia, along with representatives from the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, conducted training to help ensure that refugee-resettlement agencies and other service providers understand the vulnerabilities of LGBT refugees and asylees before, during and after resettlement.
Because most LGBT people who come here as refugees or seeking asylum don’t identify as LGBT, reliable statistics on their numbers are hard to come by. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not identify or track LGBT refugees, and information on sexual orientation or gender identity rarely is reflected in refugees’ files, according to the Heartland Alliance.
In 2010, about 3,500 LGBT refugees were resettled in the U.S. – including about 125 in Pennsylvania – and about 1,000 LGBT asylum seekers entered the country, the Heartland Alliance estimates… Read more here
Posted in Heartland Alliance, LGBT refugees, Nationalities Service Center, Obama administration, Philadelphia | Tagged: gay, glbt, lesbian, lgbt, lgbti, Nationalities Service Center, Philadelphia, refugees, resettlement, transgendered | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 19, 2012
Last month attorney Zoe Ann Olson at Idaho Legal Aid Services, Inc. told us about her efforts to help refugees in Idaho whom resettlement agencies had damaged their credit ratings via reporting them to Trans-Union. Now comes word that the State Department is planning the significant changes to the refugee Travel Loan Program. Beginning in October, those refugees owing the most money will see their monthly payments capped according to a formula that the State Department has not yet finalized. An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer has the details:
…In the land of the free, [refugees] are instant debtors.
Depending on the size of the family and how far the plane traveled, the bill can exceed $10,000, a sum beyond what many refugees would make in a lifetime back home.
They must begin reimbursing the federal government after five months, and pay in full within 42 months. They are warned that credit bureaus are kept apprised of their punctuality, or lack of it.
“Our goal is not to care for them in . . . perpetual victimhood,” said David Robinson, acting assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, which oversees the program. Loans tell them “it’s not a one-way street.”
Refugee advocates, who give orientations on financial literacy even before the displaced leave the camps, agree the program teaches a critical lesson in responsible borrowing. But criticism has mounted that it also imposes too heavy a burden on families already weighed down by multiple disadvantages.
So the State Department is planning the first significant changes to the Travel Loan Program in its 32-year history. Beginning in October, those owing the most money will see their monthly payments capped according to a formula still under review.
The change will make the program “more equitable,” Robinson said. “In some cases, individually, the burden may [have been] too high.”
Of the 28 nations that take in refugees, the United States accepts the vast majority – 57,000 out of a total of about 80,000 last year, from more than 60 countries. But only the United States and Canada require repayment. Canada charges interest; America does not.
The federal government paid nearly $43 million in airfares last year, and so far has collected $1.7 million.
Data released to The Inquirer last week by the International Organization for Migration, the intergovernmental group that dispenses the travel money, show that almost half the loans since 2002 – 45 percent – were not repaid during the prescribed 42 months. About 25 percent, or one in four families, is delinquent by 180 days or more.
“We don’t want anybody to fall into [delinquency],” Robinson said, “but we know people do.”…
…The pot shrinks automatically because the 10 nongovernmental agencies that collect the loans keep 25 percent for operating costs.
The travel-loan program’s administrators say it bends over backward to work out repayment plans and never seeks liens for failure to pay. About $14 million – three percent of the total outlay since 2002 – was forgiven because of a death in the family, disability, or other hardship… Read more here
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Philadelphia, Travel Loan Program | Tagged: International Organization for Migration, IOM, refugees, State Department, Travel Loan, travel loan program | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 19, 2012
A local friend of the Bhutanese refugees in Harrisburg contacted us to report that the attacks on the refugees have continued since police reported earlier this month that they suspected a small group of local teens.
I live near Harrisburg Pennsylvania and became involved with the refugee community there in 2010. I am deeply troubled by the victimization that they experience and would like to see more attention brought to it…most of it in the area on Green Street, but some in the area of Magnolia Hill (Thomas street off of Market). Robberies, assaults, and even entry into homes. It has them afraid to be outside. Some families have already fled the Green Street area…[since the police began investigating a group of teenagers] the problems haven’t gotten better…it’s probably the same…kids. Police don’t really help. However, the refugees are starting to think defensively. I’ve bought pepper spray for some of them and instructed them on its use.
