Category: Iraqi refugees

Iraqi religious minorities are persecuted; official commission takes notice

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Voice of America reports today:

In a new report on Iraq, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says religious minorities in Iraq face persecution. The commission, which recommends that the U.S. government designate Iraq a country of particular concern because of religious freedom violations, issued its findings in a news conference on Capitol Hill.  

The commission says small minorities, such as Chaldo-Assyrian and other Christians, Sabean Mandaeans, and Yazidis, continue to experience targeted violence, threats and intimidation, forcing many people to flee to other areas in Iraq or become refugees.

Its report says these minorities are even more vulnerable because Iraq’s government has been unable to provide effective protection to religious communities or investigate violations.

It’s a complicated issue and the commission members disagree on how much the Iraqi government is responsible, or able to do anything about it. But this much is clear:

But it is the smaller religious groups, lacking their own militia or tribal structures, that have become caught in the middle of what the report calls a struggle between the central Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government for control of northern areas.

It’s been a problem all along that the Muslims of all sects have militias, but the Christians don’t. Thus they are easy prey. There was some talk a few months ago about forming Christian militias, but I guess nothing came of it. So unlike the vast majority of Iraqis, the Christians (and other religous minorities) are totally dependent on outside forces for protection.

The commission makes several proposals:

The commission recommends that a special U.S. envoy be appointed to coordinate U.S. human rights policy in Iraq, while other proposals are aimed at helping the estimated four million Iraqi refugees and the internally-displaced.

Commissioner Richard Land says these include expanding U.S. and Iraqi government financing for refugees through the United Nations, and urging U.S. allies to increase their assistance, along with another step designed to assist religious minorities.

“Amend the U.S. refugee admissions program’s new P-2 category to allow Iraq’s smallest most vulnerable religious minorities direct access to the program,” he said.

Four members dissented from the recommendation that Iraq, previously on the religious freedom watch list, now be designated a country of particular concern. They asserted that the Baghdad government’s actions, complicity or willful indifference in violations were not sufficiently established.

Commissioners emphasize there is no disagreement when it comes to the plight of religious minorities, saying the main difference involves the question of whether Iraq’s government has the capacity and willingness to act.

The commission’s main overall message for the incoming Obama administration is that the United States must keep religious freedom and other fundamental human rights at the top of the agenda.

It’s good to see attention given to the problem of the religious minorities, and the recommendation to give Christians and other religious minorities special status in the refugee program, something which the State Department has resisted.

But I can’t help wondering whether we wouldn’t help them more if our soldiers could arm and train some Christian men. I just can’t believe the Iraqi government has the will or the ability to protect the minorities. If the Christians want to stay — and some have said they do — they should learn to defend themselves. If they don’t do that, I think they’ll all end up leaving and these ancient communities, descended from the very earliest Christians, will be scattered over the earth.

Hat tip: Blulite Special

Romania taking Sudanese refugees from Iraq

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the first time I have read that Sudanese refugees were in Iraq, but according to this article they have been there since the 1980’s.   Was Saddam importing slave workers who are being persecuted just as Saddam’s Palestinians are persecuted by those now on top of the heap in Iraq?  Does anyone know?

GENEVA (AFP) — Nearly 100 Sudanese refugees mainly from Darfur have left a makeshift camp in the Iraqi desert for Romania as part of a resettlement programme, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.

[….]

The 97 refugees fled Sudan in the late 1980s, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

But their situation worsened dramatically in Iraq after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, when they suffered “abuse, blackmail, eviction and assaults.”

Johns Hopkins forum sought to explain refugee resettlement program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is old news, it happened in November, but as I said before I have piles of backed-up refugee stories to mention.

A forum and panel discussion was held at Johns Hopkins Univ. to explain the refugee program and how it’s going in Baltimore, MD.   There is lots of information about the history of refugees arriving in Baltimore, and there is the usual whinefest about not enough money to run the program properly.

The IRC (International Rescue Committee) has been resettling refugees in Baltimore since 1999. In fiscal year 2008 they resettled 480 refugees and 140 asylees, with the majority coming from Nepal, Myanmar and Iraq and various African nations.

The IRC sees Baltimore as a good city to resettle refugees to because the costs of living are lower than many other eastern cities. It is also fitted with accessible public transportation. Refugees also serve to further culturally enrich an already diverse city.

Martin Ford of the Maryland Office for New Americans said that resettlement agencies are under a great deal of pressure to provide comprehensive resettlement services with limited resources.

Limited resources!   Readers should know that the International Rescue Committee is an approximately $200 million a year operation.  In 2005 (No more recent financial documents would open) the organization received $88 million in taxpayer funding.  So when they say that they put up thousands for each refugee family, know that a large portion of that comes from you!

This (IRC responsibility)  includes paying for rent and utilities during their fist months here, as well as helping them secure employment. However, these grants total only $850 per refugee. Fikremariam (Worku Fikremariam, resettlement program manager for the International Rescue Committee in Baltimore) estimated that his agency spends $3,000 to $4,000 per refugee family in the first few months they are in the country.

Half of the $850 stays with the volag (IRC here) in addition to many other grants the IRC receives from various federal and state agencies.   Again, the $3000 to $4000 is not all THEIR money, but largely your money.

Iraqi refugees are not happy campers!

A substantial portion of this article was taken up with a discussion of the unhappy and often unemployed Iraqi refugees who have been coming to the US at an increased rate in recent months.  See our Iraqi refugee category for an abundance of unhappy Iraqi stories.

