Darfurian refugees have begun to arrive in New Jersey, outside of New York City. (Approximately 480,000 Darfurians were killed, with over 2.8 million people displaced, in a conflict fueled by Sudan’s government between 2003 and 2010. In 2008 the International Criminal Court announced ten criminal charges against Sudan’s military leader and self-proclaimed President, Omar al-Bashir, including sponsoring war crimes and crimes against humanity.) The HIAS affiliate United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ says it will help to resettle three young Dafurian refugee men now, followed by several families and 25 young men in the next few months. The price of housing in the area is a concern, therefore the group is looking for donated space for transitional housing until the refugees can save up enough money from jobs to pay for housing. An article at New Jersey Jewish News explains:

After fleeing from the ravages of genocide in their native land, three refugees from Darfur are now crafting new lives in the MetroWest community with a large assist from the Jewish Vocational Service, a beneficiary agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.

Thanks to a $88,532 grant from the federal State Office of Refugee Resettlement, JVS has helped the men find transitional housing in the area, while providing caseworkers, translation services, English classes, vocational training, job coaching, and other support.

The men are the first wave of Darfuris to arrive in New Jersey, ahead of several families and 25 young men expected to be coming to this area in the next few months. JVS and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society hope to resettle 25 or more refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region, which suffered under genocidal attacks by the Sudanese government…

…“There are major issues,” said [Nancy Fisher, the agency’s assistant executive director for education and training]. “Each refugee is given $1,100 from the federal government when they arrive in the United States. For a family of five, the $5,500 can tide them over. But for the single guys, the $1,100 is not enough. We need to find them transitional housing at reduced rates. Housing around here is not cheap.”

To help out, JVS board members provided goods, services, and contributions for the refugees. The Sleepy’s mattress company donated five beds to a temporary housing facility in Newark for new arrivals.

“This is a huge expense we cannot pay for ourselves,” said Fisher.

JVS is looking for donated space for transitional housing.

“Maybe a large house or something connected to an old church or synagogue that is not being used, where they can spend a couple of months and get used to this country and its customs, then save a bit of money and move into their own places,” said Reilly. “For now, it would be helpful for some families to be willing to take in people, especially others who are coming soon”… Read more here

In November a report came out that revealed that 60% of Myanmar refugees living in Oakland were trapped in poverty. In December Iraqi refugees reported that the IRC had exposed them to extreme violence by resettling them to East Oakland (Nepali-Bhutanese refugees have also been mugged). Now comes word that a group of 22 Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in East Oakland are HIV positive and have been getting no health care at all. With a six-month wait for primary care appointments at a local health clinic, one of the refugees died while waiting. An article at New American Media mentions these facts:

OAKLAND, Calif.–Laura Lopez was running late. Inside the common room at Street Level Health Project clinic on Oakland’s International Boulevard, two Cambodian women and two Eritrean men were waiting for her. The group, representing Cambodian Community Development, Inc. and Eritrean Youth for Change, were here for one last meeting to prepare for an upcoming community health fair.

With the help of Lopez’s clinic, the refugee organizations were reaching out to their members to help them get basic health services…

…East Oakland…has been a resettlement site for a small but increasing numbers of refugees fleeing political repression in Burma, Bhutan, Nepal and other countries. Through one of their volunteers, who works at Eastmont Mall’s clinic, Lopez heard about a group of 22 Nepalese refugees who were HIV positive and getting no health care. Thus began the clinic’s work with the East Bay Refugee Forum and its members.

At the prep meeting for the community fair, Lopez and the refugee leaders were strategizing about how to pre-screen as many of their members as possible for health coverage enrollment at the May 19 event. This is no easy feat. At prior similar events, thousands of people eager for medical care had to be turned back for lack of required documents.

Jiwan Subba and Laxman Mahat from the Bhutanese Community in California have arrived to the meeting late from work. They raised the issue of Eastmont Mall’s and Highland Hospital’s six-month wait for primary care appointments. “By the time somebody gets an appointment, they’re dead,” Subba observed.

