A new life: Arriving in the US two months ago, Hydar Ali hosts tea for fellow Iraqi refugees in Lansing, Mich. He says he'll do just about any job here. Tom A. Peter

Struggling in the U.S., some Iraqi refugees now want to go back

With few good job prospects in depressed Lansing, Mich., many yearn for their old life in Baghdad.

By Tom A. Peter | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 10, 2008 edition

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Monitor Reporter Tom A. Peter talks to Iraqi expatriates in Michigan.

Lansing, Mich. - In Iraq, Nada earned a good income writing grants for an American organization. She lived in a two-story home with a private garden in a nice section of Baghdad.

But when insurgents made threats because of her ties to a US employer, she and her family fled to Egypt, applied to the United Nations for resettlement and, in November, arrived safe and sound in Lansing, Mich.

Is she ecstatic? Not quite. Although glad to have her son in the US, she herself has few good job prospects and is eager to return to Iraq where she says she can make more money.

"My focus was to bring my son [to America] to give him a better life," says Nada, who asked that her real name be withheld to protect family members still in Iraq. But in Iraq, "I will earn a good salary there and I could establish a house for my son [in the US] and let him get a good education."

For Iraqi refugees who make it to the US, the American dream is often not what they hoped. While it's meant safety and often better pay for low-income refugees, it has proven to be a disappointment for many well-paid Iraqis, at least so far. Language barriers and a job market seemingly limited to menial jobs are major frustrations.

"As they move to this country, sometimes expectations may not exactly match the reality here," says Joseph Roberson, director of Church World Service's (CWS) Immigration and Refugee Program.

Facing a bleak outlook, many hope to return to the Middle East.

After a Sunni group placed a bomb in his Shiite family home in 2006, Ala al-Tamimi fled Iraq and went to Lebanon where his brother lived. He found work as a florist. He applied to the UN for refugee status, wanting to relocate to Australia where he had friends and relatives. When he found out he'd be relocated in Lansing, Mich., instead, he almost didn't go. But his brother finally persuaded him.

"My brother told me, 'There's no security here. If you have the chance to go to the US, go to the US,' " he says. If he had the money, he would buy a plane ticket and return to Lebanon, he says. "I'm lost. I don't know what to do."

Getting to the US isn't easy for Iraqis. Most of the refugees left after receiving threats from insurgents and many lost members of their immediate family. The majority spent at least a year, usually closer to two or three, living in Syria or Jordan where they were not permitted to work. Many used the bulk of their savings while living there.

Of the 2 million Iraqi refugees outside their country – another 2 million are displaced within Iraq – only about 10 percent register with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to apply for resettlement. Of that group, only about 10 percent qualify for relocation. (Worldwide, the norm is less than 1 percent.)

The US receives more refugees than any other nation. Despite an initial promise to resettle 7,000 Iraqi refugees in the US, only 1,608 had been admitted as of Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

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