CCS' Refugee Resettlement Program an ongoing success

Intermountain Catholic

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Aden Batar (back row, second from right) meets in the CCS courtyard with newly arrived refugees from Burma (Myanmar). Most Burmese refugees have spent at least the last 15 years in a refugee camp in Thailand. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — The summer months are a busy time for Aden Batar and the staff of the Refugee Resettlement Office at Catholic Community Services of Utah (CCS). "It’s the last quarter of the federal fiscal year," Batar told the Intermountain Catholic. "And all the people who have been waiting to be resettled end up coming at this time. We have asked the federal government to spread out the arrivals, but that just isn’t happening. Fifty percent of our arrivals come during the last quarter."

Batar and his staff resettle up to 400 people each year. Last year they resettled 382 throughout the year. This year, by the end of August they will have seen 352 people come through their offices. Every man, woman, and child who is resettled through Catholic Community Services of Utah has a story, and every story reminds Batar and his staff of their own stories, because Batar’s staff is largely made up of resettled refugees.

Batar was born and raised in Somalia and graduated from law school there. When the civil war broke out, Batar fled Somalia for a refugee camp in Kenya run by the Joint Voluntary Agency (JVA). Fluent in four languages, including English, Batar went to work for the JVA, helping with paperwork and serving as an interpreter.

"I spent two years in Kenya, and provided services there less than a year. At the end of 1993, Batar and his family were sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, and were resettled in Utah through Catholic Community Services.

"At the time, they were processing hundreds of thousands of refugees," Batar said. "We didn’t know where we were going to be sent, but I knew English, and I had the skills, so I knew we would survive no matter where we went."

The first job he got in Utah was on a production line, putting athletic equipment together. He eventually moved up to quality control. "I got a lot of exercise because I had to try out every treadmill we produced."

It’s a lot harder to immigrate to the United States now, Batar said. "Since the great tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, refugees have found it more strict and more difficult to move on from the camps because everyone is investigated by Homeland Security. It causes them many delays. Homeland Security and the F.B.I., who do background checks on everyone seeking naturalization, have a huge backlog of cases.

"Recently, we filed complaints for 24 people, whose cases should have been completed and they should have been allowed to get their naturalization papers. We won them all. But they would not have gotten their citizenship if we had not spoken up on their behalf."

Batar said when a person is seeking naturalization, and wants to become a citizen, once their paperwork is in order, and they have passed the citizenship test, the government has 120 days to send the case through the court.

"When our 24 complaints got to the court, the judge agreed with us and immigration services had to comply after the judge gave his orders."

Once refugees arrive in Utah and their processing begins through the Refugee Resettlement Office of CCS, they are set up in an apartment, given a case manager, enrolled in English-as-a-Second-Language courses, encouraged to get a job, and assisted through the naturalization process, Batar said. They are also given three months rent, three months of financial assistance, culturally sensitive food, the children are enrolled in school, and they receive orientation on the basics – using the bus service, benefits they will receive, even turning the lights off and on.

"We encourage them to participate in a federal program that provides them with a certain amount of money and encourages them to be self-sufficient," he said.

"In most cases, refugees want to become self-sufficient as soon as possible. Last year 99 percent of our refugees became self-sufficient within six months. They want to succeed."

This year, the Refugee Resettlement Office has resettled more people from Burma (149), Bhutan (60) and Iraq (69) than from any other country. When the office was visited earlier this year by officials of Catholic Relief Services in Washington, Batar was told the Utah office stands as a model for other Refugee Resettlement offices. In addition to Burma, Bhutan, and Iraq, the CCS office has resettled people from Afghanistan, Burundi, Cuba, Kenya, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, and Zaire.

If they have family members already living in the United States, they will be sent to that state. If they have no one living in the United States, they have no choice where they will be sent.

"We are going to see more refugees seeking resettlement next year," Batar said. "It is estimated that more than 2 million Iraqis and people from neighboring countries will seek resettlement next year. This year, 12,000 Iraqis were promised resettlement around the country, and so far, only 6,000 have arrived, so we will see more and more coming in."

It’s very difficult to leave everything you own and everything you know and go to a place that has nothing familiar to you and no one you know, he said.

The faces and the languages change from year to year. "In the early 90s, we were resettling a lot of people from Eastern Europe, because that’s where the trouble was. People seek to leave places of great poverty or where there is war," Batar said. "In the mid and late 90s we were resettling people from Africa and Afghanistan.

"Some people come to us with good educations and good skills. Others have spent so much time in the refugee camps they come with no skills and no education. Agencies have to tailor programs for the new groups they get."

Batar tells the story of a woman and her four children who were set up in a two-bedroom apartment. When the case manager arrived the next day, the mother and the children were all asleep on the living room floor. When she asked the woman why no one had used the other two bedrooms or the beds, the woman replied: "This room is sufficient for us."

"Most of these people have lived in the refugee camps for years," Batar said. "They’ve been through a lot, but refugees are survivors."