REFUGEES Trump cuts slow revival of cities such as Buffalo
BUFFALO, N.Y. — When thousands of others fled the struggling Rust Belt city of Buffalo, refugees poured in to fill the void and invigorate the economy.
Blighted blocks were tidied up by new arrivals from Iraq. Shops selling Ethiopian cuisine opened, and employers snapped up workers from Myanmar and South Sudan. More than 12,000 refugees arrived in the area in 10 years, helping stymie decades of dizzying population loss.
But as the Trump administration throttles the flow of refugees into the United States and the president increases his anti-immigration rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections, Buffalo and other cities that rely on the new arrivals are beginning to feel the pinch.
“The number of refugees coming into Buffalo now is stalled and that hurts not only my business, but other businesses in town,” said Larry Christ, chief operating officer of lighting manufacturer LiteLab, where six languages are spoken on the assembly floor. “Like a car, you need gas to fuel movement forward.”
Big, burgeoning cities like San Diego and Dallas accept more refugees, but their arrival can resonate more in smaller, shrinking cities like Buffalo and Syracuse. Buffalo, an old steel and shipping hub, had been locked in a long, losing struggle to keep people from leaving for places with less snow and more jobs.
Enter refugees and immigrants.
Refugees relocated with the help of four separate agencies settle into empty homes and fill jobs at hotels, restaurants and factories. Buffalo, which had lost more than half its population since its postwar peak of around 580,000, is now hovering close to 260,000 people.
“We buy a house that is very old, so we get it cheaper in this way,” said Nadeen Yousef, who fled from Iraq with her husband and four children in 2006. “And we fix it every year.”
Yousef spoke from her booth at the West Side Bazaar, a retail space that was packed on a recent day with a lunchtime crowd buying halal food, bubble tea and dim sum served by refugee operators. The bazaar serves as an incubator for refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs, some of whom open their own shops selling food from Laos or clothes from Africa.
President Trump last year cited national security in slashing the annual cap on refugee arrivals to the U.S. from 110,000 to a historically low 45,000. Only 22,491 refugees entered the country last year amid a tougher review process.
The effect in the Buffalo region has been dramatic.
A metropolitan area that welcomed 1,934 refugees two years ago took in 686 last year and is on track to receive fewer than 450 people this year, according to an analysis of refugee placement data by the Fiscal Policy Institute. Arrivals could dip more this coming year now that the Trump administration lowered the refugee cap again for this budget year, to 30,000.