Category: Iraqi refugees

The heart of a refugee and the culture of violence

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From Nebraska comes a refugee story outside the usual mold for its depth. A newsweekly called the Reader carries the tale of a young Iraqi man who came to America in 1994 after three years in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia. It begins:

Growing up, Wesaam Al-Badry learned the ways of violence to survive. Now, what was once a necessity has become a liability.

Al-Badry received a letter in October 2008, denying him American citizenship. After living here as a political refugee for 14 years, he was not eligible, it said, because of poor moral character. But for Al-Badry and others affected by war, the definition of moral character swims in shades of gray.

The article follows Al-Badry’s life from the end of the First Gulf War, when the American government encouraged Iraqis to revolt against Saddam Hussein and then left them to the mercy of Saddam’s troops when they did. Terrible carnage followed, and during that time Al-Badry’s family fled, witnessing gruesome scenes on the way. Al-Badry was eight years old. 

It goes on to relate how horrible conditions were in the refugee camp where they ended up, and how violent the environment.

The young Al-Badry heard people everywhere moaning in pain. Sorrow hatred, anger and starvation were not masked. People who were 40, looked 70. They lived and walked without shirt or shoes in streets that smelled of garbage. Public suicides were not uncommon.

….In the first of three years in the camps, refugees joined gangs based on religion or hometown. The biggest gangs had control within the walls, as guards mostly secured the perimeter.

“They would take the metal bars from tent posts and file them into swords,” he said. “I had to pick up weapons to go to the school. This is just what happens when you put 30,000 people together that have no hope.”

This is not true about any random 30,000 hopeless people, but it is true of a culture that was already based on violence. Earlier in the article, we read this:

Zainab Al-Baaj, another Iraqi refugee living in Lincoln, came to know the Al-Badry family in the Rafha refugee camp. Boys in Iraq grow up learning to fight, Al-Baaj said. They are taught that if they don’t fight, they will be taken advantage of. And if the father is gone, it falls on the oldest male to provide for the family, even if he is a child.

Saddam Hussein’s brutality has usually been minimized in the American media. He was one of the most vicious dictators of all time, for decades controlling the Iraqi people through horror and intimidation. Opponents to the regime and their families were dealt with in ways I don’t want to describe. It is no wonder that violence was a way of life and internalized to become a part of the character of most Iraqi males.  The article continues:

The violence decreased after the first year, but the insanity never died.

Children ran wild. With little constructive to do except play soccer, play often turned violent. Small in stature, as he is today, Al-Badry had to learn to overpower the others.

“We would chase and beat each other with sticks,” he said. “I still have marks all over my body, even on my forehead.”

It was not just other boys that Al-Badry fought. He orchestrated an attack on a 20-year-old child molester learning to defend what was important in life: friends and family.

Until he was 12, Al-Badry lived in a world torn by war. He learned to equate fighting with pride, and loyalty to love.

Then his family came to America, to Lincoln, Nebraska, and now the story sounds familiar:

But the country that many Iraqis thought of as a land where everyone was rich and happy, would incite a battle inside Al-Badry, where his past would confront his future.

Language was the first barrier. And clothing is different. Food is different. At school, buildings, teachers and attitudes are different.

“Whatever I knew before was worthless,” Al-Badry said. “Writing was from left to right, numbers were different. I couldn’t even put together a sentence.”

Hmm, sounds like my Jewish grandparents’ experience, having fled czarist pogroms in Russia for dire poverty in Philadelphia, speaking and reading Yiddish (which reads from right to left) and eating strange foods. But they weren’t steeped in a culture of violence; they did not internalize the brutality which was done to their people. Al-Badry did not adapt well to peace.

“Going from a place where you could die any day, to complete peace, is a culture shock,” he said. “Kids would get up real close to me and talk loud, maybe to speak clearer, but I took it as a threat. I didn’t know what they were saying. I would push them or punch them.”

Garrison said many refugees had learned to settle things by fighting; and that’s why many fall in with the wrong crowd in America.

Still, Garrison and Hubbell (middle-school teachers of Al-Badry) agreed that violence is a choice.

“The anger is legitimate,” Hubbell said. “But that anger can hurt you.”

Al-Badry was always in trouble, and was finally expelled at age 15 when he was accused of pulling a knife on another student. He attended a program for expelled students, where “he was not engaged at all.”

Now here is a part that I find really interesting, and I’m going to give you the whole thing:

Psychologist Dr. Maria Prendes-Lintel has treated refugees since 1975. She said not everyone who experiences war, torture or refugee life becomes violent.

