July 24th, 2010: Unsettled

This is the end of my second week at Catholic Charities in Albuquerque and I am loving it. I am learning a lot. My first week I shadowed the Center for Self-Sufficiency and Housing Assistance. This last week I shadowed the Center for Refugee Settlement and Support. I am shadowing all of the Centers at Catholic Charities so that I can go out and educate the community on Catholic Charities and Catholic Social Teaching - the tenants that are the mission and vision of the organization. For me to give these presentations around the Archdiocese of Santa Fe I myself need to know what Catholic Charities does, hence, my 5-6 weeks of shadowing and researching.

This week at the Center for Refugees my heart has been broken. A refugee according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines a refugee as a person who has fled his/her country of origin/residency and who is unwilling/unable to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a political social group. This definition excludes those leaving their country of origin/residency only to seek a more prosperous life. Refugees come to the United States through a long legal process that can take from a few months to many years; in some cases a refugee may be in a refugee camp outside his/her country of origin/residency for up to 15 years waiting entry into the United States. According to the UNHCR there are approximately 16 million refugees in our world today. The cap, ceiling not quota, of refugees admitted into the US for 2010 is at 80,000 people. Less that 1/2% of people that apply to come to the United States are admitted. In Albuquerque from July 2009-July 2010 208 people (adults and children) from around the world (Iraq, Cuba, Congo, Bhutan, and many other places) were settled here.

Bluntly, I have learned that the system to bring refugees into the United States and the system to keep them here in a dignified way is broken. In theory, and this is something I agree with, it is helpful that we at least have a system in place to settle refugees from war-torn areas. However once they enter the United States they have many obstacles to overcome before they can survive here. There are many reasons the system is failing.

First, the system was last re-designed in the 1980s when many of the refugees who were coming into US had more resources (money and connections to other family/friends in the US). Now, many of those coming into the country are coming from third world countries that need a lot more services and resources. Without going into too many details the government helps refugees financially for 120 days (four months). If they qualify, after 120 days refugees could qualify for food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (receive money). However due to lack of the English language (you cannot learn English proficiently in four months if you cannot read/write even your own primarily language) and the bad economy some families/refugees end up on the streets. In addition Catholic Charities has seen a dramatic increase in medical attention needed for refugees due to the nature of where they came from. A refugee will have a difficult time dealing with their illness, learning a language, and finding a job in a foreign country in a 120 period.

This brings me to my second point. 120 days is too short of a time for a refugee to acclimate and be self-sufficient. Imagine you moving to a foreign country where you don't speak the language, don't understand the culture, have a medical need, and their economy is bad. In the US I have known of people, who speak English and are in great health, who take six months to find a job to sustain themselves. Funding is therefore an issue. It falls on the state, local government, and Catholic Charities as an unfunded mandate to help refugees do the close to impossible in 120 days. Granted, sometimes 120 days is all a refugee from Cuba might need but a refugee from the Congo has very different needs and barriers to cross. The US government essentially says that "yes" we welcome you to our country but the money or time is just not there to support the "yes". It disturbs me to read that some say its better for refugees to be homeless in our country than to be in their war-torn country. Is that really how we want to treat someone who has already suffered enough? Is that really how we want someone who waited 15 years in a refugee camp to be treated? Granted the system that is in place is premised on full employment in our country but even with full employment in our country the demographics of who a refugee is has dramatically shifted.

This brings me to my last point. Advocacy is needed. Those who are coming from different countries don’t have the political capital to get their agenda on the table in DC or even locally. A Congolese Lobby Group does not exist. We must use our voices to advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves because they are attempting to merely live. We need to talk to our representatives about fixing the refugee system. Some of the basic things you can bring up are, 1) increase funding for refugees or say yes to less refugees so that the refugees that are admitted into the US get more funding, 2) increase the amount of time refugees get funding - 120 days in just not enough, 3) increase the resources for refugees - help them educationally and with the English language, and 4) when placing someone somewhere in the United States account for their needs (health, social, etc). I am unsettled with the current system. Catholic Charities is working so hard to work within the parameters given to them. Catholic Charities is doing amazing work (teaching them English, giving cultural awareness classes, providing them a home to live in for 120 days, funded by the government, that is fully furnished, in-kind donations, and much more). However, Spending time with families and children of different countries around the world, seeing them attempting to acclimate and learn English, seeing them trying to rush to do all that they need to do in 120 days to build their homes leaves me unsettled.

If you have more questions about the refugee system I can provide more details. Leave me a comment and I can email you. I am not an expert but if I don't know the answers I can ask sources that do know them.

I also want to thank those who taught me a lot of this information in the Refugee Center at Catholic Charities.