Posted in Harrisburg-Mechanicsburg, Nepali Bhutanese, police, safety | Tagged: assaults, bhutanese, crime spree, Green Street, home invasion, Magnolia Hill, nepalese, refugees, resettlement, robberies | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 2, 2012
***UPDATE** February 7, 2012 — Police say a group of five or six local high school age teens responsible.
Police believe that refugees have been targeted in a string of strong-arm robberies and attacks since January in Harrisburg, Penn. A blurb at FOX-43 explains:
Since early January into February, Harrisburg Police are investigating a string of strong-arm robberies and attacks that have struck the Uptown Harrisburg neighborhood.
Police believe many of the attacks have targeted refugees…
…The attacks have ripped the quiet and diverse community apart said Tanya Jones, who has several neighbors from Nepal, “They are very descent people to live around.”… Read more here
Posted in Harrisburg-Mechanicsburg, Nepali Bhutanese, police, safety | Tagged: bhutanese, Harrisburg, Nepal, nepalese, refugees, resettlement, robbery | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on December 15, 2011
Mechanicsburg in Central Pennsylvania is another site of “secondary migration” – refugees moving away from their primary resettlement area, looking for better opportunities or wanting to join family or friends. Catholic Charities Immigration and Refugee Services in nearby Harrisburg also resettles refugees directly to the area. The area’s factory jobs are a good fit for those with limited English. The Somali Association of Central Pennsylvania works to help refugees become independent. An article in The Patriot-News explains:
To most, learning to write down a telephone or Social Security number wasn’t a big deal.
But to 67-year-old Abdiyo Osman, who doesn’t know English, the task is a milestone.
Displaced from Somalia three years ago because of a tribal war that’s been brewing there for 20 years, Osman has been in Mechanicsburg ever since.
Some might wonder why the refugee came to the midstate, a place the polar opposite of her native land. She came here for the Somali Association of Central Pennsylvania.
Established in 2008 in Hampden Twp., word of mouth spread spread quickly that Somalis had gathered there to start new lives in the United States. Once they arrive, the association helps them adjust to life much different than back home…
…Osman spent a short time in Kenya before coming to the states, but she never got an education — until she came here.
Three times a week, Osman meets with several other refugees and takes classes in a tiny room in a small building in the West Shore office park off the Carlisle Pike. It is there Osman has learns how to write and adapt to American Culture.
One week it’s a lesson about the U.S. medical system and health care. The next week it’s budgeting money and opening a bank account. “It’s important to be able to do those basic things,” Osman said.
The Somali Association of Central Pennsylvania also works with various hiring agencies to help find refugees work in factories. Since most can’t speak English yet, it’s work that’s easiest to find.
With a job and basic life skills, refugees take steps toward the association’s idea of success — independent living.
It’s a life defined by opportunity as much as challenge… Read more here
Posted in cultural adjustment, economic self-sufficiency, employment/jobs for refugees, ESL & ELL, Harrisburg-Mechanicsburg, language, secondary migration, refugee, Somali | Tagged: Catholic Charities Immigration and Refugee Services, factory, Hampden, Harrisburg, limited English, Mechanicsburg, refugees, resettlement, secondary migration, Somali Association of Central Pennsylvania | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 9, 2011
An in-depth article on the events surrounding the December 2009 attack on dozens of Asian refugee children at a south Philadelphia school, that resulted in 13 refugee children taken to the emergency room, reveals the extent that teachers, the principle, security guards and other staff were present and unresponsive as the attacks occurred. Refugee students report that the principle disappeared while walking children home just before vicious beatings took place. Teachers and cafeteria staff called the students “Yo Dragonball” or “Yo Chinese” and even mocked their accents. The School District of Philadelphia also apparently has an ongoing pattern of unresponsiveness to reports of students bullying refugee students, despite an early 2011 settlement with the Justice Department.