However, violence is a way of life for some and they don’t have a choice.

Prendes-Lintel said violent behavior often is a result of a person fulfilling their primary need, for safety.

In a camp such as Rahfa, children have little to no enrichment or guidance, she said. And although not all Iraqis are the same, often refugees learn to trust only friends and family. Everyone else is a possible threat to survival, she said.

Once refugees arrive in the U.S. the threat to safety is greatly diminished. However, without learning to adapt to a more stable environment, any perceived threat to safety, real or imagined, will trigger violence.

Although she hasn’t met Al-Badry, and made clear this is not a diagnosis, she said he likely hasn’t internalized the idea of non-violence. Refugees must learn to navigate both cultures. The longer a person is exposed to violence, the more damage has been internalized, she said.

“The ways he navigated the world to survive were appropriate and served a protective purpose [in Iraq],” she said. “But this level has not turned down. It is at the same level. The radar is high — everything is a threat except family and friends.”

Prendes-Lintel said the first issue a refugee must address is trust. Often, the ability to trust is diminished by post-traumatic stress disorder. And the primal need for safety won’t go away, she said.

The article goes on to relate Al-Badry’s history of fights. He says he has been in about 75 fights since he came to America, and most of them were about being insulted racially. Several incidents are related in which he was trying to defend someone and that was misinterpreted. A friend is quoted as saying Al-Badry is not a criminal; it’s a matter of pride. Al-Badry has three assault convictions.

But he insists the label of “poor moral character,” assigned by U.S. Immigration Services is inappropriate.

“This says to you that you are a rapist, a murderer,” he said. “They put everyone together. Fighting is a dispute between two men that don’t understand each other.

“Fighting is not hatred,” he said. “Ethnic cleansing, rape, murder, genocide — that is hatred. There is no God if you believe in hatred.”

The guy is obviously ready to fight, and a pretty violent person. But I have some sympathy for his point of view. Physical fighting used to be a way for males to settle differences. My father, son of the aforementioned grandparents, was a gentle intellectual when I knew him. But as a kid in the slums he was always involved in fistfights. I am certain he didn’t start the fights. But that’s how it was in those days (he was born in 1909); that’s what boys did.

During the last generation society has become feminized, especially the schools, and fighting is now regarded with horror, at least in the middle class. Boys are considered defective and in need of medication of they fight, whether it’s offensive or defensive. Talking is the answer to everything. And here was a kid who couldn’t speak English at first, and subjected to insults again and again. There’s no detailed history here, but I wonder if things would have worked out better if he and his tormentors had had some old-fashioned fistfights and then perhaps settled down to be friends. Maybe not, but maybe. The cultural gap in the matter of fighting must have been bewildering for him, and not only because he was an angry refugee.

The last part of the article discusses Al-Badry’s options. He is not going to fight the immigration decision. He doesn’t want to go to Iraq.

Al-Badry knows if he were deported to Iraq, he would be lost. After all the war and violence, his country is not the same.

“I would be a foreigner there,” he said. “It would be like putting a man that’s been in jail for 14 years, back into the real world.”

A very odd analogy.  He’d still find a home there; he must have relatives.  He’d know the language. Instead, he’s thinking of going to Holland, where he has an uncle. He could stay here and apply for citizenship again after a seven-year probationary period. But he doesn’t want that either.

Al-Badry sees himself as a man with no country, and believes Saddam destroyed the potential of the Iraqi people. Now, the America that embraced him, has told him he is not welcome.

“My heart was broken as a child,” he said. “Love, God, political views won’t save you. It’s being strong, clever and brave that will save you.”

It doesn’t sound as if he recognizes that he might have to change to fit in. I don’t think Holland appreciates hair-trigger violent people any more than we do. We’ve mentioned before how traumatized many refugees are, and this man is a good example of it. But the culture has a great deal to do with how the trauma is expressed, and the Iraqi culture Al-Badry grew up in primed him for the worst personal outcome. Many of the Vietnamese who came here in the 1970s and 1980s were traumatized too, having lived through a war, a communist regime, often prison camps, and harrowing escapes. But their culture and their resulting characters didn’t lead them to express their trauma in violence.

Again I return to the politically incorrect notion that cultures and people are vastly different. Some are suitable for resettlement in the United States and some are not. I see no chance that our government will ever try to distinguish between them. It seems that with every year that passes more unsuitable people are brought here, and settled in conditions that do nothing to mitigate the problems, to the great detriment of our society.

