This is the first time I’ve seen anything about refugees being resettled in Alaska. It appears that there is a stepped up effort going on to be sure Alaska gets to share in the joys of diversity too! From Catholic News Agency:
Anchorage, Alaska, Jul 18, 2009 / 02:21 pm (CNA).- In Anchorage, Catholic Social Services is committed to living out the Gospel mandate, in which Jesus called his followers to welcome the stranger. This is a blessing for people like the Kafley family, who fled the terrors of ethnic cleansing in their homeland of Bhutan in the Eastern Himalayas.
“The government of Bhutan was trying to rid Bhutan of people of Nepalese origin,” explained Patrick Pillai, who mentors the Kafleys through a CSS program. “People were fleeing the country, but Nepal did not want to accept them all because it would sanction the persecution.”
As the official refugee resettlement agency for Alaska, CSS is commissioned to receive people who can no longer live in their own country due to political or religious persecution, war, famine, ethnic cleansing and a host of other woes. If Alaska has been chosen as their destination from among those sent by the United Nations to the U.S., CSS does the work of acclimating them to their new homeland.
And, check this out Alaskans, you are getting Somalis as well.
Last year, CSS welcomed 85 refugees directly from their countries of origin. They came from the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine and Russia. This year refugees have included those from Bhutan and Cuba.
Statistics for Alaska and your state too can be found here, just follow the links to the ORR databases. I just looked up the previous few years for Alaska and in 2006 Alaska resettled 4 Cubans, 16 from the former Soviet Union, and 4 Vietnamese, for a total of 24 refugees. In 2007, 30 former Soviet Union (they don’t break it down, maybe Uzbeks) refugees were resettled in Alaska. So, the numbers are increasing.
To new readers: I haven’t kept up the “your state” page at the top of our home page, but you can use our search function for your state to see what we have written previously and then use the link to the databases and you can go all the way back to the early 1980’s to see who has come to your state.