Policy Podcast: World Refugees

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Dipnote Blog: My Experiences as a Refugee Coordinator in Baghdad

MR. MCCORMACK: Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, welcome.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Thank you.

MR. MCCORMACK: We're here to talk to you about the issue of refugees and it's very timely. June 20th is World Refugee Day. Could you talk a little bit about what we here at the State Department of the United States is doing to honor World Refugee Day?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Well, it's an opportunity to really reflect on not only the problems that refugees face, but also the success stories of refugees because they're not just victims; they're also heroes. And as well as the refugees, I think we recognize the people, who in many cases put their own lives at risk, to go out into very desolate and dangerous places to provide assistance -- life-saving assistance to refugees.

MR. MCCORMACK: And I also understand we're going to be launching a new fund for women and children who are oftentimes the most vulnerable victims in these migrations of people and people that are in refugee camps. How is that going to work?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: This is very exciting to me, Sean, because in talking to groups about refugees often I'm asked, well, how can I help. And now we have an answer. And it's a way that Americans, whether they be high school students that want to clean a highway or do a car wash or Corporate America wanting to do corporate responsibility, can be a part of what we do. And the focus of this program -- this is called the Fund for Refugee Women and Children. And the focus is going to be on education and skills training and protection of children from violence. As we try to figure out how to spend our budget -- it's a generous one. We have about a billion dollars a year, but there's never enough to make -- to keep people alive and then be able to do the things like making sure that children are getting an education and women are being trained so that when they go home to the country that they fled -- Liberia, for example, we trained women while they were in refugee camps to be teachers. They're among the first that went back and starting the school and upgrading the schools in their old communities. So this is really important and it's the thing that is least -- the least priority when you're trying to make decisions between clean water and food and health care -- for education.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. So let me get this right, so little kids -- they're setting up the lemonade stand this summer, selling cookies, they can collect some money and they can send money to this fund.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: That's right.

MR. MCCORMACK: If they want to. So where do they send it to? Do we have a website or a place where they can do it?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: We do have a website. They can click on our PRM website and there's a place to click that says how can I help and they can click on that and get the information.

MR. MCCORMACK: So that's PRM.state.gov?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Right.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, terrific. We'll try -- we'll encourage people to visit the website and make a donation.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: And the first contribution to the fund has come from Hood College girls who cleaned a highway.

MR. MCCORMACK: Oh, isn't that great.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: And raised $500. Of course, we need a lot of $500 contributions --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right, right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: But we also hope that Corporate America and foundations that want to do something, they can look at our bureau and we have the ability to quickly identify the crises but we also have the proven partners and we have no overhead and we monitor the funding and we make sure it's done properly.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, that's terrific. Let me move to a different topic -- Iraqi refugees. It's been in the news quite a bit recently. Where are we in terms of the numbers for this year that we're going to accept in and how is that screening process going? I know that you always have to balance out the desire to get these people in and into a safe situation with the need to go through all the proper security vetting, so where do we stand now?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: At this point UNHCR has referred about 6,000 refugees to the program.

MR. MCCORMACK: So this is -- the UN agency has said that these people meet all the criteria for refugee status.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: That's right.

MR. MCCORMACK: And that's a separate agency, not of the U.S. Government that does that is that right?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Worldwide that's the organization that we actually fund and the international community funds to be out in the field to make the identifications of where the problems are and who the vulnerable people are to be referred for resettlement. And resettlement is a tool primarily for people who have little hope of going home again. I mean, our first and foremost goal is to try to create a situation, Iraq being a perfect example, of stability where people can go back in peace.

In the meantime, we've got two million people who have fled Iraq, who are being hosted in the surrounding countries, primarily in Syria and Jordan. And part of our effort is to sustain the social services network, to ensure that shelter and education and health care are provided to the refugees. If you don't do that, the countries will not be able to continue hosting them. But there are many that can't go home. And anyone who was associated as a translator for American forces, for example, has been targeted. So UNHCR is referring refugees who are vulnerable to our program -- as I say, 6,000 so far.

The Department of Homeland Security then sends a team and they do face-to-face interviews. They make sure that this person is who they say they are and that they have a genuine refugee claim, that they have not been involved in persecuting others. And then they go through fingerprinting and a name check because we want to make sure that there's a balance between our humanitarian desire to help, but also that the people who are coming into the United States are not coming to do harm to America.

It's a slow process. It takes four to six months to get a person through the security clearance. So by the end of our fiscal year, we expect that we will have completed interviewing about 6,000 and probably 2,500 will actually have made it all the way through the process and be on planes heading for America.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. And so by end of fiscal year, for folks not in the government, that means by the end of September.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: September -- September 30th, yeah.