The article also points to relatively large number of refugees from Burma/Myanmar that the State Department resettled in a relatively short period, which the school district was not ready to accommodate. These are some of the considerations the State Department needs to make when reading glowing annual resettlement proposals from their private resettlement contractors
We should not underestimate the catastrophic long-term damage to refugees resulting from these brutalities during their formative years. The article points out that bullying can lead to a lifetime of low self-worth, suicide attempt or depression, and that doesn’t even consider the trauma, tumult and deprivation that refugee have already endured before their resettlement. Hyphen Magazine magazine published this article:
On a cold December day in 2009, just weeks before Christmas, 15-year-old Trang Dang was walking home from school with her sister and eight friends, all recent Vietnamese immigrants. Also part of their group: the principal of their school.
Dang, who is 5’9” with a medium build and a dimpled, contagious smile, asked the principal to accompany them because she and the others were terrified by the intense bullying and violence against Asian students that had taken place earlier that day at their school, South Philadelphia High School. Midway through the walk, the principal, LaGreta Brown, disappeared, Dang said. “She walked to the corner with us and then we didn’t see her anymore,” Dang said. They debated whether to stay or continue walking. “Our friends said if we stand here, we’ll get in trouble,” Dang said. So they opted to try to make it home that day on their own.
They never did.
About half a block from school, a mob of at least two dozen students started chasing them. Dang was the first to be caught. She was punched in the face, shattering her glasses. “It was a quick hit and then they ran,” she said. “After I got hit, then my mind just went blank. I was crying. It wasn’t that painful, I think, but I don’t really remember. I think because I’ve tried to forget about that day.” The entire group was cornered, and all were hit. Dang still doesn’t know for sure why the principal seemingly left the group…
…The entire day, roving gangs of high schoolers searched for and attacked Asian teenagers in a nightmarish ordeal. Most of the attacks took place on the premises of this poor school in south Philadelphia while teachers, security guards and other staff were present.
In total, at least 26 Asian immigrant students were physically assaulted in a series of violent conflicts. Thirteen Asian students ended up in the emergency room for injuries ranging from a broken nose to black eyes. One had to have surgery because he could no longer breathe through his nose…
…Some speculate that the ethnic tensions at the school can be attributed to lack of adult intervention, adults modeling bad behavior such as racially charged name calling, stereotypes and an influx of Asian students in a relatively short time period without the school or district adequately addressing the changes…
…In the last five years, there were 534 documented assaults at the school, more than any other in the district…
…In some cases, bullying can lead to thoughts of suicide, according to Eliza Noh, an Asian American studies professor at California State University, Fullerton, who has studied suicide among Asian Americans. “Some Asian American women I interviewed reported being victims of racist bullying when they were young, contributing to their low self-worth, suicide attempt or depression later in life,” Noh said. Liu pointed out bullying victims are essentially trauma victims who experience post-traumatic stress disorder similar to war veterans. He warned that young people may experience psychosomatic symptoms like feeling ill, as well as hypervigilance, heightened startled responses, depression and social withdrawal… Read more here
Posted in abuse, Burma/Myanmar, capacity, children, dangerous neighborhoods, Dept. of Justice, FBI, mental health, Philadelphia, safety, schools, State Department, teenagers | Tagged: Asian, bullying, Burmese, children, Myanmar, Philadelphia, refugees, resettlement, South Philadelphia High School, State Department | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 1, 2011
As if the difficulties for refugees in adjusting to a new culture weren’t hard enough – while dealing with the heavy emotional baggage that stems from loss of family, loss of home, and extended periods in refugee camps – the US refugee resettlement program continues to place many of them in crime-ridden neighborhoods where the refugees fear for their lives. Thus, exacerbating mental health conditions (I have lobbied with the State Department for change in this issue since 2001 – see a 2005 letter). Philadelphia is one of the problem resettlement sites. An article in NewsWorks has the story:
War, torture, loss of family and friends–refugees arriving in the United States often carry heavy emotional baggage. Then they endure the strains of adjusting to a new culture. Agencies working with refugees new to Philadelphia are puzzling out how to help this population cope with its burdens…
…Refugees may have experienced loss of family, loss of home, arduous flight, extended periods in refugee camps, and then all of the challenges around readjustment.