So the State Department knows there are unhappy Iraqi refugees here

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What are they going to do about it, apparently not much!

This is an exchange at the State Department’s daily press briefing yesterday about Iraqi refugees unhappiness and desire to go home to Iraq. 

QUESTION: Do you have an update, perhaps, on Iraqi refugees asked about from yesterday?*  Specifically, what can the U.S. Government do to help them here in the U.S. who are facing fears of losing their homes and —

MR. DUGUID (Gordan Duguid, acting department spokesman): Well, yes, I can tell you not what the government can do, but what the government is doing. Iraqi refugees receive the same resettlement benefits from the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services that are provided to all incoming refugees. All refugees are able to receive from the Office of Refugee Resettlement social services for up to 60 months, that is, five years. These services include employment services, employment assessment services and on-the-job training, English language instruction, vocational training, case management, translation and interpreter services.[Edit:  I don’t see pay rent for 5 years in this list, most of this relates to finding work which, by all accounts, is nearly non-existent.]

QUESTION: If they do decide to return to Iraq, what can the U.S. do to help facilitate their return to Iraq or their re-integration into Iraq?

MR. DUGUID: I think that has to happen on a case-by-case basis. The question is what happens when they come to the United States should someone choose to return to their own country. That becomes an Iraqi question.

QUESTION: I mean, if someone has, you know, faced a fear, you know, letters threatening their lives or their families and they did come to the U.S. because of that with the assistance of the State Department and now wants to go back —

MR. DUGUID: I’m not in a position to adjudicate individual cases from the podium. I would refer you to the Department of Homeland – Health and – sorry, Health and Human Services to have a discussion on that.

Health and Human Services supplies the majority of the funding to the volags to care for refugees.   Note, there is no mention of the logical answer.   The State Department which brings the refugees into the country could easily turn the spigot off for awhile.  But, if they do that they will get whacked by the 40 plus NGO’s who want more Iraqis in the US.  No Iraqi refugees means less pay for some of those groups.   It is a vicious cycle.

By the way, in reforms being urged by refugee promoters it is often stated that the volags (supposedly voluntary agencies) need a steady supply of refugees to keep their doors open.  They cite the Vietnam era, the Cold War (Russia) era and Bill Clinton’s Bosnian war era as times when things were going well and their human supply lines flowed  uninterrupted.   Vietnam was a little differant though because this massive system of NGOs funded by the government was not fully in place.  See the “reforms” spelled out in a UVA egghead law professor’s (David Martin) report here.

Where is AP reporter Matthew Lee?   Long time readers will recall that Lee wrote story after story last year about the awful Bush Administration not allowing tens of thousands of the Iraqis into the US.  Time for a follow-up story, Mr. Lee?

* Answers to questions yesterday are here.   It appears to be a concise summary of many benefits refugees receive.

Transitionland, we welcome your perspective

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update March 6th:  Transitionland’s “Rumble Time” response here.

Readers,  I guess it’s pretty obvious that we have critics from time to time and one of our newest critics is an anonymous blogger called Transitionland.  Actually we are o.k. with anonymous critics, we really like critics of any sort as long as they don’t take too much of our time commenting here.  In the past we have encouraged long-winded critics to start their own blog and even call it ‘Refugee Resettlement Watch Watch’ if they liked.  But, Transitionland, whoever she is, already has her own blog.  That is good.  The more debate there is about refugee resettlement the better.

Here is what Transitionland said about us today.

A certain anti- refugee resettlement blogger recently wondered if the “refugee lobbyists” had “overplayed their hand” by advocating for more Iraqis to be resettled in the US, given how disappointed some Iraqi refugees are here.

Three points:

1) Yes, resettlement needs to be overhauled. Everyone who works in resettlement KNOWS THIS.

We agree!   If everyone KNOWS THIS, lets get to work.  I have all sorts of ideas!

2) AGAIN, the disappointment of Iraqi refugees and other refugees from more developed countries is also a problem of unfortunate, Hollywood-fuelled expectations about life in the United States. Refugees from all over are absolutely shocked to find out that not only does poverty exist in America, but they themselves will be living in American poverty, at least for a little while.

I disagree, I don’t believe Hollywood has anything to do with the Iraqi refugees misconception about what their lives would be in the US.  Someone in the UN, an overseas processing entity, or representatives of groups who want to bring lots of refugees to the US mislead them.   Their stories are uniformly the same and we have written about 17 locations in the US where the story is the same.   But, why would anyone be deceptive about something so important?

