CT refugee agencies look to help ease border crisis

When Chris George looks at the surge of unaccompanied children seeking asylum at the Southwest border, he sees a role for refugee resettlement organizations like his in helping to ease the crisis.

New Haven-based Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, known as IRIS, has told the federal government it can help connect these minors, once they are placed with family members or sponsors in the U.S., with services including health care and legal aid to apply for asylum, enroll in school and provide English language training.

“We’re ready to do that. We have the capacity to do that,” said George, executive director of IRIS. “We have the experience. We’ve got federal contacts already, so the government knows about us. Connecticut would love to welcome some of these families.”

The expertise these agencies have in resettling refugees could be leveraged to aid those seeking asylum to the U.S. George said he is in discussions with officials from the Office of Refugee Resettlement about how IRIS could be of service.

George joined U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D- Conn., at a news conference Monday that the senator, and new chair of the Senate subcommittee with oversight of the homeland security budget, held in Hartford following his visit to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas.

“The conditions are better than 2019. These are not cages. There are now child care workers and medical professionals. But I still wouldn’t want my child in these detention facilities for more than 30 seconds,” Murphy said.

Just about everyone connected with immigration issues, on all aides of the issue, agrees the nation needs a reform and overhaul of its policies on who can come into the United States, when, and under what circumstances. For now, the Biden administration is turning away adults and families seeking asylum at the border, but not unaccompanied children, many of whom are fleeing their home countries of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.

The U.S. Border Patrol facilities have become overcrowded as migrant children await relocation to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services. Murphy described 100 kids per room, “so many that their mattresses are lined up only a few inches or a few feet from each other.”

“They spend four to five days in these detention facilities and then they get moved to group homes and eventually, after a few weeks, they get reunited with family members in the United States where they can make their asylum claim,” Murphy said.

George said these children, in some cases, are also experiencing delays in being placed with sponsors or relatives already living in the U.S.

“One reason why they’re not moving out of the shelters quickly is because the Trump administration was sharing information about sponsors and relatives with ICE,” he said, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “That had a chilling effect on potential sponsors and relatives who wanted to step forward and receive these children.”

George said he has been told that practice has stopped under the Biden administration. “But it will take a while to recover from that,” he said.

For the last six years, the Bridgeport-based organization Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants has helped to resettle unaccompanied minors, mostly seeking asylum from Central America, under a contract with the federal government.

Susan Schnitzer, president and CEO of CIRI, was not at Murphy’s press conference, but agrees with George that resettlement agencies could play a larger role in the asylum process.

The organization usually helps about 75 youth each year as they move from shelters to living with their sponsors.

CIRI conducts home visits to ensure the sponsor’s home is “safe and appropriate” and helps connect the youth with legal and other services. The organization spends about three months in this case management role but is looking to secure private funding to do this work for at least a year, Schnitzer said.

Resettlement agencies such as CIRI and IRIS are awaiting final determination from the Biden administration on the number of refugees the government intends to allow into the U.S. this year. The Trump administration set the refugee cap for this fiscal year at 15,000, the lowest number since 1980.

“We can do both. We can deal with the emergency at the border and at the same time we can increase the refugee resettlement program,” George said.