Category: Iraqi refugees

Is Obama abandoning the Iraqi refugees?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From the Pro Publica website comes news that Obama has changed our policy towards Iraq in more ways than militarily. Pro Publica describes itself as “an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” “Public interest” is usually a code word for leftist, and this group is funded by the Sandler Foundation, which also funds the Center for American Progress, the leftist think tank that provides ideas to Barack Obama, and other leftist causes. 

Nevertheless, Pro Publica is providing a good service by tracking changes on the White House website, and this piece on changes on the Iraq page reports a change that may or may not be significant:

Previous to the change, the agenda page was more or less a shortened version of its predecessor [3] at the Obama campaign Web site.

Some differences we found interesting:

  • Nearly one-fifth of the original version was devoted to “Preventing Humanitarian Crisis,” promising “at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees and ensure Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary.” The word “humanitarian” is absent from the new version.
  • The new version flatly states: “Iraq’s future is now its own responsibility.”
  • And in the new version, the administration states outright their interest in “preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon” and for “actively seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world.”

Looking at their page that shows a direct comparison, I see that the Iraqi refugees have not actually been left out.  The old site says this:

President Obama and Vice President Biden believe that America has both a moral obligation and a responsibility for security that demands we confront Iraq’s humanitarian crisis — more than five million Iraqis are refugees or are displaced inside their own country. Obama and Biden will form an international working group to address this crisis. They will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary.

In the new version, the refugee policy is buried inside one sentence:

We will work to support Iraqi national elections in 2010, help improve local government, serve as an honest broker for Iraqi leaders as they resolve difficult political issues, increase support for the resettlement of Iraqi refugees, and help strengthen Iraqi institutions and their capacity to protect rule of law, confront corruption, and deliver services.

I present this just as a possibly interesting development, and to show you the cool capability this website has for comparing before-and-after on the White House website. I never believe anything Obama says anyway, so I don’t think it makes any difference what is on his website. He will say and do whatever suits his agenda. So the answer to my question in the headline is, “Who knows?”

Will the real Ken Bacon please stand up!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

On Monday Reuters published an opinion piece by Ken Bacon head of Refugees International in which he lays out a game plan for the Iraqi displaced people.  He mentions resettlement in passing and tells us that the Obama Administration should increase aid to neighboring countries, Syria and Jordan, who have large numbers of Iraqi people still living in their countries.  

Most significantly he says the following in the Op-Ed entitled, “Obama Pledges To Help Millions of Displaced Iraqis Return Home.”

The next challenge is to convince the UN, the U.S. and the government of Iraq to work more closely together to create conditions for safe return. Some 2.6 million Iraqis are displaced within their own country, on top of as many as 2 million refugees. This population is too large to be resettled or absorbed by other countries; the only reasonable solution is for them to return to Iraq. In fact, Iraq needs them back. Many of the refugees are professionals—lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers—who are needed to help rebuild their own country.

Where have I heard that before?  Right here!  Judy and I have been saying that for months and months.   We have also pointed out in dozens of posts that the Iraqis coming to the US are not faring well.

Look at this photo published in a Finnish newspaper yesterday of the Iraqi refugee headed home to Iraq from Utah.   For the whole story, see Judy’s post here.  Friends had to scrape together the money for his plane ticket home.   Why aren’t the volags, who obviously did not do a good job of resettling this family, required to pay the airfare home for those who want to leave the US?

The caption (in case this link disappears at some point) on the photo of the man weeping and in a wheelchair is:

Tarek Darwish weeps as his son Husham Shammar, 17, wheels him to the vehicle that will take him to the airport for a three-day journey back to Iraq, away from his family, at right, Thursday Feb. 26, 2009 in Murray, Utah. For former Iraqi attorney Darwish, his wife Nahida Mahmoud and their five children, arrived in Utah as refugees craving a new and better life but instead it has been a list of disappointments.

So, if we can believe that Bacon, whose organization just this past November urged Obama to bring 105,500 Iraqis here this fiscal year, has changed his tune, then we will be right in line to cheer him on in this new, more sensible, and more humane approach.