3) Being poor in Sweden or Germany or the Netherlands is not the same as being poor in America. Being poor in America sucks –but being poor in Syria or Jordan, Pakistan, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Turkey, or Thailand is scary-awful. And not all refugees can be resettled in Sweden.

Again, I disagree.  I love America and think  it’s the greatest place in the world.   I’ve traveled extensively and in no other country can you pull yourself out of poverty easier than in the US.  With our freedom and opportunity you can be anything you want to be.   Heck, welfare states like Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany are far from having a black man as President.    And, have you checked out the social unrest in Sweden these days, they are deporting Iraqis (and other immigrants) as we speak.

I agree Transitionland that I wouldn’t want to be poor or anything for that matter in those “scary-awful” countries.

So let’s cut it with the “they’d be better off if they went baaaaack!” crap.

Well, some are going back.   Believe it or not, some Iraqi refugees may prefer their culture and their not-always-safe homeland  to being  on welfare and at the mercy of paternalistic do-gooder refugee agencies.  

And, please answer me this.  If America is such a mean, hard-hearted country then why is it so important that you bring refugees here; you can’t have it both ways.  In other words, if refugee resettlement advocates said, “We love America and we think its the greatest country on earth and we want to share our freedoms and great bounty with others” I would have more respect for their position.   Instead, and this is especially so with the Iraqis, we hear from the refugee lobbyists that America is a bad country, we should feel guilty about Iraq and so therefore we owe Iraqi refugees a life in this rotten, greedy, racist country.   That is crap.

Over 40 NGO’s ask Obama to resettle more Iraqis in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is more on the orchestrated campaign to bring ever-expanding numbers of Iraqi refugees to the US, but these groups are getting really tricky about mentioning numbers.  Just yesterday I told you that Refugees International’s CEO Ken Bacon was making some sensible remarks about helping Iraqis return home, but behind the scenes they are keeping the drums beating to bring tens of thousands to the US.

(Washington, DC) – Writing to President Barack Obama in response to his new Iraq strategy, International Medical Corps is one of more than 40 leading U.S.-based organizations to praise the President’s promise to help vulnerable Iraqis and call for a comprehensive humanitarian, development and refugee resettlement strategy led by civilian agencies.

The letter’s recommendations reflect broad consensus among aid agencies working inside Iraq, refugee advocates and resettlement agencies assisting and protecting Iraqi refugees in the region and here in the U.S., leading faith-based organizations, and human rights groups. Click here for the letter and list of signers.

You will have to go to the letter dated yesterday to not only see who signed the letter, but to see the part of the letter that concerns us.  They say the “comprehensive” strategy must include resettlement of 50% of the Iraqi refugees who UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) identifies as needing resettlement.   So what the heck is that number?

You need to then return to Refugees International’s (with these same groups) blueprint published this summer to see what sort of mind-blowing numbers they have in mind:

While the U.S. may achieve its goal of resettling 12,000 Iraqi refugees here in the current fiscal year, the needs are much greater. We ask the U.S. to reconsider resettling 105,500 refugees from Iraq and, if necessary, to reassess this number for the next few years. As part of that request, we ask for U.S. government support, including financial support, to enable the U.S. to build the international and domestic capacity necessary to quickly resettle this substantially larger number of Iraqi refugees.

Here is how we calculated that resettlement need:

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 88,000 Iraqi refugees need immediate protection through resettlement next year. The U.S. generally resettles 50% of all refugees resettled in the world each year, bringing in the U.S. share for 2009 to: 44,000

Palestinian refugees living in desperate conditions on the Iraqi – Syrian border need immediate protection through resettlement: 3,000

The most recently available figures show that the State Department is currently processing 7,000 petitions to bring families averaging three people each to the U.S. to join with Iraqis who have already resettled in the U.S: 21,000

The Refugee Crisis in Iraq calls for admitting refugees who were persecuted due to their affiliations with the U.S. Government and other U.S. based organizations. Many of these refugees have left or are in the process of leaving the country and face an urgent need of assistance and protection as their resources run out. The U.S. should immediately resettle annually: 37,500

Are we talking about the whole 105,500 or just the first priority where the UN has identified 88,000 refugees in need of resettlement which still means these 40 plus groups want to bring 44,000 Iraqis to the US this year.   We can’t take care of the 17,000 or so we brought here already, so 44,000 should just about do-in the refugee resettlement program. 

 Keep it up guys, just keep it up.