For Khin Khin, who is from Burma, the readjustment struggles began right away. She fled to the U.S. with her husband, who was persecuted in Burma for his political activities. Arriving in Philadelphia, a service agency set her family up in a temporary apartment in a very bad neighborhood. “I know that America is not heaven, but we think that we can live very safely, but my husband when we first arrived, he was robbed,” recalled Khin Khin. “He was so scared to call the police because that guy said, ‘if you call the police I will kill you’, so he is so scared.”
Khin Khin remembers hearing gunfire all the time. She felt isolated, since no other Burmese families lived nearby. She had a sick infant, who required several surgies. At times, stress, anxiety and worry were and still are overwhelming. During a recent physical, she says her doctors recommended counseling. Khin Khin says she was told to share her feelings with a therapist, but she doesn’t want to do that because she is too shy… Read more here
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, cultural adjustment, dangerous neighborhoods, Lutheran Children and Family Service (Philadelphia), mental health, Philadelphia, reform, safety, State Department | Tagged: Burma, crime, dangerous neighborhoods, mental health, Myanmar, Philadelphia, refugees, resettlement, State Department, U.S. Department of State | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 30, 2011
It turns out that resettlement agencies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have not been giving coats or good shoes to refugees as early as the winter of 2009 (even though resettlement agencies sign a contract with the US State Department promising that they will give refugees Appropriate seasonal clothing required for work, school, and everyday use as required for all members of the family, including proper footwear for each member of the family, here). A school district official also visited refugee families and found instances where two or more Bhutanese families sharing an apartment. The two local resettlement agencies, Church World Service Lancaster and Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern PA, apparently had not even informed the School District of Lancaster – or at least the School District’s point person for homeless students – about the arrival of the Bhutanese families. An article in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era covers this resettlement site:
In late 2009, with winter setting in, the children of some Bhutanese families were coming to school without coats or good shoes.
Ken Marzinko, School District of Lancaster’s point person for homeless students, started visiting the parents, and in some cases, found two or more Bhutanese families sharing an apartment.
“I was caught off guard,” Marzinko said of hearing about the refugees and their needs.
Like most Americans, Marzinko wasn’t aware the United States had in 2008 begun taking in 60,000 of the more than 100,000 Bhutanese crowding camps in Nepal. More than 800 now live in Lancaster County, and many more are in the pipeline... Read more here
The most recent State Department inspections of the two local resettlement agencies, from 2006, show other problems. The report for Church World Service Lancaster shows that only 53% of refugee clients were employed after 90 days, even though jobs at that time were quite plentiful in Lancaster, with an unemployment rate of only 3.4% in 2006. Agency staff had also used white out throughout the case logs.
The Lutheran Children and Family Service inspection report also showed that refugees’ relatives who helped with their resettlement did not understand that the agency was ultimately responsible for all contract requirements. Apparently the agency had duped these relatives into believing that they were responsible for the requirements of the agency’s contract (a common occurence according to these State Department monitoring reports). In three of four refugee homes that monitors visited, batteries in smoke detectors were dead.
Although the two agencies, the Lutheran agency being a subcontractor of LIRS, were vested with the State Department contract requirement that each refugee receive a physical health screening within 30 days, refugees were not being screened within that time requirement. Case logs also did not make references to airport reception of refugees and employment referals – as supposedly equired – so that there was no documentation that these services were provided by the resettlement agencies.
