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Interview with Adam Clark from World Relief of Durham

Posted by on May 21, 2016

By Lily Doron

World Relief of Durham (WR) is a refugee aid organization that provides a range of services for newly resettled refugees in the Durham community. WR provides federally required self-sufficiency oriented services within first ninety days after a refugee arrives, helps with finding housing, getting food assistance, enrolling kids in school, registering for any public benefits a refugee family is eligible for, and more. To help give some context about the current situation of Arab refugees in Durham, North Carolina, Adam Clark, the Office Director at WR, spoke about some of his experiences working with WR and trends and changes he has noticed about the Arab refugee population in the city over the past year.

To start, Adam talked about the trends of incoming Arab refugees to Durham he has experienced at World Relief. In 2015, North Carolina received about 5,000 total refugees (including non-Arab refugees). Out of this number, roughly 3,000 of them were resettled directly to North Carolina from a country of asylum. The rest moved here from other places in the United States, mostly due to familial or community relationships here. Durham receives about 10% of North Carolina’s incoming refugees. WR is seeing more Afghani refugees, which has changed from a few years ago. Originally, more Afghanis were in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Then WR staff started to reach out to Afghanis in that area one by one to convince them there are more jobs in Durham. They started to move, and now there is a solid Afghan community here. Of the Afghani refugees, there are many people with Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), a program that helps to speed up the resettlement process for people who helped the American military in their home country. In addition to Afghani refugees, WR continues to see newly resettled Iraqi refugees. NC has historically seen very few incoming Syrian refugees, but some have recently started coming.

Adam said one of WR’s main goals is to educate the public about refugees and refugee issues. Here are some of the most important facts he shared. First, it is imperative to emphasize some of the reasons why Arab refugees are leaving their home countries and coming to the United States, as there has been a lot of debate and controversy over this recently in the news. Many SIVs are coming to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan because they are no longer safe in their own country because they worked with the American military. Because they helped us in a variety of ways, they were threatened and/or friends or family members have been killed; these people would be in direct danger if they stayed in their home countries. Additionally, Arab refugees are fleeing their homes because of ethnic cleansing or the danger of living in live war zones (such as Syria).

Another important point Adam emphasized was the length and thoroughness of the resettlement process, the steps refugees must take before they come to the United States. The length and security measures in place might surprise people, especially considering the recent negative rhetoric in the media about incoming Arab refugees. The United Nations begins the resettlement process: they identify those in need, interview them to confirm the person’s claim to refugee status and that they fit the definition of a refugee using the UN definition (someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”) and conducts research to corroborate all claims made. Then, once refugee status is confirmed, the refugee begins to be processed at a refugee processing center, which is under the jurisdiction of a specific country.

The United States has nine refugee processing centers strategically placed around the world that are maintained by State Department. Here the refugees get health screenings and exams, are interviewed again to confirm their story, and their information and identity are checked using every intelligence database we have including the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, the FBI, The National Center for Counter-Terrorism, and more. These background and medical screening processes take an average of twenty months to two years, but some people have been waiting for ten years or more. If all of these screenings and checks are clear, cases with women and children are prioritized; if there is a choice, women and children come first. Once they get to the US, refugees are given an I-94 (identification documentation) that authorizes them to work and puts them on the path to citizenship within five years. They are also assigned to a refugee agency (such as WR) by the State Department.

To present another important statistic, and a very powerful one considering the current climate and resistance to resettling refugees around the world: only about 0.5% of the world’s refugees have the opportunity to be resettled in any of the small number of countries who offer resettlement. The rest are living in countries of first asylum, traveling and searching for a country where they can permanently settle, living in places where they are unregistered and without any assistance, or have had to return to their home countries despite the dangerous conditions because they have lost all other options.

On a more individual note, Adam talked about some of the challenges he sees refugees facing when they arrive in Durham. In addition to the language barriers, culture shock, and cultural isolation experienced by refugees from any country, Arab refugees face some particular challenges. The primary challenge they face is suspicion. There are Americans around the country, including in Durham, who view Arab refugees with suspicion, which has only increased in the past year nationwide. Though WR has gotten some calls from Durham community members expressing anger that Arab refugees are allowed here, by and large the Triangle area has been very welcoming to Arab refugees. The majority of calls WR receives are from people wanting to volunteer or to donate to the cause. Suspicion also goes the other way though. Arab refugees come to the United States knowing the stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims, knowing they will be viewed with suspicion. So they, in turn, come to fear Americans. It takes time and counter-examples to help curb this fear. Interestingly, churches tend to be the ones who bridge this gap. It is expected that churches will be the most resistant to Muslims, but in practice they are showing the most love: they are welcoming, church volunteers will sit with refugees in an emergency room for hours to help navigate difficult situations. Church members bridge the suspicion gap in many ways because they show up and let refugees know they are welcome.
These were some of the most powerful points Adam shared because they show how the current worldwide rhetoric about refugees – sadly in the past six months mostly fearful and exclusionary – can be challenged by basic facts in the face of ignorance. This discourse needs to be changed because it has powerful negative effects on the daily lives of refugees and adds more fear to people who are already living in it.

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