The world is facing a huge refugee crisis today. We've all heard about it on the news, especially with the polarized politics in our country. It's a topic I've been very interested in ever since I moved to Utah. It turns out, Utah is one of two central stations for refugee resettlement in the country. My husband found a non-profit organization that teaches refugees English and we volunteered there. The Church has a humanitarian center, where refugees work four hours of the day sorting clothes that comes from DI to be distributed around the world when disasters occur. The other four hours are spent learning English and basic skills they'll need to assimilate like rules for driving, the days of the week or preparing to take the citizenship test.
Before working with them, I knew little about refugees in general. They were wonderful people, very happy and really interested in getting to know you and in the process tell you their whole life story. They came from all over the world like different parts of Africa, Ukraine, Burma, India, and many others. They tried to help each other learn. I found out that the process for resettlement is long and very hard. It's harder for refugees to come to America than any other kind of immigrants. It got me thinking about why some people are so scared of refugees and why we don't help more. The truth is, we take less than 1% of all refugees in the world. It is not a significant number and serves primarily as a symbol of good will and support for the cause. Does anyone else have experience with refugees they'd like to share?
I'm wondering, why is it harder to come to America than anywhere else?
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