Mahat added that it happened to one of their community members… Read more here

After weeks of intensified incitement of the public against African asylum seekers by top Israeli right-wing and central right-wing government officials, mobs have now begun attacking the asylum seekers in the streets of Tel Aviv. Yesterday a mob attacked asylum seekers’ businesses and homes, threw stones at houses, broke windows of shops and houses, attacked random black people on the streets, looted two stores, and attacked a car packed with Africans, threatening the passengers and shattering the car’s windows. Police arrested seventeen people, but the attacks went on for hours. In an article in +972mag a journalist and political activist explains how the mob also besieged him, another journalist and a photographer:

It started out as a fairly quiet demonstration – or demonstrations, to be precise. One small demonstration took place in Shapira, my neighborhood, where several weeks ago an Israeli young man threw Molotov cocktails into asylum seekers’ homes. The dominant discourse here was, as is typical of the neighborhood, more moderate, and focused on blaming the government (and not the asylum seekers) for local hardships in south Tel Aviv.

…It all started with one woman who came at me out of nowhere, and started screaming: “You throw stones at soldiers! Shame on you! Get the hell out of here!” I tried to say that I have never thrown stones at anybody in my life, but she was not exactly in the mood for dialogue. “You lie! I see you every week on television throwing stones at soldiers and calling them Nazis!”

From this point on everything happened extremely fast. The one woman turned into two, then a group of ten people, which kept on growing. I tried to explain that this was a misunderstanding, that I never attacked any soldier, that I am a resident of Shapira and a journalist covering the protest. But I was talking to myself. Nobody was listening…

…I knew no one would come to my aid. Faced with the angry mob and seeing more people coming from behind me and looking for action – I chose flight…

…I was walking back towards my part of town when I heard a massive cry, looked back, and was horrified to see the mass – about 1,000 people strong – racing forward in my direction, screaming “Sudanese to Sudan!”…

…A car packed with Africans was caught in the crowd, its windows shattered, its riders threatened and saved by police. Seeing this from afar I decided it was time to go home, but reports kept flowing in: the mob turned back into Hatikva and attacked asylum seekers’ businesses and homes, looted at least one store, and attacked random black people on the streets. Seventeen were arrested, but the attacks went on for hours. An Activestills photographer present on the scene later told me that the pictures he took tell only a small portion of the story. He was threatened not to take pictures of looters, and saw so many stones thrown at houses and people beaten (mostly quite lightly) on the streets – that he couldn’t possibly take pictures of it all.

Morning is now up, broken windows of shops and houses need mending, and the peace is somewhat restored. At the end of the day, we must remember that most of the people in our southern neighborhoods largely live together in peace. Many try to bridge gaps and find solutions. Many on both sides know that their enemy is not the asylum seekers or the local Israeli population but the government – which is both creating this impossibly flammable situation and throwing burning matches into it. But this is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning. Read more here

More media articles: Independent journalist and editor Noam Sheizaf explains the poverty underlying the Tel Aviv neighborhoods where politicians are trying to whip up and inflame populist hysteria before elections within year or so.

Jerusalem-based journalist and writer Mya Guarnieri explains the connection between profits and anti-African incitement. The Interior Ministry, whose head has been a ringleader in the incitement, has been busy taking fees from tens of thousands of migrant workers for work permits, while denying African asylum seekers the ability to work. This, while in 2010 the government embarked on a campaign against asylum seekers, including advertisements in which actors claimed that foreigners had taken their jobs.

There is now a surge of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees resettling to Akron, Ohio. This happens when refugees seek to join their relatives already resettled in a local area (refugees termed as “geo cases”) as well as my secondary migration from other US cities (the Nepali-Bhutanese may be hearing from friends and families that jobs are available in Akron). Of course the surge puts pressure on the local resettlement agency to find a lot of material-item donations – e.g. furniture, essential household items, clothes, toiletries – in a relatively short period. Akron’s Beacon-Journal newspaper explains:

When members of the Bhutanese family arrived in Akron from a refugee camp in Nepal, they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few keepsakes in a bag.

The International Institute of Akron provided them with a furnished apartment, a hot meal and all of life’s little essentials, including kitchen gadgets, towels, sheets, blankets and cleaning items.

