REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT IN THE U.S.: THE HIDDEN REALITIES OF THE U.S. REFUGEE INTEGRATION PROCESS

From the 1946 to the 1980 Act, more than two million refugees have resettled in the U.S. (Eby, Iverson, Smyers, & Kekic, 2011p.). This has made the U.S. the largest of the 10 resettlement countries (Xu, 2007, p. 38). The U.S. department of state (DOS)’ hope is to give “the refugee a leg up on their journey to self-sufficiency” (Darrow, 2015, p. 92). For these millions of refugees, their expectations are to find “employment, education, to provide a better environment for their children, and to integrate into the community” (Xu, 2007p.38). However, this pre-package deal is not without repercussions or unintended consequences because one, the services are provided at a minimum level (Xu, 2007, p.47), two, not all refugees have the ability to quickly integrate, and last, since 2016 a new era of xenophobia, prejudice, and discrimination emerged with the election of the first populist president, Donald. J. Trump leading the path to where refugees/immigrants are no longer the destitute, and vulnerable but the ones whom American citizens needed to be scared of and worried about. The DOS foremost concern has been and still is: for the refugees to attain self-sufficient with employment. The objective is to instill the “Protestant work ethics” to refugees so that “they can return as quickly as possible and participate in the labor market to support their families” (Xu, 2007, p.48) and not to become a burden to the state. Still and all because the pre-package deal is limited to provide sufficient (English, education, and training) services to these refugees and in some cases to their children. Consequently, this leads to, “economic disparity for occupational level and earnings when refugees are compared to non-refugee migrants” (Koyama, 2015, p.610). The purposes of this paper are: First, to look at the history, the state and current practices of the U.S. refugee resettlement. Second, to provide a description of my fieldwork experience and the reasons behind my choice. Lastly, to analyze my fieldwork experience to the existing knowledge of the conflict management field