MR. MCCORMACK: Let me ask you about people that work for the United States Government in Iraq, those people who are seeking some relief from threats either to themselves or families, would they fall under the refugee program or is there a separate program that we have to take care of those people?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: There is a special immigrant visa. In fact, it was just -- the President just recently signed an increase in the numbers from 50 a year to 500 a year for two years. However, we really encourage people to come through the refugee program, primarily because under the visa they don't get here a lot faster. They still have to go through security clearance. And when they come to the United States there's no structure to help --

MR. MCCORMACK: Support them -- right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: -- support them or integrate them. With the refugee program we have a very sophisticated, all through the country, organization to bring refugees in -- volunteers who worked through English training and skills training and get them quickly into jobs and connect their children with the schools. And so they get support and we think that's the best way for them to enter the country.

MR. MCCORMACK: I see. So do we have a sense of what numbers of people that have worked for the U.S. Government that are now flowing through that refugee program? Is this a large number? We've heard a lot of stories -- some of them really heartbreaking. I know that you've dealt personally with these. So are these -- are these people that we are helping out, either to get out of Iraq or once they're in Syria or Jordan are they, you know, there are people actually being processed now?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Absolutely. We are actually going to see the first planeload arrive before the end of this month.

MR. MCCORMACK: Really?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: And -- but the process then is ongoing. You will be seeing, as I said, you will be seeing several thousand arrive before the end of September. But our Embassy in Baghdad, the people who are directly employed by our Embassy, some of them are leaving and have gone already to Syria and Jordan and we're working to get them quickly into the United States. Others are still working in the Embassy, but frankly in a great deal of fear. And so the Embassy has set up a committee. We've got a process in place to be able to help them to travel safely if necessary. And I have actually, as you said, I have actually had the opportunity to sit when I was in Amman, Jordan and talk to one of the first of our Embassy employees who had gone to Amman and the stories are really heartbreaking.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, they are. I've heard a lot of them. And let me ask you about that trip that you took and specifically about the stop in Syria. If you read the news headlines, Syria does not automatically come to mind as a state that has offered much assistance to the United States. How are they doing in terms of caring for the humanitarian needs of these refugees and cooperating with us in flowing through people who qualify as refugees that are coming to the U.S.?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: I think we need to give credit when credit is earned and deserved. And I have to say that both Syria and Jordan have really lived up to their humanitarian responsibilities and Syria specifically has allowed Iraqi children -- and we're talking about a huge number; over a million Iraqi refugees are in Syria. Iraqi children are able to go to school, to get health care. One of the things that we are really focused on right now is trying to enhance the school capacity. I'm a former teacher.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: And if there was one thing that broke my heart when I was on that trip, it was seeing children that were not in school in large numbers and some of them have suffered great trauma. So one of the things that we are doing now is creating a program to -- it's a school readiness program where NGOs will be doing psychosocial counseling for children that have experienced trauma and trying to prepare them. And we are ramping up a very large, very ambitious program to try to get as many -- and we're talking 100,000 children registered in school in Syria and Jordan by the beginning of the fall semester.

MR. MCCORMACK: Wow, that's quite an effort.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: It is.

MR. MCCORMACK: Let me just wrap this up by talking to you a little bit about some of the stories here once this process is finished. You deal with the front end of the process, the input part of the process, but also helping people once they are settled here in the United States. Talk to me a little bit about some of the stories that you've heard from people that have settled here in the United States.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Let me tell you about one particular visit that I made to one of our resettlement agencies in Virginia -- in Charlottesville, Virginia. I visited -- for example, a Pakistani woman, she had been years in a refugee camp -- excuse me, she was an Afghan in a refugee camp in Pakistan. She had two disabled children. She had been one of the vulnerable people who had been brought to this country. She's now owning her own home. She got this home through her sweat equity that she put into Habitat for Humanity. She's a health care worker. Her two children, when I visited her, were just getting off of the school bus in wheelchairs; disabled children, but going to school.

I went to a hotel that is employing about 100 refugees from all over the world that have been -- that have come into that program. I visited a Chinese noodle and dumpling shop on Main Street in Charlottesville that is owned by a Chinese man and a Bosnian woman. Both of them came as refugees, married here in the United States, and they are now small business owners.

And one of the, really, things that I will never forget was going to an employer in -- this was in Providence, Rhode Island, who has a linen supply business. And he has 76 Somali refugees. Now many of them came not speaking English, were quickly trained to at least be able to communicate in English, gotten into a job by our resettlement office. This employer has found -- and he just was so excited. He had the mother lode, as he said, of wonderful employees.

And the great thing about refugees is they don't come here looking for a handout. They really come here looking for an opportunity to make their way and they appreciate so much the generosity of America. On World Refugee Day, we're going to have, actually, five refugees that will be here talking and they -- from North Korea, from Sudan, one of the Sudanese Lost Boys. And they will be talking about what happened when they arrived and how they were welcomed in the community and given this experience to become successful and start a new life here.

MR. MCCORMACK: Talking about their American stories.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Yes, it is truly the face of the American dream.

MR. MCCORMACK: Ellen, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Happy to have a chance to talk with you, Sean.