This months Time magazine has short article entitled “Give Us Your Tired….Just Not All of Them” about the 1100 Somalis who have moved into the small town of Lewiston Maine.
It says about half way through the article *" It didn’t help that many Somalis are dependent on social services, taxing the already limited resources of the city."
My question is how did these people get into the US in the first place? Don’t potential immigrants have to have critical skills or at least the promise of a job?
Not if they’re refugees, which I’d guess Somali immigrants are rather likely to be.
I suspect ruadh has it. The copy of this article I found online starts:
(Emphasis mine)
I’m interested in following this story because I encountered these people while working with refugees in Kenya this summer. They are Bantu people from Somalia, who have been a oppressed minority there for centuries. The US government identified this group for resettlement - thousands of them will be arriving in the next year or so. Not to imply that they are not deserving of asylum, but it’s a little disturbing that the U.S. government apparently choses specific groups for high-profile resettlement when there are so many equally deserving people throughout the world. Overall, fewer refugees have been admitted in FY 2002 than in the past 25 years.
I’m not completely sure about the details of what happens to them after resettlement, but I’m concerned because these people will likely have an especially difficult time adapting. They are generally agricultural people who have never held regular jobs. They have no education and speak no English. They are Muslim and often polygamists. They have no existing support systems here because the existing Somali communities in the U.S. are made up of the very ethnic group who oppressed them in their homeland.
As I understand it, they receive welfare benefits for only a short time - a few months - and after that they are expected to fend for themselves. The federal government pays local non-profits to help them find apartments, jobs, etc., though I have been told by refugees and the resettlement agencies themselves that the support is very inadequate. It is the federal government, not the local government agencies, that are primarily responsible for their initial financial support, if I’m not mistaken.
I don’t think the US has a skilled migration programme. It has family and humanitarian and a lottery, but I’m not aware of a points-based skills system. There is job-based migration/green card, but you can’t just apply with your qualifications to migrate, like you can to Canada, New Zealand or Australia.
I am not sure about the UK but I think it may be similar. You need to have family links or a humanitarian cause.
That’s correct, istara, although I do recall reading not long ago that the UK had vague plans to adopt a points-based system. It seems to be the wave of the future.