Iraqi refugees are leaving Utah to go home

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ann has written about Utah as one of the growing number of states in which we’re learning Iraqi refugees are unable to find work and living in poverty.  The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

About a dozen Utah Iraqis have left or are on the verge of leaving for Iraq or other Middle Eastern countries. For some, Utah’s Muslim community has collected donations for plane tickets.

According to this link Ann provided a couple of weeks ago, there are between 100 and 1,000 Iraqi refugees in Utah. Ann also found a $27-million earmark in the stimulus bill for housing for refugees in Utah, and a new program there for housing subsidies for refugees. Nevertheless, life is very difficult. The article opens with the usual sad personal story.

Six months ago, Tarek Darwish and his family arrived in Utah as refugees craving a new and better life. Last week, his family wept and kissed his hand in farewell as the former lawyer, disillusioned, left to return to Iraq.

Life in Utah has been a list of disappointments. His family of seven lives in a two-bedroom apartment. None of the adults have jobs. His wife needs glasses and dental work but has been told Utah’s Medicaid won’t cover them.

He feels betrayed by the United Nations’ promises and the scant help offered by the American resettlement system. He hopes his family will follow when school is out.

Then the usual about our inadequate support for refugees.

…As human rights organizations call for aid and resettlement for millions of Iraqi refugees, some who are exasperated by America’s refugee system are going home or attempting to return to other countries in the Middle East. They feel abandoned by federal policies that offer limited and brief financial support and leave many refugees living in poverty.

Refugees planning to leave acknowledge they may be less safe in Iraq, but believe they will be better able to afford food, pay rent and receive medical care.

So do the human rights organizations care what happens once the refugees get here, or do they just want to feel good by calling for large-scale resettlement in the U.S.? And I’m fed up with articles that talk about “less safe” and “dangers” without specifying that Iraq is hundreds of times safer than it was when the refugees left, and that the sectarian fighting which was the main thing that forced them to leave is pretty much over. It’s more dangerous than Utah, but the Iraqis who are leaving are making a rational decision about costs and benefits in each place.

And I don’t understand this. Actually, I just don’t believe it:

From the U.S. State Department to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is not recommending large-scale return, officials say they have heard the stories of Iraqis returning but believe it to be more a trickle than a flood. The number is not tracked.

On January 30 I posted on an Associated Press article that began:

BRUSSESLS, Belgium — If the security situation in Iraq continues to improve, the number of refugees and displaced people returning to their homes could more than double this year to 500,000, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.

After years of extreme violence Iraq is now experiencing markedly improved security, said Daniel Endres, Baghdad representative of the Geneva-based agency.

“Although this security remains fragile, last year we saw a significant return as a result,” he told journalists in Brussels.

More than 220,000 Iraqis who fled abroad or were displaced within the country after the U.S.-led invasion returned home in 2008, according to U.N. statistics.

The UN keeps all kinds of statistics, as does our State Department. What I don’t understand is how the reporter could have let the statement go by that the number of refugees returning home is not tracked. The numbers might not be accurate — it’s probably quite difficult to get a count — but there are numbers.

Dallas refugee: “I see people under the bridge and I think, ‘Will that be me?'”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You guessed it!   Another article about unemployed and scared refugees.  Another article where the refugee resettlement agencies whine for more money, hoping that somehow all the money flowing from the Obama administration’s printing presses will wash over them and the tens of thousands of refugees they are helping bring to the US this year.

Lal Subba is the young Bhutanese refugee who is worried about being homeless under the bridge someday.   We have commited to resettling 60,000 of Subba’s countrymen within five years. 

“I see people under the bridge and I think, ‘Will that be me?’ ” he said in the halting English he learned in the camp.

The solution is not to slow the number of refugees, but to squeeze more funding from American taxpayers so that the likes of Anne Richard and Lavinia Limon can keep their jobs that fund them well and allow them to feel so very good about their noble work.    Nevermind that there is even talk of tent cities in places like Boise.

“The way the program is set up, we are bringing people in but leaving them high and dry,” said Anne Richard, the International Rescue Committee’s vice president of government relations and advocacy, who believes the financial crisis has threatened the resettlement process.

No kidding!   Yet, slowing down the flow is not an option.

The solution is not to decrease the flow of refugees but to overhaul the entire system during the new administration, said Lavinia Limón, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and the former head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Clinton administration. She wants more resources channeled toward housing assistance as well as programs that focus on the increasingly diverse pool of refugees entering the United States.