One Iraqi asylee*, who asked to remain anonymous because he has many relatives still living in Iraq, estimated that he had already spent one year and several thousand dollars studying for recertification as a physician here. He held a high position in the government after the American invasion and supervised 10 Ph.D. candidates in their dissertation research. He estimated that he would not be properly certified to find a job in his field here until 2010. Until then he has found a part-time job as a translator.

Many recently arrived Iraqis have not been so lucky. This asylee recounted that prior to leaving Iraq many refugees did not realize that they would not be able to apply the same skills and knowledge in their new location. He said that a resettlement agency tried to place another refugee who had been a doctor in Iraq in a low skill job.

“They asked him if he wanted to have a job like wiping the floor or washing dishes. This is impossible for our people, a lot of them prefer to go back home and be killed there than do those jobs here; it is like a stigma,” he said.

Where is the unrealisitic expectation coming from?   We have heard on several previous occasions that the agency processing refugees overseas has not been doing a good job of sitting prospective refugees down and explaining the cold hard facts about our economic situation.

The Iraqi asylee said that many recently arrived Iraqis feel frustrated by their lack of success in securing suitable jobs. He contended that this is a result of the pre-departure orientation, which is received by Iraqis coming to the U.S. under the special immigrant visa created by Congress this year.

The rosy picture of America needs to go away, says IRC spokesman.

Sometimes they have to go through that for reality to hit and the rosy picture of America to go away,” Fikremariam said.”[In such situations] depression sets in, they are in an existential vacuum. ‘Who am I, why I am I here?’

Good question!

* Asylees are given the same benefits as refugees, the difference is that they got to the US on their own steam and then sought asylum.  We bring refugees to the US and pay their airfare.  By the way, this is another way agencies like the IRC make money, they act as collection agents to recover the taxpayer funded airfare and then get to keep a cut for their work with only a portion going back to the federal treasury.

North Carolina: No jobs for refugees, volag cutting back

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

North Carolina is state # 14* with no jobs for Iraqi refugees, and possibly other refugees are having a difficult time too,  according to this report in Yes Weekly. 

Sayed (director of refugee programs at the local Islamic Center) has developed dozens of case files for Iraqi refugees who began arriving in Greensboro and High Point last spring. She said many of the Iraqi refugees have been unable to secure employment. Sayed questioned why resettlement agencies continue to bring new refugees when the job market is so tight. Ivory of Lutheran Family Services said her agency has dramatically scaled back the number of refugees it plans to place in the Carolinas next year in light of current economic conditions.

So, if our refugee numbers are to remain high and Refugees International is telling their supporters to tell Obama to expand the Iraqi refugee  numbers to over 100,000 (Bush Admin. proposed 17,000) this fiscal year, and this volag (non-profit resettlement agency) is saying they are cutting back, where will they all go?

Read the rest of the article which is mostly about the Mosque helping feed and clothe Burmese refugees, but you will see it is not clear that they need the help.

* The thirteen other states we have written about so far are Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire,Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Idaho, Connecticut, New Mexico, California and Washington.

Note to AP reporter Matthew Lee:   If you ever get around to writing about this side of the Iraqi refugee issue, the unhappy jobless side, instead of being the public relations arm of Refugees International, you can go to our Iraqi refugee category and find all the states that have frustrated unemployed Iraqis.

“We’re broke!” Don’t come to America!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I never thought I would see the day anyone would have the nerve to call for a moratorium on refugee resettlement.   Here is a lengthy article from The Olympian in Washington State describing how difficult it is for refugees to find work and get by in America.  It begins:

The country is in a recession, jobs are hard to come by, and cash-strapped states are looking for all kinds of ways to cut back.

In the midst of that, more than 60,000 of the world’s most vulnerable people arrived on the nation’s doorstep between September 2007 and September 2008 – poor and in need – fleeing political upheaval in their home countries.

Some of the most recent arrived with few or no job skills, having lived years and sometimes decades in refugee camps. Few speak English; some, in fact, are illiterate even in their native tongues.

In Washington state, where 2,247 refugees settled, they are competing for work with a growing number of jobless Americans who have a strong home-court advantage.

With rents rising in the region, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for agencies to find them affordable places to live. And as the state looks for programs to cut, there’s concern they could lose critical services, such as help with English or finding work.

Refugees urge others not to come:

In the meantime, some refugees are trying to temper the expectations of friends and family in the camps, in line to reach the U.S. over the next few years.

May Wah, a Burmese refugee who arrived here in July with her husband, tells them: “If you don’t speak English, don’t come.”

But they don’t want to hear it. So they respond, “You are already in America. … What does it matter?”

Traditionally, even the staunchest immigration critics have tended to accept the country’s long humanitarian practice of taking in refugees from trouble spots around the globe – from people fleeing war and political persecution to victims of ethnic cleansing and, recently, Iraqis who have helped the U.S. military.

The United States leads all other countries in the resettlement of these refugees, with up to 80,000 to be allowed in through next September.

But now, given the current state of the economy, some are starting to suggest a moratorium on refugee resettlements until conditions here improve.

“We’re broke. Millions of Americans are losing their homes,” said Leon Donahue of Washingtonians for Immigration Reform. “We don’t have jobs for our own people,” let alone the immigrants who have arrived in the past few years.

“Under these conditions,” Donahue said, “I can’t imagine they’ll be any better off here.”

Read on and hear how refugees are very scared about not finding work, or losing the little bit they have now.

We have written many posts recently on jobless Iraqi refugees  and although this article doesn’t discuss Iraqi refugees per se, we can assume it has few jobs for Iraqis either, so Washington becomes state number 13 in our parade of  states with few jobs for refugees.

The first 12:   Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire,Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Idaho, Connecticut, New Mexico, and California.