[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S964-S966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REFUGEE FAMILIES IN VERMONT
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, since 1989, Vermont has accepted more than
8,000 refugees from around the world. Most recently, two families from
war-torn Syria were placed in Rutland.
Vermonters understand the meaning of community, of supporting one
another through tough times and celebrating together in seasons of joy.
Over the last three decades, the meaning of community has expanded to
include numerous nationalities as Vermonters have welcomed new
neighbors from countries including Somalia, Sudan, and Bhutan, among
others. Over the last 25 years, Vermont's growing diversity has infused
vitality and a diversity of culture into our rural State as locals open
their arms--and their hearts--to new cultures and ways of life. New
Vermonters hail from the world over
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and are greeted in the Green Mountains by support groups and refugee
associations. Some organizations aid new arrivals by offering workforce
developments and translation services, while others host furniture and
clothing drives. Many refugees are able to find jobs in Vermont's
bustling tourism industry, as they work to save for future endeavors.
These support networks expand as the same individuals who once relied
on refugee organizations begin to offer guidance to others. For some,
this means years of saving before opening restaurants or stores with
food and products that feature their home countries. Others focus on
engaging recently arrived refugees in the very communities that they
were welcomed into. As their roots grow deeper and their communities
wider, Vermont's cultural vibrancy increases.
At the end of the day, however, these refugees have become part of
the fabric of our communities. Vermont has become a home, if not their
first home. In an article featured in POLITICO in November 2016, one
refugee, Ramadan Bahic, a Bosnian Muslim who fled their Serb-controlled
town during the Bosnian civil war said, ``My language is my language,
my accent will stay, but if you ask me, I'm a Vermonter.''
To Mr. Bahic and to those refugees recently settled in Vermont--or
hope to do so in the future--I say welcome home.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of a November 2016 POLITICO
article, ``My Language is My language, But I'm a Vermonter,'' be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From POLITICO, Nov. 17, 2016]
`My Language Is My Language, But I'm a Vermonter'
Vermont has accepted thousands of refugees over the years,
boosting the population and the economy. A debate over
accepting Syrians put the state to the test.
(By Erick Trickey)
Burlington--Eight years ago, Som Timsina's family left a
refugee camp in Nepal and became one of the first Bhutanese
families to seek sanctuary in Vermont. Timsina drove the
Holiday Inn's shuttle on night shifts for three years as he
saved to open his own Asian grocery. Five years later,
Central Market has become a gathering place for the state's
growing population of ethnic Nepali from Bhutan, and its
kitchen dishes out Himalayan cuisine that gets raves from
locals on Yelp--tikka masala and biryani, plus Nepali momo
dumplings.
Timsina, 38, works long, fast-paced days. In a 20 minute
chat in his store, he never takes off his black jacket or
takes the Bluetooth from his ear. Though business isn't as
strong as he'd like, and housing costs in Burlington are
high, Vermonters, he says, have offered a welcoming refuge
for him and his family--including his father, who was
tortured by authorities in Bhutan.
``They react good so far,'' he says of Vermonters. ``They
are helping us.''
For decades now, Vermont has welcomed refugees from around
the world: more than 8,000 since 1989, just over 1 percent of
the small state's population. Vermonters have been almost
Canadian in their big-hearted welcome of the displaced and
persecuted, primarily from Somalia, Sudan, Central Africa,
Bhutan and Bosnia. They're generous donors of furniture and
household goods for new arrivals. They've taken Somali
refugees into their homes to help them adjust to American
life. And their schools have stepped up with English-language
classes for kids from abroad. In Vermont, refugee
resettlement has enjoyed near-unanimous support from state
and local political leaders, who see it as a way to add youth
and vigor to the largely rural state's declining population.
And for the most part their constituents have agreed. Until
this year.
On April 26--the same day Donald Trump swept through seven
Republican primaries in the northeast--the mayor of Rutland,
southern Vermont's largest town, announced a plan to accept
up to 100 war refugees a year, beginning with Syrian
families. The reaction was swift. A volunteer group, Rutland
Welcomes, organized to prepare for the Syrians' arrival, and
at the same time a vocal group bent on halting the
resettlement, Rutland First, flooded meetings in the town of
16,000. The ensuing debate, which dragged on through the
summer, was a miniature version of the emotionally charged
argument that dominated so much of the presidential cycle.
But the way Rutland residents responded was quintessentially
Vermont: generous and pragmatic. In the end, most residents
saw that this was about more than the refugees' well-being.
It was about their own as well.
A six-foot-tall teddy bear with a red bowtie rests on a
shelf in Vermont Bosna Cutting, Ramadan Bahic's fabric shop.