There are no plans to slow the flow to Texas, according to this article.   Yet, readers will remember it was only last week that we reported there were no jobs for Iraqis in Houston.

Texas has suffered less than its Midwestern counterparts and has no plans to slow its refugee influx. It took in a little more than 5,000 refugees last year, an increase of almost 800 from 2007. Texas generally places in the top four states for the number of refugees it accepts annually from the federal government.

Then there is the plane ticket issue.

Toward the end of this article another refugee discusses how hard it is for her to meet her financial obligations and one of those is the repayment of her family’s plane tickets to the US.

Her (Paw Htoo, Burmese refugee) increasingly Americanized children ask for pizza and fried chicken, indulgences she said she can’t afford. Her 17-year old brother works weekends at a florist to help with the rent and begin to pay IRC back for the plane tickets.

A well-kept secret of the refugee program is that although the refugees plane tickets are paid by you, the taxpayer, they are supposed to reimburse the federal government.  The resettlement agencies act as the collection agents. 

In September 2007 we asked State Department representatives at the Hagerstown meeting about this practice.   Not surprisingly we had heard that many of these tickets were never repaid.    What was surprising was that we learned the volags, like the ones Lavinia Limon and Anne Richard are leading, serve as the collection agents and get to pocket 25% of any airfare they collect.   State Department reps said, afterall, they would have to hire collection agents, so they might as well contract these volags and kick some more of your money back into their coffers.

Portland, OR, Iraqi refugee wants more Iraqis in Portland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a very long article, you can read the whole sob story about how unfair it is that we brought so many Vietnamese to the US in the 1970’s  and we aren’t keeping up with other countries in Europe in the numbers of Iraqis we are bringing.  You can read it all here, but I warn you the article is very slanted and contains some factual errors especially relating to how many Iraqis are going to European countries.

Since there are so many stories to post on these days, I’m going to have to resort to picking out some items that I think need to be highlighted.   In Portland, OR Iraqi Muslim refugee Zahra Hamid Sultan, would like to get more Iraqis to Portland (btw, no mention of Christian Iraqis).

I’m bringing this to your attention because in this discussion we find that the volag (supposedly voluntary agency) that was contracted by the federal government to resettle refugees in Michigan is, according to Sultan, not doing its job.   (Check out yesterday’s post  with comments about Albany, NY)

But Sultan’s main thrust at the moment is working with Portland’s IRCO, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization*, to start a program to receive Iraqi refugees. Currently IRCO’s programs are primarily for Mexican, Somali and Sudanese immigrants and refugees.

Sultan believes that such a program could persuade U.S. officials to send refugees to the Portland area, instead of Dearborn, Mich., which has been the main destination because it’s the most populous Arab-American region in the country.

Sultan also hopes to set up services that are more comprehensive and longer-lasting than what many Iraqis have received in other parts of the U.S.

“They have been told they can expect to have good services here, to find everything here prepared for them. But they come and find out that’s not true,” she says. “For example, one family said they would only get help to pay their rent for two months but after that they were on their own. But they can’t speak English. How are they going to find a job?

“I visited one family (in Michigan) and the furniture and the house weren’t even acceptable. When refugees in Jordan have their interviews, they are told everything will be fine here, they’ll be taken care of for a year, and there are many programs. But that’s not true.

“Even when they arrive at the airport, they don’t see anyone who is expecting them or welcoming them. This is a new experience for them. They don’t speak English, they are away from their families, they are traumatized, members of their families have been killed or raped. They are psychologically sick and need help.

I honestly don’t get it, why are we hearing so many stories about volags not fulfilling their contracts by not having furnished apartments ready and meeting refugees at the airport—both required by the US State Department?

And, also, I know you are getting sick of hearing this, but who is telling the Iraqis that they will be arriving in Heaven, if they choose to come to America. 

Reminder:  Some refugee industry lobbyists are pushing the Obama administration to admit over 100,000 Iraqi refugees this fiscal year.   We brought around 17,000 so far and they aren’t finding employment and many wish to return home to Iraq.

*  I have no time to research IRCO, but I will bet you find it heavily funded by the federal and state governments.