“It was a difficult life in the camps for 20 years,” said Bhim Subba, 50, who traveled to Akron with his wife and two children in February. “We were seeing no future there and decided to be resettled.”

The institute expects to serve a record number of refugees this month, with 85 already arriving as of late last week and the possibility of more in the remainder of the month. The figure is more than double the 30 to 40 refugees the agency normally gets in a month.

With the influx, the institute is looking for donations of basic items for the families.

“We need it all,” said Debbie May-Johnson, executive director of the institute…

…May-Johnson said most of the refugees coming into Akron are from Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal and Burmese camps in Thailand. She said they are asking to come to Akron because they already have family here, with refugees from these camps settling in the city for the past five years.

May-Johnson said the institute has an equal number of refugees who come from other U.S. cities to Akron, seeking job opportunities and affordable housing… Read more here

Like the program that is welcoming immigrants to Dayton, Ohio, Michigan now has an initiative called “Welcoming Michigan” that seeks to welcome immigrants and their entrepreneurial talents. The article points out that, “the U.S. Small Business Administration found that the foreign-born were more than three times as likely as non-immigrants to start a new business,” and, “last year, according to CNN Money, ‘immigrants created 28% of all new firms.’” An article at Immigration Impact explains the case:

While some states pushed for punitive immigration measures over the last year—measures designed to drive immigrants away —others, like those in Michigan, were busy putting together a plan that welcomes immigrants and their revitalizing power to the state. This month, leaders in Michigan—including state Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) and U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-Detroit)—helped launch “Welcoming Michigan,” a statewide initiative that seeks to welcome immigrants and their entrepreneurial talents to Michigan…

…Michigan joins 19 others states in welcoming immigrants, including Ohio whose recent “Welcome Dayton Plan” has garnered national attention as a model for other states…

…While proponents of harsh immigration laws falsely believe that forcing immigrants out of the state “will free up jobs for Americans,” Welcoming America points out that in an aging America, booting immigrants from the state means a “smaller gross state product, smaller revenue bases for the state shrinking budgets, and smaller local markets for products and services produced in the state … a smaller population base means a poorer, weaker, and less competitive Michigan.” In fact, Standard and Poor’s Rating Service reported this week that cities with high numbers of foreign born saw tax bases grow and per-capita income increase.

Immigrants who live in Michigan are already contributing to the state’s economy. They accounted for 11% of total economic output in the Detroit metropolitan area as of 2007 and comprised 6.8% of the state’s workforce. Additionally, the U.S. Small Business Administration found that the foreign born were more than three times as likely as non-immigrants to start a new business. Last year, according to CNN Money, “immigrants created 28% of all new firms.”… Read more here

Following dire warnings from Israeli government leaders and intense media reporting of rising crime in the south Tel Aviv neighborhood of Shapira, supposedly caused by African asylum-seekers, a journalist set out on a walk through the neighborhood to see for herself the disruption caused by the asylum-seeking so-called “infiltrators”. Yet, she finds the streets strangely calm, the parks clean, and people going about their daily business. Her article is at Haaretz:

A few weeks ago, in a fit of hatred, someone, or some more than one, threw Molotov cocktails at a kindergarten and apartments used by foreign workers in south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood, “causing significant property damage but no injuries or loss of life,” in journalese.

This week I took a walk in Shapira. It was Wednesday, the day after the demonstrators returned – some protesting government policy on labor migrants, others against the migrants themselves and still others expressing solidarity with them and denouncing racism…

…I am no stranger to Shapira, having visited it on a few occasions to walk around, to check out housing options, to visit friends, but this was the first time I came to see “the other.”…

…The parks are clean. The main park, built after a battle by residents, on the site of a transformer station, is enviable – well-maintained lawns, a beautiful, shaded wood, the latest sports and playground equipment.

“Well, the city makes sure to keep it clean because of the situation, that’s why it’s clean,” a… neighborhood activist says. We’ll call him B.

The park is calm this afternoon, and no one is sleeping on the slide – “You come with your kid and oops, someone’s sleeping there,” says B. It happens in central Tel Aviv, too.

