Matrimony, Paperwork, and a Calendar

This is another old story, but definitely one worth telling. One of our Burundi refugees who has been here for almost two years is still waiting for his wife to come over. He married the woman after he applied for refugee status with the UNHCR, so when his number came up for resettlement, she was still waiting for her go-ahead. Someone probably told him that he could submit an AOR (affidavit of relationship) and bring her over in just a few months. The problem is that only a few months after he arrived here, the US government, wary of increasing fraud with the affidavits, stopped accepting AORs. They're currently changing the paperwork to make the process more robust, but in the meantime, refugees can't easily bring over family members still in refugee camps.

But it gets a lot worse. His wife gave birth to a son two or three months after he left, and he's never met his child. And since he got his green card in February, he is no longer eligible to submit an AOR, even if the State Department starts taking them again soon. The other form that he could use to bring his family over has to be submitted with hundreds of dollars in fees, and there would be no travel assistance for his wife and child--they would have to pay for their airfare (which is generally more than $1,000) upfront. They would also not enter the country as refugees, but as relatives of a Legal Permanent Resident (i.e. someone with a greencard) and therefore would not be eligible for the financial assistance, medicaid, and food stamps that refugees are entitled to. So basically, it's going to be incredibly hard for him to get his family over here.

Oh, but wait, there's more! This isn't his first wife--she, along with his first two kids, died when they fled from Congo (where he had been living after fleeing Burundi many years earlier). So this is the second time he has been cast into a new country without his family. As well, since he's arrived in the US, he's been hit by a car and fell down a flight of stairs. He was laid off in November and his food stamps were canceled in December. Basically, this guy has had one of the hardest lives I can imagine. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met, and whenever you bring him bad news, he raises his right hand, index finger extended like a preacher delivering a sermon, and proclaims, "God has the power!" and smiles. His faith and patience are just totally unmatched. If someone told me I could give just one of our clients a free house, or a free car, or a vacation, or anything else, I'd give it to this guy, no question.

His is the sort of story that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

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Public Housing and Paperwork

Refugee Resettlement is not a well-funded endeavor.

Even when the economy was roaring along, resettlement offices really couldn't afford to hire all the staff they needed. We tend to work long hours for modest pay, and we always have paperwork and appointments backing up on our desks. With the job market like it is right now, the vast majority of refugees coming in cannot find work, and the financial burden of paying their rent is falling even heavier than before. Whereas in years past we might pay their rent for 3 or 4 months, now we are routinely paying rents for 6, 7, and 8 months.

Obviously, we can't afford to do this. For the past 6 months our budget kept contracting. We hoped we could locate jobs for people, but we've now hit a brick wall. We haven't found enough jobs, and the coffers are empty. So we're now applying as many people as we can for a public housing community about 2 miles from their current apartment complex.

Applying for public housing is by far the most bureaucratic and paperwork-intensive process I've ever experienced. It's easier to get people their green card than it is to get them into public housing. There can't be any stray marks on the application, nor can there be any white-out. You have to use the same color ink throughout. The application is 14 pages long. It's really quite ridiculous.

Anyway, after taking about seven families in, I've gotten pretty good at handling these applications. I know exactly how to fill out everything to make sure it goes through fine the first time, and I know exactly what the refugees need to bring to make the whole process run smoothly. So today I took in a Burmese family. They spoke very little English, so I had another person translate for me, explaining that this new house would be free, and that because no one is working in their family, they cannot stay much longer in their current apartment. They understood and agreed to come with me (all adults on the application must be physically present when you submit the application). I asked, at least 3 times: "You have your EAD (a federally-issued photo ID), Social Security Card, and your I-94 (the document that all refugees get when they enter the US that is their proof of legal residence), right?" They assured me they did. I got all the forms signed, they were in my car, everything's ready to go.

So we head out. A few minutes of driving and we're at the office. I ask for all of their documentation so that they housing office can make photocopies. I get four EADs and four SS cards--but no I-94s. Whoops, we left them at home! Seriously! Clearly, the lesson is that I need to just get my hands on all the paperwork first. So we have to drive back, pick up the I-94s, and then had back over the housing office.

