SAN DIEGO — When refugees first arrive in the United States, they often need help learning how to ride the bus, make a resume or even in some cases turn on the stove.
Over time, with support from community and dedicated case workers, they find jobs, get driver's licenses, buy cars, make new connections and restart their lives.
Katherine Bom, a former refugee and now executive director of RefugeeNet, a nonprofit that supports refugees, calls the change she sees in her clients a "transformation."
Under a new program launched in late January by the Biden administration, more people can now play a part in that transformation.
The program, called Welcome Corps, is a collaboration among the departments of State and Health and Human Services and a coalition of nonprofits. It matches teams of U.S. residents with refugee families who have already been screened and approved for resettlement in the United States. Doing so shifts some of the work away from refugee resettlement agencies which have for decades handled the logistics of receiving newcomers into local communities.
"The Welcome Corps is the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press statement announcing the program. "It is designed to strengthen and expand the capacity of the (U.S. Refugee Admissions Program) by harnessing the energy and talents of Americans from all walks of life desiring to serve as private sponsors — ranging from members of faith and civic groups, veterans, diaspora communities, businesses, colleges and universities, and more."
Unlike asylum-seekers who come to the U.S.-Mexico border who need to be screened to see if they qualify for protection in the United States after they arrive, refugees who are resettled through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program have already been screened while waiting in other countries after fleeing their homelands. They have been identified as people who escaped persecution and who should not be forced to return to danger.
When they come to the United States, they have legal status as refugees, and after one year, they can apply for green cards.
Refugee resettlement almost stopped completely under the Trump administration, and under President Joe Biden, it has remained slow.
The United States has promised to receive up to 125,000 refugees this fiscal year, but as of the end of December had only taken in about 6,750, or just over 5 percent of that total, according to data from the State Department. In fiscal 2022, the United States resettled 25,465, or about 20 percent of the promised 125,000.
Many hope that creating the additional pathway of Welcome Corps will help increase arrivals. They also hope that the program will help refugees adjust to their new homes more quickly.
"Data shows that interactions between newcomers and U.S.-born residents really helps newcomers accelerate their integration," said Kit Taintor, vice president of policy and practice at Welcome.US, one of the organizations partnering with the federal government on the program.
What is required to be a sponsor?
Sponsor groups must be made up of at least five adults — either U.S. citizens or green card holders — and everyone in the group must pass a background check. At least one member of the group must complete a special Welcome Corps training, though all are encouraged to do so.
Then the group must create a "Welcome Plan" and apply to Welcome Corps for approval before they are matched with a refugee or refugee family.
The sponsor groups are expected to find housing for the arriving refugees, furnish those new homes, welcome the newcomers at the airport and help them navigate bureaucratic tasks like getting state identification cards and social security cards and enrolling children in school. Sponsors will also help them find work or learn the skills they need to get jobs. Above all, sponsors mentor the arriving refugees on their journeys to self-sufficiency in their new country.
Sponsors are financially responsible for their matches during the first 90 days. The program requires sponsor groups to raise $2,275 per refugee being resettled — the U.S. government would normally give a similar amount of money to refugee resettlement agencies for initial resettlement. In high cost-of-living areas like San Diego, sponsors may need to raise more than the minimum required in order to make a workable budget for the new arrivals, according to Ann O'Brien, who led a recent Welcome Corps informational webinar that had more than 5,000 people registered.
Sponsors will also help refugees sign up for other assistance, such as food stamps and the cash aid they can receive for up to 8 months when they first arrive in the country, to help the families until they're able to start working and providing for themselves.
"The big thing for sponsors to remember is they're not in it alone," Taintor said.
Welcome Corps is offering application help sessions and has suggestions for raising the required funds on its website.
What can sponsors expect to experience?
Though the commitment is officially for about three months, organizers of the program hope that the matches will lead to lifelong friendships. And many who have experience working with newly arrived refugees say that it takes longer than that before newcomers are fully self-sufficient.
During the webinar, O'Brien called the work life-changing.
"I would never say that refugee resettlement is easy, but I can promise you it will be very rewarding," added her co-host Chris George.