Posted in children, clothes, Cooperative Agreement, CWS, employment services, faith-based, housing, housing, overcrowding, late health screenings, Lutheran, Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern PA, meeting refugees at the airport, Nepali Bhutanese, Operational Guidance, Pennsylvania, State Department | Tagged: bhutanese, Church World Service, Church World Service Lancaster, CWS, federal contractors, LIRS, Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern Pennsylvania, Lutheran immigration and refugee services, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 21, 2011
Once again a school in Philadelphia is the subject of a case involving a refugee child beaten so badly that he had to go to a hospital. A year ago 30 Asian refugee children went to the hospital after just one bullying incident. Now, a Liberian refugee father claims that his pleas to a teacher and principal about the regular beatings of his 6-year-old son brought no relief, and that a phone call and later letter to the district superintendent also got no
response. An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer explains the story:
At first, Gbahtuo Comgbaye, a West African immigrant, was more puzzled than worried when his 6-year-old son started coming home from school with bruises on his chest and neck.
His concern turned to alarm on a mid-September morning as he helped his child, Menduawor, get dressed for the day. The boy tearfully asked, “If my friends beat me up, and hurt me, and wanted to kill me, would you do something about it?”
The story that emerged: Menduawor, a slight, soft-spoken boy, was being routinely beaten by three bigger first-grade classmates at Patterson School in Southwest Philadelphia. They told him, “We don’t like your name.”…
…Comgbaye described his growing horror as his son came home from school bruised and shaken day after day. He said that his pleas to the teacher and principal brought no relief and that a phone call and subsequent letter to the district superintendent got no response.
At the end of September, the boy was beaten so severely that his mother took him to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Hospital records show Menduawor was treated for chest and abdominal injuries, which physician Sarah Wood wrote were caused by blows from a person or object...Read more here
Posted in abuse, children, dangerous neighborhoods, Liberian, Philadelphia, safety, school for refugee children, schools | Tagged: accountability, bullying, human rights, Liberian, Philadelphia, refugees, resettlement, schools | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 3, 2011
A series of robberies, physical assaults and even a BB gun shooting have recently created fear among Bhutanese refugees resettled to Erie, Pennsylvania. Joel Tuzynski, the executive director of the Multicultural Community Resource Center has written an opinion piece in the Erie Times-News about the issue.
…Erie has been fortunate to be the new home to several hundred new arrivals of the Bhutanese Nepali community…
…Their transition from an Eastern tradition into Erie has become a very difficult journey because some of the “criminals in our midst” have seen these people as “easy marks.”
There have been a series of robberies, physical assaults and even a BB gun shooting, that have recently created fear and wondering among the Nepali regarding their new home.
These attacks upon young Nepali men and women, who are naive to the ways of the modern world, trusting of others, and non-violent by choice, are verging upon what we fear is becoming “ethnic intimidation” at this point.
Erie Mayor Joe Sinnott and Erie Police Chief Steve Franklin are trying to work with the Nepali community about reporting and solving these crimes.
…when a young man is robbed in broad daylight outside of our MCRC [Multicultural Community Resource Center] — a program that exists to welcome and assist them — it is time to call the public’s attention to this situation, which has reoccurred too often.
The physical assaults, robberies and intimidation, must stop, as it is a violation of basic civil rights guaranteed to all people under our Constitution.
We call upon our neighborhood watches, the police SWAT teams, local, state and federal officials and other concerned citizens to help us stop this targeted, criminal, uncivilized, mean-spirited, ill treatment of our newest neighbors, the Nepali community… Read more here
This case gets back to the issue of using refugees to boost the number of inhabitants of US cities with declining populations. Erie’s population was 138,440 in 1960, which declined to 101,786 in 2010. Is it ethical to use these people — as part of a humanitarian program — to boost declining population levels, when many of these places are also particularly unsafe for refugees during their vulnerable time of transition?
Posted in Catholic Charities, dangerous neighborhoods, Erie, Hindu, International Institute of Erie, intimidation of refugees, Nepali Bhutanese, police, population levels, using refugees as pawns to boost, safety | Tagged: BB gun, bhutanese, catholic charities, erie, ethnic intimidation, International Institute of Erie, Joel Tuzynski, MCRC, mugging, Multicultural Community Resource Center, nepalese, Nepali, physical assaults, police, refugees, resettlement, robberies | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
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