Endnote:   I feel sorry for the local workers in the subcontractor refugee offices, the people having such a challenging time finding work and decent housing for the Iraqis already in the US.  Did you know your head offices are lobbying for tens of thousands more Iraqis?  Do they ever confer with you guys on this?

Vermont: Iraqi refugees feel abandoned and betrayed

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to an anonymous reader who sent us this link to a story that was published in December about unhappy Iraqi refugees in Vermont.   We didn’t see it at the time it was originally published so we very much appreciate getting it now.

It’s the same story we have been reporting for months so I’m not going to focus on the Iraqis lengthy complaints against the resettlement agencies except to set the stage with this paragraph early in the article.

After describing all the awful things that happened to his family in Iraq, Hamid, a Sunni Muslim tells the reporter why he is most angry.

But on the day we meet, Hamid isn’t venting about the militants who tortured and killed his relatives, or the U.S. occupation of his homeland, which he describes only as “incorrect.” Instead, his frustration and anger are directed at, as he puts it, “the refugee center,” which he claims promised him and his family good housing, a decent job and financial support until they got on their feet again. Like the other three Iraqis hanging out at the market that day, Hamid says he feels abandoned and betrayed.

Please read the article yourself for the litany of complaints this group of Iraqis is reporting. 

This is the part that interests me today, and its something I have asked about on previous occasions.  Who is telling these Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria that they are going to a country whose streets are paved with gold?

…. Scott (Judy Scott, director of Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program) readily acknowledges that some of the Iraqis may have been woefully misinformed before they arrived here. A possible source of that confusion could be the orientation classes that refugees take before their journey — classes that, Scott has discovered, don’t always paint an accurate portrait of refugee life in America. And evidence from elsewhere suggests that a sense of disillusionment is felt not just in Vermont, but among Iraqis who’ve resettled elsewhere in the United States.

No kidding!   Vermont becomes state #17* in our list of states where we have reports that Iraqis are unhappy, can’t find work, live in substandard housing and want to go home.   We have written over 300 posts on Iraqi refugees, and I’m too lazy to search for the links, but I recall there was a period of time when our NGO’s were working with the press to beat the Bush Administration over the head to bring more Iraqis ASAP, but I distinctly recall that there weren’t even enough families signed up with the UN, and even some of those who did sign up didn’t show up for their plane flights to the US.  This is just a hunch but I think there was some major push to get Iraqis signed up and maybe that is where this deception was promoted.

Newland (Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute) says the complaints from Burlington’s Iraqi community are not markedly different from what she’s heard elsewhere in the country. By talking to refugees and advocates, both here and abroad, she’s learned that the orientation programs Iraqi refugees receive overseas can vary widely. Some still promote a “streets-are-paved-with-gold mentality” about life in America.

In addition to this major disconnect between what the orientation program promoted abroad and reality, there is wide variation in what benefits refugees receive from state to state and even city to city in the US.   What Newland says here exposes a serious problem with the refugee resettlement program as we know it today and why we are promoting reform.

Moreover, once the refugees arrive and fan out across the United States, the social services for which they’re eligible can differ markedly from state to state and from program to program. For example, refugees in Vermont may have heard from relatives in Michigan or California that they’re getting public assistance not available here. As Newland puts it, “It’s a very confusing picture, and it’s hard for people to understand that.”

Was there no effort made to educate refugee personel about how different the well-educated and formerly well-off Iraqis are compared to refugees coming from life in crowded camps?   Apparently not.

The [refugee] agencies aren’t really set up to deal with populations that regard a cellphone or a laptop as a basic human right,” Newland notes. “But that’s what this population is used to. So it requires some nimbleness to respond to those needs without appearing to discriminate against other groups.”

Even R.’s friends, many of whom were doctors, lawyers and dentists in Baghdad and now live in Boston, Michigan and California, report that jobs are few and far between.

“They are so depressed!” she says. “They say that if they had money for a plane ticket, they’d return to any Middle East [nation].

Maybe the Iraqi government should send a plane, just as they did to Egypt, and bring these people home so their lives won’t be squandered hanging around GlobalMartVT.

Hey here’s a thought!  While Obama’s friends at the Center for American Progress are promoting airlifting a hundred thousand Iraqis here, let’s promote a reverse airlift back to the Middle East for all the unhappy Iraqis living in 17  US states.

* Vermont becomes state number 17 in our parade of states with no jobs and unhappy Iraqi refugees. The 16 others are: Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire,Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Idaho, Connecticut, New Mexico, California, Utah, North Carolina, Texas and Washington. See our Iraqi refugee category for all these stories and more.