{"id":20568,"date":"2017-01-28T04:42:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-28T04:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=20568"},"modified":"2017-01-28T04:42:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-28T04:42:17","slug":"in-n-y-refugees-awaiting-family-face-uncertainty-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/in-n-y-refugees-awaiting-family-face-uncertainty-fear.html","title":{"rendered":"In N.Y., refugees awaiting family face uncertainty, fear"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In N.Y., refugees awaiting family face uncertainty, fear<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

In N.Y., refugees awaiting family face uncertainty, fear:-<\/strong> The first thing Charlotte Gosso does after she wakes up in her small, dark apartment is make breakfast for her two sons \u2014 Ephraim, who is 10, and Guy, who is 22, with a steady smile and a disability that will restrict him to his bed for the rest of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n

That takes a little while. Then she might straighten up the apartment, or watch some TV. Then she prays.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gosso came to Rochester in December from the C\u00f4te d’Ivoire via a refugee camp in Ghana; she was the first Ivoirian refugee here. Her prayers go to her country and her relatives there, the only ones she has.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are only a handful of Ivoirians in Rochester, and it seems unlikely any more will be arriving.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Trump signed an executive order Friday instituting a temporary ban on all refugee arrivals, fulfilling a campaign promise. Trump can point to terrorism and cite national security concerns as reasons for such actions. Federal law allows a president to bar entry to any immigrant \u201cor any class\u201d of immigrants if the president deems them \u201cdetrimental to the interests of the United States, and to “impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate,” according to the law.<\/span>
\n But Trump’s order puts the refugee agency in Rochester into an uneasy holding pattern.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no indication that people who are here already will have their status changed, but nearly every new arrival has stories of friends or family in their home country who hoped to join them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gosso thinks of a woman she knew in the refugee camp in Ghana. It would take Gosso up to three days to travel to Accra, the capital, for bureaucratic matters, and there was no one to watch Guy while she was gone. The woman would help her, and give her some rice when she needed it to feed her sons.<\/span><\/p>\n

The woman and her husband would like to come to the United States, and Gosso would welcome them. She speaks only French and is confined to her small apartment unless someone can help her with Guy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lisa Hoyt, director of the Catholic Family Center’s Refugee, Immigration & Language Services Department, described another case. A mother and seven children were supposed to arrive in Rochester on Tuesday. The family is Somali but is living in a refugee camp in Kenya.<\/span><\/p>\n

The oldest of the children is 19. The youngest is 2. Their new life here is waiting. But someone in the group got sick, postponing their travel.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Think about what’s happened,” she said. “These people literally could have missed this opportunity … through no fault of their own.”<\/span><\/p>\n

CFC is the official resettlement agency for Rochester. In recent days, it has been slammed with phone calls and visits from people worried about loved ones left behind, or uncertain about their own futures here in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soe Win came from Burma in 2007 after spending five years in a refugee camp. Her cousin was supposed to arrive next month, but that now seems unlikely to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

“When you come here, you come with a dream \u2014 the American dream,” Win said. “Can you imagine that being destroyed?”<\/span><\/p>\n

CFC’s resettlement office has 36 staffers, many of whom, like Win, are refugees themselves. And while it provides other services \u2014 a total of 19 programs dealing with various aspects of immigration \u2014 the effects of a monthslong shutdown can be devastating. The U.S. suspended refugee admissions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Hoyt said the Rochester resettlement office dwindled to a staff of two within a few months.<\/span><\/p>\n

New York resettled 5,026 refugees in 2015-16, the third-highest total of any state. Numbers were up as former-president Barack Obama pushed to increase the number of those admitted from 75,000 to 85,000, and set a goal of 110,000 in fiscal 2017. Some accounts are that 25,000 refugees already have arrived since Oct. 1. Trump wants to limit that to 50,000 for the year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rochester has been particularly busy. The city welcomed 1,176 refugees in 2016, a 56%increase from the year before, and was preparing for an even busier 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Jan. 1, CFC has welcomed 50 people from Afghanistan, Syria, Cuba and elsewhere. For the month ahead, the office had been expecting 38 refugees, with countries of origin including Somalia, Bhutan, Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n

The executive action was not unexpected, though Hoyt said many in the field were optimistic that Trump’s order might be more limited.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We were all trying to push as many through, because we were afraid this could happen,” Hoyt said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest groups of refugees this year were expected to be Somali, Syrian and Congolese. The latter group stands a better chance of coming in, said a clearly exasperated Hoyt: “because they are not Muslim.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Tek Acharya, of Bhutan, came to the United States in 2011 after 18 years in a refugee camp. He got his citizenship earlier this year, just in time for the November election; he now stands to lose his job with CFC if refugee arrivals slow as predicted.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We have families, bills, all that, so I am concerned,” he said. “But we will be fine. The families awaiting reunification are the ones I’m really most concerned about.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation-now\/2017\/01\/27\/ny-refugees-awaiting-family-face-uncertainty-fear\/97166948\/<\/span><\/div>\n

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