An African woman, smiling and nicely dressed, pushes three sweet, cared-for children. The baby, adorable in a white dress, laughs at her siblings…

…I get on my bike to look for the things that N. and B. mentioned: people living in the street, cooking in the street, urinating and defecating in the street and in parks; people gathering in large groups; people drinking.

I believe N. and B., but I can’t find evidence of such behavior. The neighborhood seems empty, sleepy… Read more here

Yet Israeli government officials and the police claim that the African asylum-seekers account for 40 percent of Tel Aviv’s crimes. Really? According to another article at +972mag police crime data shows that the crime rate among foreigners in Israel stood at 2.04 percent in 2010, compared with 4.99 percent among Israelis:

Several Sudanese and Eritrean nationals were recently arrested in two separate cases involving the rape of Israeli women and the murder of an Eritrean woman. The media extensively covered these horrible crimes, followed by a long line of politicians quoting frightening police claims that Africans account for 40 percent of Tel Aviv’s crimes. Those politicians are led by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who dared to say in an interview this week that most “African infiltrators are criminals.”

The press similarly reported in early May that “asylum seekers are involved in 40 percent of crimes,” relying on police figures recently presented to the government. This statistic is shocking, but not as shocking as the fact that senior Israel Police officers are willing to tell lies in an effort to gain a chunk of the huge budget that the government has allotted to the war against African refugees.

Real police data, presented in a meeting held by the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers on March 19, indicate that the crime rate among foreigners in Israel stood at 2.24 percent in 2011 (1,223 criminal cases out of a total of 54,497 foreigners)…

The 2011 data on Israeli crime has not yet been published, but according to police data reported to the Knesset, the crime rate among the general population in Israel stood at 4.99 percent in 2010. This figure demonstrates that the general crime rate in Israel is more than double that of Africans in Israel… Read more here

The president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Gideon Aronoff, has announced that effective May 31 he is resigning. An article at JTA has the details:

…Gideon Aronoff of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society…announced Wednesday in a letter to friends that he will be stepping down effective May 31; Mark Hetfield, senior vice president for policy and programs at HIAS, will be the interim president and CEO…

…Aronoff’s tenure at HIAS was not without controversy. As president and CEO, he was an unapologetic proponent of HIAS’ advocacy and support for non-Jewish immigration to America — something some Jewish critics saw as outside the scope of HIAS’ raison d’etre.

Aronoff never saw it that way…

…There’s also a pragmatic reason for pursuing a more universalist mission, Aronoff said: If HIAS simply were to be dormant except in times of great Jewish need, it wouldn’t have the capacity or ability to respond when the Jewish world suddenly needs it.

“It would be both irresponsible and unethical to not help others where we can and to not preserve and build capacity for future Jewish emergencies,” he said. “You can’t run a resettlement network for a few hundred Jewish refugees nationally. It’s not possible to not have a resettlement network when, 10 years from now, you need it. So from a pragmatic basis, the work with non-Jewish refugees is essential.”

When I asked him where those Jewish emergencies might emerge, he cited instability in a number of Latin American countries with Jewish populations, mentioned the political problems in Hungary, and said that French Jews were really shaken by the shooting attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse in March that left four dead… Read more here

Denver police say a group that killed Sudanese refugee Jimma Reat were out on a night of car theft and trouble-making, and included two unspecified juvenile gang members (it was the Latin Kings gang that attacked Sudanese refugees in 2002 in Chicago). The Denver 911 director has now fired a 911 operator for withholding medical assistance from one of the Sudanese callers, who repeatedly asked for medical aid, and wrongly telling him to return to the scene of the first incident, where Reet was then killed. An article in the Denver Post (and here) has updated information on the case:

Denver police believe a group that included two juvenile gang members out on a night of car theft and troublemaking killed Sudanese refugee Jimma Reat.

No arrests have been made in the case. Police are asking for the public’s help in locating witnesses or others involved in the shooting in the early hours of April 1.

Reat, 25, was shot in the back blocks from West 10th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Denver, where he and other members of his family were taunted by a group of Latino men driving a stolen Jeep who threw bottles and waved a gun at their vehicle.

