Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Inside CL / Don't Panic Iraqi refugees in Atlanta
Posted by Andisheh Nouraee on Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 3:34 PM
This week’s CL cover story is about Ahmad Ali, an Iraqi man now living as a refugee in metro Atlanta. Ali fled his crumbling nation’s violence in 2006. After living in Syria for 15 months, he was granted refugee status by the U.S. government. He and his family moved to Doraville in 2007.
A refugee is not a migrant. Migrants leave their country of origin voluntarily in search of economic opportunity, political freedom, education, adventure, or any combination of those reasons.
A refugee is someone fleeing mortal danger -- war, persecution, natural disaster, etc. One hundred forty-seven nations are party to UN-sanctioned agreements about the treatment of refugees. During the last half century, the United Nations has helped 50 million refugees rebuild their lives.
Among the responsibilities that many nations have taken on is the promise to accept refugees each year as legal residents. The United States took in about 70,000 refugees in 2007. Refugees have social security numbers and are allowed to work.
Since the 1990s, metro Atlanta has become home to about 50,000 refugees from around the world. They come from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Burma and Iraq, to name just a few.
Strictly speaking, refugees don’t come to Atlanta. They’re brought to Atlanta -- by refugee resettlement agencies. Metro Atlanta is a popular location for refugees because the cost of housing is relatively low and the job market here is relatively welcoming to unskilled workers who often do not speak English.
Ali was resettled in Doraville by the local office of the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian agency founded in 1933 with the help of Albert Einstein to aid people fleeing Hitler.
IRC found the Alis their home, some furniture and is helping with their rent for four months. After that, the Alis are largely on their own.
IRC is just one of the organizations in Atlanta doing great work on behalf of refugees. Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta, World Relief, Refugee Family Services, International Community School and Catholic Charities are some of the others.
If you're interested in donating your time or your money, or just learning more about refugees in Atlanta, these are good places to start.
Comments (5)
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Andy -- This was a fascinating story to read. Thanks for this. One question (not specific to the Ali family): do you know how IRC and similar agencies make the decisions to settle a family within the metro Atlanta area? I imagine at this point Clarkston/Stone Mountain looks more attractive for resettling people of certain groups or nationalities, just because there are already people of similar background living there.
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dislikeThank you for the kind words. My understanding is places like Clarkston and Doraville are ideal locations because of a) affordable rental homes are abundant and b) they're relatively convenient to both MARTA rail and buses. There's plenty of affordable housing in Cobb and Gwinnett, but the public transportation options are limited there.
CORRECTION: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that the IRC was founded in 1933. My apologies.
Andisheh, I want to apologize on behalf of my company (Resident Blogger) for a post that was put on our Atlanta blog that should have been credited to you but was not. Actually, It was my fault and not the fault of my new Atlanta Resident Blogger. She just came onboard this week and I have been instructing her on how the blog is setup. Originally she used part of your text as a "comment" to another post, just as practice on how the comments function worked. But I was so impressed by the test comment she posted that I turned it into an actual post, not knowing that she had borrowed the text from your site. I think it was an innocent mistake on her part but just the same I will be instructing her to change the post to give you full credit and will relay this story to my other Resident Bloggers so that this kind of thing will not happen again. Thanks for your understanding, - John Trout
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