A final aside: this particular Burmese family is Muslim. They don't speak Arabic, but definitely recognized the Arabic script. When I walked into their apartment, I was surprised to see a poster written in the Arabic script on their wall--they clearly put it up thinking it was a religious item. It was actually a poster explaining how to get your flu shot. The Virginia Department of Health released them in English, Spanish, Russian--and Farsi. Farsi is completely unrelated to Arabic linguistically, but uses the same script. So they had this poster warning people to cover their mouths when they sneeze on their wall, in a language they don't speak, all the time thinking they had found a beautiful religious wall decoration.

Raccoons and PVC

This is now an old story, but it's funny enough to warrant space here, I think.

A number of our refugees come from Burma (Myanmar). A lot of the people we resettle are from the eastern, still quite rural areas of the country, and typically have little in the way of formal education. In any event, they certainly know how to take care of themselves in the jungle and aren't afraid to take matters into their own hands.

Anyway, they are totally unfamiliar with raccoons. Upon seeing one for the first time, a group of enterprising Burmese men decided it looked like a free meal. They found some PVC pipe somewhere and fashioned a blowdart gun out of it. They waited around until they saw another raccoon and sniped it out of the tree, just like that.

One of my coworkers happened to call on one of them that evening, probably to get some paperwork signed or some other bureaucratic mess, and she noticed some raccoon parts lying on the floor. The rest of it was in the oven. As you probably know, raccoons are a common carrier of rabies, and although I don't think you can get rabies from eating cooked raccoon, my coworker decided not to take any risks. She had them all come in to the hospital for a round of painful rabies vaccinations (which involved a series of shots in your rear end). I don't think she ever really communicated why the shots were needed, so I have a feeling they were a bit confused.

Definitions

So, this is basically a blog about refugees. If you don't know what a refugee is, this will be a rather boring and confusing mess of words. So let's lay down some definitions right quickly.

Refugee: someone who has fled (i.e. left the borders of) their home country because war; natural disaster; political, religious, or ethnic oppression; or some other rather bad event. Assuming such a person cannot safely return, they are considered a refugee. They typically settle in an adjacent country (known as the nation of asylum) in large camps. Not surprisingly, the nation of asylum generally doesn't really want these people in its territory (but is obliged, by UN treaty, to allow refugees across its borders). So refugee camps tend to be very poor, very dirty, and very crowded places.

Internally Displaced Person: someone who has fled their home for any of the reasons a refugee might, but who has not left their home country. So, if a person leaves their home city because of fighting but resettles in a new city in the same country, they are an IDP. For example, the people fleeing the fighting right now in Pakistan are IDPs. People who fled New Orleans in 2005 also would qualify as IDPs, although of course they were not labeled as such in the media.

Immigrant: someone who chooses to live in a new country for any reason except those reasons that a refugee might flee. So, people who choose to move to a country hoping to make more money or have more freedom in general would be immigrants.

Refugee Resettlement: the process of placing refugees in third countries (i.e. not their home country or the country of asylum) as a "durable solution" to their problem. The majority of refugees who are resettled each year are resettled in the USA (about 70-80,000 are resettled here. Most European countries, as well as Japan, Australia, and a few others, take only about 1,000 a year each).

UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR): the UN body that generally sets international policy towards refugee groups, sets up and funds refugee camps, and works with governments to resettle and employee refugees. Generally speaking, the UNHCR defines who is a refugee and how the international community will respond to any given refugee population.

Ok, I think these definitions will get us started. I might have to define some other things down the road, but I won't bore you now with a bunch of refugee legalese.

Salutations!

I'm not a big blog-reader. It seems to me that there are a lot of blogs out there that are wholly uninteresting. But there are also plenty of well-written blogs about all sorts of interesting, funny, or important things. I've certainly never written a blog, precisely because I never felt I had anything really worth committing to this sort of (reasonably) permanent and (very) public space.

But I now feel like maybe I do. I work for an agency that resettles refugees in Virginia. All sorts of ridiculous, funny, infuriating, and heart-breaking things happen on a weekly basis. This blog really won't be about me, but about the people I work for (i.e. the refugees). I hope it's interesting, entertaining, and informative.