Recession Hurts Iraqi Refugees

[SuperDuper! 230]

Recession dims job prospects for Iraqi refugees

Thousands have settled in San Diego County

By Anne Krueger

Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. September 6, 2009

Najeeb Odeesh came to San Diego County a year ago with his wife and five children, hoping for a new start after fleeing the violence of Baghdad.

But Odeesh discovered there weren't any jobs for a 50-year-old junkyard dealer who doesn't speak English. He and his family reside in a three-bedroom apartment in El Cajon, living on $820 a month in welfare and help from family and friends to pay the $1,200 monthly rent.

“It was a dream for us” to come to the United States, Odeesh, speaking in Aramaic, said through a translator. “But the dream wasn't what we expected. It's like you hit your head against a wall.”

Odeesh and his family are among the 4,975 refugees from Iraq who have come to San Diego County in the past three years, making the county the top destination for recent Iraqi refugees in the United States.

Although previous generations of Iraqi immigrants were able to establish businesses when they came to San Diego County, the recession has diminished job prospects for new arrivals. The government assistance they receive is based on the premise that they will soon be employed, but they say no work is available.

“We don't want to sit and depend on welfare,” Odeesh said. “We want to work.”

More than 4,800 Iraqi refugees settled in Michigan in the past three years, but the 15 percent unemployment rate there means far fewer are sent to the state with the highest concentration of Iraqis.

Many refugees are coming to California, though the state struggles with an 11.9 percent unemployment rate.

About 30,000 Iraqi refugees have come to the United States since immigration opened up in 2007. Bob Carey of the International Rescue Committee said the refugees were traumatized by war and now face poverty in the United States.

“We are failing them,” he said. “They're not supported adequately in Iraq, and they're not supported here.”

After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, thousands of Iraqis fled their homes but found it nearly impossible to gain admittance to the United States. The displaced Iraqis fled to Syria, Jordan or other Middle Eastern countries, where they can spend a year or more in an uncertain legal status as they seek a permanent home.

After heavy criticism, the U.S. government allowed more Iraqi refugees in the country. The State Department spent an estimated $5.4 million in fiscal 2008 on resettling Iraqi refugees in the United States, spokeswoman Gina Wills said.

In February, President Barack Obama promised to provide more assistance and increase international support for Iraqi refugees. “America has a strategic interest — and a moral responsibility — to act,” he said.

San Diego County, with an estimated 35,000 Iraqis, has the second-largest concentration of Iraqis behind the Detroit area, which has more than 100,000.

Iraqis began arriving in East County in the 1950s, lured by the climate and affordable housing. Many were Chaldean, a Christian minority that has faced persecution in Iraq.

Iraqi immigrants opened convenience stores or liquor stores — more than 800 in San Diego County. When more relatives arrived from Iraq, they got jobs in a family member's store.

Today, only Iraqis who have family in San Diego County are being resettled here. Four agencies in San Diego County — International Rescue Committee, Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services and Alliance for African Assistance — have contracts with the State Department to assist new arrivals.

Robert Montgomery, regional resettlement director for the International Rescue Committee's San Diego office, said case workers meet with those who want to sponsor a relative fleeing Iraq.

“We don't want to further burden people who might be struggling themselves,” Montgomery said. “But if your brother is coming, even if you're hurting, you want your brother here.”

Many refugees are settling in El Cajon, where affordable apartments are plentiful in an area with an established Iraqi community to help. For example, the St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Church in Rancho San Diego is collecting donations and providing mattresses and used furniture for more than 100 arrivals a month.

Melissa Winkler, a spokeswoman for the International Rescue Committee in New York, said the recession has highlighted problems with the U.S. refugee program, which began in the 1970s to admit Vietnamese refugees. With the current influx unable to find work, the financial assistance being provided to them is inadequate, she said.

“Its entire success is dependent on refugees being employed very quickly,” Winkler said. “It's resettling refugees into poverty instead of helping them to get on their feet.”

Each new arrival from Iraq gets a one-time grant of $900, then is eligible for welfare and food stamps; a single person receives $359 a month, and a family of four receives $862. Families with children continue to receive welfare until they can find work, but single people are restricted to eight months of assistance.

Refugees say the money doesn't go far when the monthly rent for an apartment in El Cajon is $800 and up.

The refugees are required to take up to 140 hours a month of English-language classes as a condition of receiving welfare. They also must seek employment.

Odeesh and his family, who are Chaldean, fled Iraq and spent eight months in Turkey before they were allowed to come to El Cajon, where Odeesh's brother and other relatives live.

Odeesh, his wife, Manal Harmiz, and their children, ages 11 to 23, live in a second-floor apartment near downtown El Cajon. The furniture — and a computer and flat-screen television — were given to them by Sabah Toma, a cousin who lives in La Mesa.

Toma, who came to San Diego County from Iraq in 1982, has helped bring over 63 relatives. He owns San Diego Ice Machine, along with five convenience and liquor stores where many of his relatives work.

Toma said he's trying to find a job for Odeesh, but it's difficult in a tough economy.

“I have always told him, ‘When it's your turn,’ ” Toma said. “You've got to go one step at a time.”

Some immigrants said they are resented because they can't find work. Nada Gorgies, 39, said she hasn't been able to land a job since she came to El Cajon a year ago after her husband, who worked for a security contractor in Baghdad's Green Zone, was kidnapped and killed.

“Sometimes we hear people who say, ‘Go back to your country. You're taking our welfare,’ ” she said. “We are afraid to tell them, ‘You guys created the war in our country.’ ”

Sleiwa Shangy, 44, said he receives $700 a month in welfare for him and his twin 18-year-old son and daughter. His monthly rent for an apartment in El Cajon is $1,000, and he said he needs to borrow money from friends and relatives.

His son works at a gas station three days a week, but Shangy, who worked as a mechanic in Baghdad, has been unable to find work since he came here 10 months ago.

“In my country, there were a lot of jobs, but there was no security,” he said. “Here we are safe, but there are no jobs.”

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/200...gees/?uniontrib

Edited September 6, 2009 by itzallgood