That is the title of a story on Tampabay.com a news source affiliated with the St. Petersburg Times. However, since some of the other numbers in the article are wrong, I’m guessing “thousands” of Iraqis will not be coming to Florida real soon. I’ll get to that in a bit.
Here is how the article begins:
MIAMI — Iraqis displaced by the ongoing U.S-led war are among new groups of refugees who will increasingly be resettled in communities throughout Florida and the country, a United Nations official said Wednesday.
The United Nations has referred more than 42,000 Iraqis to be resettled in the United States, and of those, 15,000 already have arrived — many of them religious minorities or single mothers whose husbands were killed, said Larry Yungk, senior resettlement officer with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Yungk spoke before more than 200 case workers, educators and social service providers for refugees during a conference called “Adapting to a Changing World: Promising Practices in the Acculturation Process for Refugees.” The one-day conference was being held at Florida International University.
Most of the article is about mental health problems of refugees and this outfit called the Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services.
The conference was sponsored by the Florida Department of Children and Families Refugee Services and Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services.
Gulf Coast is a Clearwater nonprofit agency with programs in 32 Florida counties, treating 50,000 clients a year, specializing in mental health, elder, employment and children’s services, in addition to refugee resettlement. Gulf Coast partners with Harvard University to provided training to mental health experts in 20 states on recovery from torture.
Gulf Coast is another of those non-profit groups that is heavily funded by the taxpayer. In 2007 its Form 990 showed income of around $28 million with $15 million coming from various government grants.
Back to the article, here is where they got carried away with themselves, or the reporter misunderstood:
Florida resettles between 25,000 to 28,000 refugees a year — three times more than any other state. The majority are resettled in South Florida, while Tampa Bay is the second largest area for resettlement, state officials said.
There is no way on earth that Florida resettles that many refugees a year! Maybe the reporter added an extra zero. And, where did they get that Florida tops all other states? Check out this data base from the Office of Refugee Resettlement for 2007. California topped the list with 6706 refugees that year followed by Texas (4401), Minnesota (3198), New York (2979) then Florida with 2619.
We are our brothers keeper (even as unemployment sky rockets):
Gulf Coast president Michael Bernstein said a downturn in the economy could make it harder for new arrivals to be accepted.
“It’s a tough time to accept New Americans,” Bernstein said. “At the same time, we’re also a nation that understands we’re our brother’s keeper.”
Organizers noted that resettlement has gone beyond driving refugees from the airport to an apartment. [Although some NGO’s are accused of doing not much more than that!]
It’s not just about jobs or housing, which is very important, and food,” Bernstein said. “It’s also about resilience and recovery and healing from wounds that many, many thousands (experienced), have been through torture, genocide.”
Dr. Bernstein, you might want to check out this Wall Street Journal article (and the great graphic) yesterday entitled “Unemployment Rises in Every State” and note that Florida is one of the states with the fastest growth in unemployment. If refugee resettlement isn’t now about jobs and housing, it will soon be!
Endnote: On Iraqi refugees and jobs we have posted on 15 states where Iraqi refugees are unemployed and are complaining about it. Here is a post on the most recent of those—Utah.