Help Refugees at Risk in the U.S. and Globally

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. The IRC helps refugees and immigrants in 25 cities across the U.S. Below is a story of a refugee family and the IRC’s work to support them.

When he was 16 years old, Robert started a diary. He didn’t know if he was a good writer or not; he wasn’t able to finish high school, since he couldn’t afford the fees. Regardless, Robert felt a sense of relief as he scribbled down his experiences, thoughts and feelings.

“One might say: I am a dreamer, a young bird growing its wings,” he wrote in one of his entries. “Call me whatever you please but I am young and determined to expand my horizons. I am hopeless and lose weight when I flash back to the past, but I regain when I look forward to the future.”

That entry addressed the harsh realities of growing up in a refugee camp in Uganda, where Robert would live for more than 20 years after escaping war in Democratic Republic of Congo. He also wrote about his most cherished aspirations: to establish a real home, obtain an education, and live a purposeful life.

“I am a young boy with a lot of zeal for life, a lot of life energy for happiness and with a vision,” he wrote.

At the age of 28, Robert has fulfilled some of his dreams—he now lives in America, enjoys a steady job, bought his first house, and is saving to go back to school.

‘Come faster, come—run!’

Robert was just four years old when the massacre happened. He remembers it was a Tuesday—Tuesdays were when his parents would go to market. His neighbors kept an eye on him as he kicked around a soccer ball. At one point, Robert heard loud noises. At first, he thought the sounds were some sort of alarm to warn the community of buffalos entering the town.

“But it was war,” Robert says.

The noises were gunshots. Robert saw his neighbors running. Unaware of what was happening, he ignored the chaos and continued to play—until bullets flew in front of him.

“I saw fire. The bullets were coming so close to me. I started crying. I shouted ‘Mom!’ but my mom was not around. Then my auntie, she lived close by, started calling.

“She was like, ‘My son, come.’ And I said, ‘What's going on?’ She said, ‘Come faster, come faster, come—run.’”

Robert and his aunt couldn’t run far. She was eight months pregnant, so they hid. Armed men found them, dragging Robert and his aunt into the streets.

Robert was hit repeatedly with the barrel of the gun. One of the men put his hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t scream. The four-year-old was forced to watch as another man decapitated his aunt.

“Then, they beat me almost to death.”

Robert was left lying among dead bodies for several days, he later learned. An anonymous woman picked him up, wrapped a blanket around his small body, and carried him across the border to Uganda, where she handed him to the American Red Cross. He was rushed to the hospital and later, miraculously, was reunited with his parents in a refugee camp.

‘I never thought I could do this…’

Robert turns quiet after recounting his story. He folds his hands neatly on his lap; his eyes are wide and bright.

Despite the pain and trauma that he carries with him to this day, he feels that sharing his story helps him to remain resilient as he starts a new life in the United States.

Robert was resettled by the International Rescue Committee in Phoenix in 2016. He came to America with his wife, Esther, who is 25, and their children, Sandra, 5, and Agape, 4. The couple’s toddler, Raza, was born in Arizona.

The IRC helped Robert and Esther find jobs at a warehouse—Esther works morning shifts and Robert evening hours. With the IRC’s support, the couple saved money and built up credit. They enrolled in English classes and studied American culture and laws. And they managed to buy a house.

“It was really a dream,” Robert says, describing the day he received the keys to their home. “I never thought I could do this in America.”

Five-year-old Sandra plays with her little brother, Agape who is four, at a nearby park. “Sandra loves school,” Esther says. “She wakes up during the weekend and asks to go to school.”

‘We are human beings looking for hope’

When Robert reflects on how much his life has changed, he always comes back to the same realization: “Refugees can almost do anything if they are given the opportunity.” 

This is the message he gave to a group of college students at Arizona State University where recently he was invited to speak.

“I will never stop speaking about refugees, because they’re my family,” he says. “We share similar experiences. No matter where we are from. I told [the students that] refugees are people who are trying to take new steps in life...We are human beings looking for hope.”

Robert still regrets not finishing high school, and he wants to resume his studies with a focus on human rights. “I want to defend people,” he says, speaking with passion. Robert is determined to accomplish this goal, no matter how long it takes. When things get tough, he looks back at that diary entry he wrote at 16.

Every day refugee families face unspeakable circumstances. They're forced to flee violence in Syria with their toddlers in their arms, have little food to eat or water to drink in drought-stricken Somalia, are stranded in Greece in dangerous living conditions...

The reality of President Trump's decision to slash the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. next year by nearly half impacts so many refugee families who are already facing dire situations.

America has always been a beacon of hope for those in need — a true global leader in response to the refugee crisis. It’s unconscionable that this administration has turned its back on the most vulnerable among us. But I assure you, my colleagues and I will never stop working to help as many refugees as possible. And we need you, with us in the months to come.

You can help us support stranded families now. We aid refugees around the world and help refugees who are resettled here in the U.S. Help us provide them with trauma counseling, health care, emergency aid, water and sanitation and other critical assistance by donating today.

Thanks for continuing to stand with refugees

When families or separated children are released from detention, they need immediate assistance and resources to arrive to their destination, address basic needs, and receive critical referrals for social and legal services. IRC’s response offers a range of emergency services including needs assessment, temporary shelter, and transportation assistance, emergency medical services, access to phones and computers, food and cash assistance, referrals for services in destination location, know your rights and basic guidance, and mental health screenings.