After the altercation, Reat and his family went to their apartment in Wheat Ridge. A 911 operator told them to return to Denver, where they were fired upon by the same group that had attacked them moments before.

Denver 911 director Carl Simpson on Tuesday fired the operator for mishandling the call.

“Witnesses say there were four or five parties in the vehicle,” Detective Randy Denison said of the suspects’ car. “What we are looking for is to identify the other possible occupants.”

The occupants of the Jeep didn’t flash gang signs or tout any gang affiliation, but the criminal history of the two teens now suspected suggests they are gang members, Denison said. He said he didn’t know whether one of them — or someone else in the Jeep — fired the fatal shot…

…Reat and his companions didn’t see the Jeep until it pulled up beside them at a light. “There was not much conversation. The brothers say these guys just pull up beside them, and they think they are just saying, ‘Hello,’ and Jimma and his friends just kind of wave. They just think these guys are just giving them the nod,” Denison said… Read more here

A South Sudanese refugee who arrived in Rochester, NY at age 14 as an unaccompanied minor was murdered on Tuesday. Paul Chol Awuol was holding a friend’s son when a man just came up and shot him in the chest, according to the friend, Jessica Lane. He was in the process of becoming a certified nursing assistant, focused on helping others, when he went to Smith Street Tuesday to watch Lane’s child. In 2010 Sudanese refugees in Rochester reported finding a bullet hole in their apartment ceiling after three men were shot to death in the apartment above. A report at CBS Channel 8 gives details:

As Rochester police search for a suspect in Tuesday’s Smith Street homicide, friends of Paul Chol Awuol say the Sudanese refugee was shot in the chest while watching a close friend’s son.

Jerry DeLuccio wants people to remember Awuol as more than a crime statistic. “This was a young man that has made such a difference,” he said…

…Awuol was in the process of becoming a certified nursing assistant, focused more and more on helping others.  That’s what led him to Smith Street Tuesday, to watch a friend’s child.  “He was holding my son in his hand when this man came and just shot him in the chest,” said friend Jessica Lane through tears.

A small memorial has begun where the Sudanese refugee fell, the painful irony all too clear.  The man who came to America as a boy to escape violence was ultimately killed by a gunman.  “That’s what hurts me so much, is that he was ready to explode, in terms of how he would help others and we’re never going to have that chance,” said DeLuccio… Read more here

It was just three weeks ago that a newspaper article featured the International Institute of New Jersey (IINJ) and explained the agency’s services and activities. There was not even a hint of any brewing problems. Today the same newspaper has announced the IINJ’s abrupt closing, and just a day after another article announced that the agency was “downsizing” due to $800,000 in federal and state aid cuts. Now it turns out that when the April article appeared the IINJ had not paid its rent in seven months. An article today in The Jersey Journal announced the closing:

Reversing comments they made yesterday, officials with the International Institute of New Jersey (IINJ), a Jersey City-based nonprofit that provides services for immigrants, said today the organization will be closing by mid-June and declaring bankruptcy.

Yesterday, the director and chair of the organization, told The Jersey Journal the nonprofit was “downsizing” and relocating due to a total of $800,000 in federal and state aid cuts. 

The organization’s budget is $1.8 million a year, according to IINJ executive director Catherine Tansey.

According to an email sent to supporters from IINJ board chair Bill Armbruster that was obtained by The Jersey Journal, the nonprofit, located at 1 Journal Square, ended most operations on Friday, “though some will continue to the end of the month”…

…”We are supposed to make the final payments to the staff on May 18, but that will depend on when funds arrive,” he wrote. “We will be filing for bankruptcy shortly after we receive the last grant money due the Institute, which will probably be around mid-June.”

In the email, Armbruster states the organization owes eight months in back rent. “The cutbacks in government funding and our inability to raise sufficient private funds, whether from corporations, foundations and individual donors, put us in a chronic deficit,” he states.

IINJ employs 12 full-time staff and has 10 AmeriCorps volunteers, IINJ officials said yesterday.

IINJ has been serving immigrants in Hudson County since 1918… Read more here