Phoenix: Iraqi refugees protest against the International Rescue Committee and the UN

Here’s a story I didn’t see in the nightly news.   A dozen Iraqi refugees resettled by the International Rescue Committee (IRC)  in Arizona protested outside State government offices saying they have been left in the lurch by the IRC—gosh where have we heard this story before!

Demonstrating Tuesday outside the State Capitol, Marwan Eldosari said the United Nations promised him decent housing, a job and the American dream when he decided to leave Iraq following the U.S. invasion.

Instead, Eldosari said he is unemployed and unhappy with the central Phoenix apartment complex where he and other Iraqi refugees live. He said a group responsible for helping refugees hasn’t come through on its promise of help.

b Many people will be homeless because there is no support for them, b he said. [Edit:  I don’t know what this lone letter ‘b’ is throughout the text] 

Eldosari and 12 others carried signs including “Real hell in Iraq better than false paradise of America.” When they tried to enter the lobby of the Executive Tower, a police officer told them they could march outside the House and Senate buildings.

For new readers, the IRC has been lobbying for months saying they need more taxpayer money for refugees.  But, as I have pointed out on many many occasions the president of this organization, former president of Columbia University. receives an an annual salary  and benefits package of over $400,000 and has at least a half a dozen VPs and staffers in the 6-figure salary range.   That would be o.k. if it were a truly private business, but since a large portion of their funds are from the taxpayer, those salaries are outrageous.  How about if they redistribute a little of their wealth to the people they say they care for instead of lobbying to take your wealth, through taxation, to redistribute.  Oops!  Their salaries are your wealth too!

Back to the protest story:

The refugees said they are supported by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a refugee-resettlement organization that according to its Web site is calling for an overhaul of the U.S. system for admitting Iraqi refugees because many are in poverty here. 

The IRC’s telephone number in New York rang through to a voice message saying the office was closed.

[…..]

But Eldosari and other demonstrators said the group hasn’t lived up to its mission.

b When you go there, ask them many times for to find job, they didn b t find any jobs for us,” he said.

Why are only Iraqis protesting when we hear similar problems with other ethnic groups admitted to the US under the US State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program?  This is my theory.  The Iraqis are better educated and had pretty good lives in Iraq and know how to speak up.  The Burmese and the Bhutanese aren’t speaking up (yet) because they come from a camp life where they didn’t have a culture that encourages speaking up.  The Somalis, on the other hand, have learned how to work the system, set up community organizing groups (ECBOs) and protest for Islamic accommodation—more important to them then how they are living. 

See our Iraqi refugee category with more than 400 posts at this point.  We have so many posts on unhappy Iraqi refugees that I have lost track.   At one point I had identified 20 states where Iraqis had protested their plight.

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