It's a photo op for every kid who visits the business, and a
symbol of how Bahic and his wife rebuilt their lives in the
Green Mountain State after fleeing Bosnia in 1993. Fashion
designers before the war, the Bahics now cut fabric for
clients that include the Vermont Teddy Bear Co.
``I can say I'm born here,'' says Bahic, 56, burly and
upbeat. ``My language is my language, my accent will stay,
but if you ask me, I'm a Vermonter.''
Bahic and his family, all of them Bosnian Muslims, fled
their Serb-controlled town during the Bosnian civil war. ``My
father was beaten by Serbs,'' Bahic says. ``Both my parents,
they were almost killed. We were witnesses, so we were
supposed to be killed.'' The Red Cross evacuated them to a
refugee camp in Croatia, and after four months, they were
resettled in Burlington.
Though Vermont isn't known for its diversity--whites make
up 94 percent of its population of 625,000--that's changing.
Bahic's new life is a testament to the major role refugees
have played in bringing new cultures to Burlington. His
parents' funeral services were presided over by an imam from
the Islamic Center of Vermont, one of the state's two
mosques. Though Bahic leads a mostly secular life--he likes
to gamble and drink--he's visited Burlington-area churches to
explain Islam. The 15 employees at his business in suburban
Winooski include many Vietnamese-immigrant seamstresses. His
Bhutanese neighbors in his Colchester apartment complex are
working hard, hunting for new work, moving up. ``In five
years, they're looking to buy a house, some looking to buy a
new car,'' he says.
Immigrants in Vermont have organized to help newer
arrivals. The Association of Africans Living in Vermont,
founded as a social circle, now offers workforce development
and translation services to new refugees. Tuipate Mubiay, a
Congolese immigrant who co-founded the group in 1999, also
runs an orientation and a conversation partners program for
refugee students at the Community College of Vermont.
``I feel Vermont has more open doors than other states,''
says Mubiay. Immigrants in the state tend to find jobs,
apartments and health insurance faster than elsewhere, he
says.
At the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program in Colchester,
the state's only refugee placement agency, flyers on a lobby
bulletin board offer refugees tips on jobs, health care and
transportation: ``UPS is now hiring,'' ``Vermont Health
Connect,'' ``Get a bike--Bike Recycle Vermont,'' ``And
Remember, Please Give 15 Days Notice If You Are Quitting A
Job.'' The Children's Book of America, edited by William J.
Bennett, the Reagan administration secretary of education,
rests on a coffee table, its cover illustration a bunch of
kids from a kaleidoscope of ethnicities waving American
flags.
Amila Merdzanovic, VRRP's director, came to Vermont in 1995
as a Bosnian refugee. She makes the case for resettlement's
contributions to Vermont: It brings about 200 working adults
a year to a state with a stagnant, aging population. ``We
have employers calling us on a daily basis, saying, `We need
workers,' she says. Many refugees get jobs at hotels and
restaurants. Landlords call, too, despite Burlington's low
housing vacancy rate. ``Refugees are hyper-aware of the
importance of good credit,'' she says. ``[They] take care of
their apartments and their neighborhoods.''
It's hard to measure refugees' assimilation or happiness.
Instead, agencies like VRRP look at self-sufficiency to
measure success. Refugees get a one-time payment of $925 to
$1,125 to start anew in the U.S. After that, the goal is to
help them find a job that pays enough to make them ineligible
for state aid. In 2015, Merdzanovic says, 75 percent of
employable adults resettled in Vermont were self-sufficient
within three months of arriving. By eight months, the figure
rose to 88 percent.
``[If] we don't hear from them, we know they're working,
their kids are in school, they're driving, they have a car
and driver's license. That's a success,'' she says.
In Burlington, refugees' biggest challenge is affordable
housing. Timsina, the Bhutanese grocer, says some refugees
have moved to Ohio or Pennsylvania because of Burlington's
high rents--at least $1,500 a month for a three-bedroom
apartment. That's one reason Rutland appealed to VRRP.
But accepting Rutland's application to become a
resettlement site for Syrians has exposed VRRP to something
it hasn't dealt with elsewhere: angry opposition. ``It's very
different,'' says Merdzanovic. ``It's new waters for all of
us.''
As Rutland Mayor Chris Louras crosses a downtown street
corner, an SUV pulls up. ``Hey, Louras!'' shouts the
passenger.
``Mr. Congressman!'' says the mayor.
Peter Welch, Vermont's lone member of the House of
Representatives, is the passenger, and he's not at all
surprised to find the mayor giving an interview about his
support for refugees. Welch is quick to say that he and
Vermont's senators back Louras' effort.
``All three of us support accepting refugees in the
country--America needs to do its share--but the real hard
work is in the communities where people are going to land and
live,'' Welch says.
It hasn't been easy, but Louras, an Army veteran who still
sports a soldier's buzz cut, has a history of charging ahead.
