Many refugees coming to the United States have endured war, hardships and struggles before arriving. The path to becoming a refugee is a hard one, one that almost always starts in a moment of crisis.
I spoke with a college volunteer today whose mother was a refugee from Ethiopia. This young man, a star basketball player and one of the founders of a non-profit that collects athletic shoes for children, told me how he’d first met his older sister when he was eight. “My mother had to leave her behind,” he said. “She couldn’t carry her and a baby. She hid my sister in the bushes in Ethiopia, with my great grandmother.” It took years for his mother to arrange for his sister to come to the United States, and he still remembers meeting her for the first time at the airport. “My mother still has a hard time when she thinks about leaving her little daughter behind. She still feels guilty, even though there was nothing else she could do.”
We, staff and volunteers alike, are aware of the challenges facing newly-arrived refugees. We know that adjusting to a new culture and a new life can be overwhelming. What we don’t, and maybe can’t, understand is how hard it was just getting here.
Becoming a refugee starts when someone has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/her self of the protection of that country.” That’s the legal definition of a refugee. It means that to be declared a refugee, a person or family has to flee intolerable conditions in their home country and find safety in nearby country. The United Nations High Command for Refugees (UNHCR) then interviews them to decide whether they should be granted refugee status and qualify for UNHCR protection.
The UNHCR also seeks a ‘durable solution for any refugee situation.’ There are three durable solutions: voluntary repatriation to the home country, integration into the country of asylum, and resettlement in a third country. Only about 1% of all refugees are referred for resettlement in a third country. The United States, one of a handful of countries with resettlement programs, is the top resettlement country in the world.
Refugees referred to the United States for resettlement are interviewed by an officer of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS), who decides if a person qualifies as a refugee under U.S. law. After this, a non-governmental agency known as an OPE gets additional information about the family, including the names and addresses of any relatives in the United States. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) generally arranges transportation to this country, though refugees are expected to repay the cost of their plane ticket. Before leaving for the U.S., refugees receive cultural orientation , where they learn about life in the U.S.
A refugee can be resettled anywhere in the country, but refugees with close relatives already here will probably be resettled in their town. However, the availability of housing, employment, services and other factors determine exact placement.
At Catholic Charities, seven employees provide services to refugees when they finally arrive in Portland. They speak Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Hakha, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Ukranian and Zomi. Last year the Refugee Resettlement Program worked with 334 refugees, and in the first seven months of this year provided services to 92 people, primarily Burmese, Bhutanese, Congolese and Somali.
Those numbers are interesting, but it’s the faces and the stories that stir your heart. Stay tuned for our upcoming interview with a Sudanese mother who arrived in Portland nearly a year ago with her seven children. Her story, like so many others, will amaze you with the courage and perseverance it took to get to Portland, where a whole new set of challenges waited.
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