According to the Manchester Union Leader today, New Hampshire will be getting a new wave of refugees beginning with Iraqis and followed by Burundians.
Eight Iraqi refugees, including two physicians, will fly from Turkey to New Hampshire this week to rebuild their lives nearly 6,000 miles from their war-battered homeland.
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They will receive medical check-ups, tuberculosis tests, English training and food stamps to help get them started in their new world. In return, they are expected to get a job within 4 1/2 months and eventually pay back their airfare to America.
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They are part of the first wave of Iraqi refugees fleeing the war to land in New Hampshire.
The article goes on to report that Manchester has had its share of refugees since the Refugee Act of 1980 went into effect.
Since 1980, more than 5,000 refugees — roughly the population of Auburn or New Boston — have been resettled in Manchester from a variety of countries.
But the article was strangely silent on the ruckus that occured there a few years ago when residents of the city went ballistic when Somali Bantu arrived there in large numbers. I guess the refugee agencies have figured that the city had calmed down enough to bring more refugees. The article says the Iraqis are well educated, many speak English and had been translators (uh oh!), but the Burundians have lived in camps since 1972.
One thing is for sure, if the Iraqi doctors aren’t happy with America, like those Iraqis who have gone to Arizona, they won’t be getting a ticket home anytime soon.
“They left their houses, they left family members, they’re coming to a new culture,” he [Nabil Migalli, chairman of the Arab-American Forum]* said. “Will they go back to Iraq? Maybe some people might want to go back to Iraq. The situation doesn’t allow that to happen immediately or in the near future.”
No indeed, Mr. Migalli, there is work to be done here in America.
*Who is Nabil Migalli? According to New Hampshire magazine he is IT for 2007.
New Hampshire Magazine’s it List: Consider it the guest list for the best cocktail party ever. The 2007 It List is our selection of the 34 most interesting, happening, talked about people in the state. If you got these folks all in the same room, no telling what would transpire, but you can bet it wouldn’t be boring.
I bet he would be the life of the party if he explained over cocktails (no cocktails thank you!), this bit from a letter his Arab-American Forum of New Hampshire signed when it joined International ANSWER in 2004.
In the United States, we, Arab-Americans and Muslims have been maliciously targeted, stripped of our rights, and positioned outside the constitutional framework of this country. A new COINTELPRO has been unleashed against our homes and living rooms, as our fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters are plucked away and thrown into unknown prison cells.
Malicious targeting! Stripped of rights! Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters thrown into unknown prison cells. AAAAAH, say it isn’t so, not in the Live Free or Die state!
So, lets get this straight, Mr. Migalli, why then are you so eager to bring Iraqi refugees to this hell-hole of a country?