That's what Louras did last November, when Vermont Governor
Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, announced that he, unlike several
Republican governors, would continue to welcome Syrian
refugees to his state.
[[Page S966]]
``I saw that as an opportunity,'' Louras says, ``not just
to do the right thing--to open our doors to a people who are
fleeing for their lives--but also to do the right thing for
the community.'' Louras says Syrian refugees could give
Rutland a population boost and more cultural and ethnic
diversity, which in turn could help the town attract and
retain millennials.
``Our population is crashing,'' Louras says. Though Rutland
is one of Vermont's largest cities, that doesn't mean it's
very big. About 16,000 people live there, down from 19,000 in
1970. Louras, mayor for nine years, has worked to turn it
around. He says downtown occupancy is at 95 percent, up from
75 percent when he started. But Rutland has been hit hard by
the opioid epidemic and the subprime mortgage crisis.
Absentee landlords have neglected their properties, leaving
the city to step in with garbage pickup and grass-mowing.
Refugees, he says, could revitalize the city's hardest-hit
neighborhoods.
``In Burlington and Winooski, new Americans really take
pride in where they live and become very engaged community
members.'' Besides, he says, the town's economy needs
workers: Unemployment is below 4 percent in Rutland County,
and the region's top employers, Rutland Regional Medical
Center and a GE aviation plant, have trouble finding new
employees.
So, after talking with State Department and Homeland
Security officials, VRRP, the local school district and major
regional employers, Louras announced in April that Rutland
would apply to welcome 100 refugees a year, starting with 100
Syrians. A supportive group, Rutland Welcomes, organized
almost immediately to prepare for the Syrians' arrival. So
did opposition.
``These are the same people or many of the same who danced
in the street celebrating 9/11, the same people who hate
us,'' read a change.org petition against the resettlement,
with more than 400 supporters. Another group, Rutland First,
also launched fierce criticisms of the refugee resettlement
plan and hosted national anti-immigration speakers Philip
Haney and James Simpson in September.
Some critics complained that Louras had acted secretly by
not informing the city's board of aldermen. ``To keep it a
big, fat, frickin' secret until it's too late obviously
breeds mistrust,'' says Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton.
In a July meeting, the aldermen narrowly rejected a
petition to hold a nonbinding citywide referendum on refugee
resettlement. Instead, they voted to send a letter to the
State Department saying they weren't ready to endorse the
idea.
``The last thing I wanted was for Rutland to be tarred [as]
the community that voted on whether or not Muslims could be
our neighbors,'' says Will Notte, president of the aldermen,
who supports resettlement. ``We never voted on Italians
coming. We didn't vote on the Poles. This is not something
that is meant to be decided at the ballot box.''
Rutland alderman Scott Tommola, who voted to send the
question to the ballot, says he's not opposed to taking in
refugees. ``I've met very few who are adamantly opposed to
this,'' Tommola says. ``The majority of people I talk to are
cautiously optimistic.'' But he isn't convinced that the city
has the jobs, housing and education capacity to take in 100
refugees a year. ``Show me these jobs and the housing that's
adequate,'' he says.
In August, at a Rutland First meeting, Wilton claimed that
taking in refugees will cause Rutland's property taxes to
rise. She predicts they'll drive up English-language learning
costs in local schools, and their housing needs will require
the city to spend more on community development. ``It could
be much more difficult than we think to help these folks,''
she says. Louras and others have disputed Wilton's figures.
The mayor says taking in refugees won't cost City Hall a
thing, and the schools superintendent says the district has
excess capacity for teaching English.
Wilton, like Rutland First, says she isn't completely
opposed to taking in refugees--maybe 25 a year would be OK,
she says. But she's concerned that they'll take jobs from
native Vermonters and that there aren't enough middle-class
jobs in town to offer economic mobility. She also has
security concerns about admitting Syrians to the U.S., citing
intelligence concerns that ISIS can generate fake passports
and may try to infiltrate the West through refugee flows.
``We're more than likely to end up, out of 10,000, 20,000
people, to have some folks here that don't have our best
interests at heart,'' she says.
Louras says he's confident that the federal vetting process
is solid: ``Individuals who want to do us harm are not going
to come through refugee resettlement.''
In late September, the State Department approved Rutland as
a new home for refugees. Louras says 75 Syrians from either
the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan or camps in Lebanon, plus
25 Iraqis, should arrive in December or January.
Notte says he's confident that most Rutland residents
support the refugees' arrival. He says meetings of Rutland
Welcomes attract much larger audiences than resettlement's
vocal opponents. The refugees' supporters have organized a
furniture donation drive and begun holding free weekly Arabic
lessons at the Unitarian Universalist Church.
``Vermont is desperately in need of young working people,''
Notte says. ``It's a match made in heaven.''
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