For nearly five years, the IRC has worked with unaccompanied children from Central America seeking asylum in the United States. Prior to the new policy, unaccompanied children were not forcibly separated from their parents, but rather had come to the U.S. to seek protection on their own, often with the intention of reuniting with other family members residing in the U.S. Many of these unaccompanied children who had traveled alone were older children or teens.

Now, the population of unaccompanied children in U.S. custody includes thousands of children, including many babies and toddlers, who were taken from their parents at the border.

The IRC oversees post-release services for unaccompanied children, which includes:

• connecting them to legal providers to help with their asylum claim;
• providing unaccompanied children and sponsors basic orientation on their rights before referring them to legal services organizations who can directly work on their case;
• conducting home visits on foster parents to ensure that the home is safe for minors;
• training, information sharing and guiding of sponsors of unaccompanied children around issues ranging from education, legal assistance, and child welfare laws. 

Your donations to this effort will help us respond quickly and efficiently to families as they are released from detention.

Links:

• Seeking Safety at the Border
• How Can I Help Asylum Seekers?

•  The security situation in the Northern Triangle is deteriorating, forcing people to leave their homes.  The number of children and families fleeing has increased over the years. From the IRC’s experience in the region, the fears of persecution among those fleeing the Northern Triangle are very real. Violence in the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador is amongst some of the worst in the world outside of an active war zone. 
  
  
• The $8.6 billion the President requested in FY2020 for a wall is almost 20 times more than the amount requested to address the root causes of violence and displacement in the region.  Threats of pulling aid only undermine U.S. allies who are in a position to address the root causes, not just the symptoms, of this crisis. Instead of cutting aid, the U.S. should support Central American countries’ efforts to reduce violence and poverty  – the core reason people are fleeing north.
  
  
• Increasingly, recently released asylum-seeking families in the U.S. are being abandoned by the Trump Administration with no access to food, shelter and clothing rather than being met with a formal reception system. Many have small children or infants. They often speak little English, have no means to travel, or information on how to reach their final destinations or reunite with family in the U.S. Many have been given no guidance on when to attend their immigration court hearings.
  
  
• Communities along the border are trying to support these asylum-seeking families, but their resources are being stretched to breaking point. IRC is providing additional capacity in order to meet these needs, mobilizing with resources, volunteers, and utilizing our emergency expertise to help as many people as possible.
  
  
• The IRC calls on the U.S. Administration to follow domestic and international law, and uphold America’s humanitarian commitments.Congress must act to reverse the systemic attacks on protections for vulnerable populations, refugee resettlement, and legal pathways for asylum seekers, to protect American values and American interests. In recovering America’s humanitarian leadership, Congress must override the President’s veto of the revocation of his unnecessary Emergency Declaration, restore funding to address violence and insecurity in Central America, vote to prevent the deportation of those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and uphold the rights of people seeking asylum.

Links:

• Administration Can Keep Sending Asylum Seekers to Mexico - NYT

• Read more about the crisis at the border (PDF)
  

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reacts this to President Trump’s veto of the “Resolution of Disapproval” passed by the U.S. Congress. The Resolution was passed to terminate the national emergency declared by President Trump on February 15, which sought to secure funding to build a physical barrier on the southern border. The President invoked national emergency powers after Republicans and Democrats alike, representing a wide swath of Americans, clearly rejected the President’s request for border wall funding.

Congress and the American people want common sense solutions, not walls. Even as President Trump is using extraordinary measures to override the will of the people and secure funding for his border wall, the President’s FY2020 budget does far too little to address the reasons people are fleeing in the first place. Levels of violence and insecurity in Central America rival those of war zones, but the $8.6 billion the President requested in FY2020 for a wall--that experts across the political spectrum have panned as ineffective--is almost 20 times more than the amount requested to address the root causes of violence and displacement in the region.

Overall, the President’s budget slashes humanitarian aid by 34 percent at a time when 14 million people are on the brink of famine in Yemen alone, Ebola is resurgent, and nearly 70 million people are displaced by conflict worldwide.

Congress has repeatedly rejected the President’s request for money to build a wall, including by rejecting the President’s National Emergency declaration. The crisis on which this ‘emergency’ is based is a manufactured one. The number of irregular border crossings is at their historic lowest and the chaos sown at the border - under the continuing policy of zero tolerance - is of the Administration’s own doing.

The true crisis is the instability in Central America that has forced people to flee for their lives, coupled with the administration’s systematic attacks on these same vulnerable individuals. In particular, violence in the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador is amongst some of the worst in the world outside of an active war zone.

The Administration has slashed funding to address the violence in these countries, rejected asylum seekers at the border, detained thousands seeking asylum including children, and has threatened to return hundreds of thousands of Central Americans legally residing in the United States under Temporary Protected Status to the very nations from which people are fleeing.

Congress must act to reverse the systemic attacks on protections for vulnerable populations, refugee resettlement, and legal pathways for asylum seekers, to protect American values and American interests. In recovering America’s humanitarian leadership, Congress must override the President’s veto, restore funding to address violence and insecurity in Central America, vote to prevent the deportation of those with Temporary Protected Status, and uphold the rights of people seeking asylum”

Links:

• Fact Check: What is the national emergency?
• Fact Check: Is There a Crisis at the Border?