The webinar included a conversation with Papy Sunga, a refugee, and Mary Dunlavey, who helped sponsor Sunga and his family through her church group in Boston. The sponsorship happened prior to the creation of Welcome Corps and was through a resettlement agency.
"I can encourage everyone to be part of this," Sunga said. "If you come from your country, to get here is very tough. It's very tough, and you get here, and you feel like you are from nowhere. You don't know nobody. You're just you and your family. So you really, really need people — you need someone to be there for you."
Dunlavey said she and her fellow sponsors felt they had become aunts and uncles to Sunga's younger siblings.
"Papy and his family taught us way more than we were able to offer them," Dunlavey said.
Will James, who runs the nonprofit Friendships for Hope, which provides English classes as well as food distribution programs to refugee families, said he is hoping to get involved with Welcome Corps.
"Really what we will be doing as we get into this is just becoming the family that the refugees have lost when they fled their homeland," James said. "That really is the greatest need of the refugees."
While initial resettlement has long been considered a 90-day time period, Yusufi said, many community organizations have started across the county to help fill gaps in the resettlement process. She hopes that sponsors will be willing to stick around as a resource for the new arrivals.
Who will be the sponsored refugees?
According to the Welcome Corps website, many of the first refugees resettled under the program will come from sub-Saharan Africa.
That means at least some of the refugees resettled through the program will be coming from camps where they may not have had access to electricity or other technologies that people living in the United States take for granted.
Bom, the executive director of RefugeeNet, which is based out of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, said that refugees coming from those kinds of conditions often need to be shown how to turn on and off light switches and appliances as well as how to use the stove in their new home. Years ago, her organization would hand out a picture book in Arabic to arriving Sudanese refugees to help them get acquainted with household processes.
"It takes a lot for sponsors to make sure that all the family are aware of using all the electric gadgets right," she said. "Imagine being in a place with no electricity for 20 years. It's a big shift."
During the initial phase of the program, sponsors are not able to select whom they will be sponsoring. In a later phase expected to launch sometime mid-2023, sponsors will be able to indicate that they would like to sponsor a specific person or family, but the process is not yet clear.
Many former refugees in San Diego are hopeful that the second phase could mean that they will be able to sponsor relatives from whom they've long been separated.
Homayra Yusufi of the Partnership for the Advancement for New Americans said her organization is already fielding many calls from refugee community members wanting to know how to bring loved ones through the program.
"Our community is very united, and we have a very strong community," said Joseph Ekyoci, who previously worked for RefugeeNet, primarily in the Congolese community. "They left brothers, mothers, fathers. They want to bring them here."
What is most important for sponsors to keep in mind?
Patience. That was the resounding answer from many who have worked with refugees as well as from former refugees themselves.
"You have to fully understand that someone is adapting to a new culture — and language could be a barrier in the beginning," Bom said. "You don't know what trauma they have endured before they come here. Being friendly, caring, understanding and willing to go the extra mile to support and help them — like I say, it takes a lot, but the first thing is the trust."
Nadia Abdularhman, who is originally from Sudan, said she and her family resettled in San Diego nine years ago. She said the most important thing a caseworker from the resettlement agency did when her family was new to the United States was help them find housing that was sufficient for the size of their family. At the time, they were a family of seven.
Though they were initially placed in a one-bedroom, a caseworker found a bigger home for them, which helped Abdularhman's teenage son feel more comfortable in his new life.
After the family got connected with RefugeeNet, Bom helped Abdularhman's husband find a job.
"The most important two things that I had in my mind were home and work," Abdularhman said, with Bom translating from Arabic so that she could express herself more fully.
It's also important to help new arrivals find community with others from their region in San Diego, including where to buy the kinds of food items that they're used to cooking to help them with the feelings of missing home, Bom said.
Because San Diego has a long history as a place where refugees resettle, businesses around the county cater to their many cultures.
That includes Ekyoci's grocery store, Kupanda Market, which opened on El Cajon Boulevard last year. He said he opened the African- and Caribbean-cuisine focused store because he wanted to make sure people in his community had access to the food of their culture.
Even though he no longer gets paid to work with refugees, he still keeps a chair next to the checkout counter where community members can come to him if they need help filling out online forms or understanding a document that's written in English.
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