Our refugee process

I wanted to share a little of what I’m learning about refugees to our country.  Refugees are human beings who have been forced to flee persecution, war, violence to save their lives and those in their family they can help escape.  They didn’t volunteer to become a refugee and it can never be an easy decision, but if we know their stories we can understand and admire them.  We can offer assistance from our hearts  Learning and sharing some of their stories is one way to help.

A refugee is given legal status in international law through a series of clearances and reviews.  Their best solution is to eventually safely return to their homes .  If that is not possible perhaps asylum in a neighboring country is typically preferable.  Resettlement in a distant country is a last resort, but a necessary one in our community of nations and human family.


Strong, brave, hard working.


The process to come to the states as a refugee is very involved as shown in the diagram above.  There are many interviews and background checks.  This process takes time and those who eventually come here have worked very hard, particularly considering their very traumatic situation.  People who are not strong, brave, and lucky enough never make it out of the violence.  People who are not hard working, persistent, and lucky enough never make it through our difficult refugee process.


More hard work

Once refugees arrive they are given a little bit of help establishing themselves.  The goal is to quickly help them become productive members of an increasingly vibrant and interesting community.  I’m working with, Iowa Welcome Corps.  This organization, under the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, provides services to help these men, women, and children adapt to a new country, culture, and language.

The work is really hard even in the best of cases, and theirs are not the best of cases.  As a Peace Corps volunteer I know something towards the best case end of the spectrum and I attest that it is a struggle even so.

Refugees work hard to quickly find jobs and start again to support themselves.  They pay taxes and add to the richness and diversity of our local communities.  They have earned our support.  Further, they deserve the thanks of our country for choosing to bring new experiences and backgrounds into the human tapestry that is our nation.


Facing new opposition

Refugees and others forced by circumstances beyond their control to our borders seeking safety and protection made a difficult and painful choice, a last choice, to leave their homes.  They have worked hard within the system to get here.  Many, many Americans understand their difficulties and struggles, respect their hard work and support their goal to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Some Americans believe refugees are an unnecessary burden to be avoided.  First, Americans do avoid it.  The struggling country of Lebanon has taken in 21.8% of their population as refugees, Jordan almost 11%, and Turkey 5%.  Any guess at the percent we have?  About 0.25% - close to 100 times less than Lebanon.  Heck, Ethiopia takes almost 4 times that proportion and more in absolute numbers besides. (Source: Norwegian Refugee Council) 

I understand that we have a lot of problems in this country.  We created them all.  Our country needs a government of, by, and FOR the people (all people rather than the few at the top) to give us proper conditions and help us improve our lives.  Telling the average person to go it alone while pulling the rung from under their feet by helping those at the top take more income and grab more wealth is so very wrong on multiple levels. Still we can look to Lebanon, Jordan, Europe and many other generous caring countries to see that our struggles are never an excuse to ignore to those struggling more.

I hope and pray that this administration might overcome at least a little of the hate, lies, selfishness, entrenched special interest, and political party over country evil we’ve had too much of in the last 4 and 40 years.  I pray our we can change our country and better help our citizens, and the refugees, immigrants, and stateless people knocking on our door have a safe place to thrive.


We can’t make everything perfect immediately.  But we certainly should be able to stop blaming people who are not responsible.  I know the people reading this already know this and are already working to make things better for themselves and others as best they can.  Thanks. 


Love always,

John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pito – brewed millet

Image
Corn, rice, and millet are the common grains grown in my region of Ghana. All three are used food, but millet is also used to produce the local brew – pito, or daa in the local language. “N nyu daa” - in Dagaree means “I drink pito.” There are several varieties of millet grown here – a red and white varieties have loose heads. These are used for pito and other foods. There is also a smaller seed variety with a tight head of seeds that is mainly used for porridge. (Don't have a picture of that variety yet.) In all varieties millet grows on a stalk with the grain head at the top of the stalk. White and red millet in the field Two bundles of while millet to be used for seed next season Converting a grain to alcohol is a common practice in various cultures. It provides a way to capture and digest the nutritional value of the grain. In some places, like Germany and the beer brewing monks, the making a beer was a way to preserve the harvest. In Ghana the millet is
Read more

Yam harvesting

Image
Roger and I went to farm to harvest yam on Saturday morning, September 13, 2014.  In Ghana a yam is a root crop that is different from a sweet potato.  We have sweet potatoes here as well. Yam recently harvested Preparing a yam for boiling The yam has a white flesh – softer than a white potato. In this area the yams are planted between April and June.  Harvest continues into December and January depending on the weather and pigs getting into the field. The plant is a vine – which is grown on stakes rather than allowed the spread out.  The plants are placed on a raised bed about 2 feet high.  The beds are surrounded by flat trenches.  This allows the rains to flow around, but not wipe out the yam crop.  Intercropping seems to be common practice with yams planted in the raised bed, soybeans around the edges, and rice in the trenches.  The occasional corn or okra plant is also among the yams – although the bulk of those crops are in other fields.   Row of ya
Read more

Mid-service Training

Image
This past week was mid-service training (MST). The conference was held on St. Lucia at the Mount of Prayer Coubaril run by the Benedictine Nuns. It was a lovely place with hospitable people as you would expect from Benedictines. A couple of years ago in Ghana I was able to spend a little time at a Benedictine Abby (popular with volunteers) – so it was a nice connection with the two Peace Corps services. I got a little spoiled with the great meals and the WiFi. I intentionally don’t have WiFi at my house so I’m less tempted to stay inside. I do have better data service than Dondometeng in the Upper West - no complaints there and so none here. Their Church Their view Their conference room Getting ready for a meal My room was the only one with a television.  It did work, but I didn't watch anything. My guess is the picture was a little fuzzy because of all the estrogen, but that's just a guy theory with a dirty phone This was actually my firs
Read more