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December 19, 2005

Immigrant Nation: Do U.S. Immigrants and Refugees Have a Voice? Advocate and Social Entrepreneur Dr. Westy Egmont Addresses Fletcher Students

In the United States – a nation built on immigration – do refugees and immigrants really have a voice? Dr. Westy Egmont, a refugee advocate and social entrepreneur, is working to ensure that they do. At a luncheon sponsored by Fletcher’s Refugee Roundtable group on December 6, he addressed a roomful of students interested in working with immigrants and refugees who hoped to learn from someone on the front lines.

Egmont did not disappoint, sharing his experiences as executive director of the International Institute of Boston (IIB), the area’s largest refugee resettlement agency, where he recently ended his decade-long tenure. Now raising money to start a new, national immigrant advocacy association, Egmont described major issues facing U.S. resettlement, and how these have affected service and support agencies.

“In the U.S., there are 33 million legal immigrants that are not represented,” Egmont said. “Congress needs to recognize this, and we need to develop an advocacy group for immigrants.”

With that belief in mind, he has encouraged the assembly of a bipartisan Refugee Caucus in the U.S. Congress, which will advocate comprehensive immigration reform. He explained the challenges of reaching a critical mass of 100 members of Congress – the caucus currently has 68 – which would give the caucus a special status and visibility.

“You care about these issues, and I care about these issues concerning refugees, but you go to Washington, and it's hard to see that anyone cares,” he said. “Congress is just overwhelmed.”

Though there has been progress on some issues, like lifting the cap on the acceptance of asylees in the U.S. and granting them access to refugee benefits, integration is still a huge issue in this country and in countries around the world, according to Egmont. One example is the problem of worldwide refugee “warehousing,” the term used for refugees who remain in camps for years, even generations, without relief or a permanent solution to their displacement. Globally, 300 NGOs have signed on to an anti-warehousing campaign in an attempt to affect change in countries where warehousing affects millions of refugees.

“Nobody wants warehousing to continue, but it's been tolerated by inattention,” Egmont said. “People have very little right of integration in their country of first asylum, and this is a human rights issue. They’ve now become captive on the fringes of the culture. The warehousing issue is changing the refugee conversation.”

Domestically, while camps and warehousing are not an issue, integration into American society is a huge hurdle for new arrivals, whether forced migrants or economic immigrants.

“Teaching the language of a culture is critical to cultural identity and integration,” Egmont said, but noted that classes are not offered universally to new arrivals in the U.S., and often carry fees after a short time. “Why is English not valued enough to offer classes universally?” Relating ESOL to the development of a competitive workforce is key to approaching state legislators, he said.

Lack of proper integration and services has had other effects, according to Egmont. The naturalization rate of immigrants and refugees in the U.S. "has plummeted," he said. While Canada's rate is 84 percent, and the U.S. had a rate of 64 percent in the 1970s, the current U.S. naturalization rate has dropped to a low 34 percent by the last census, leaving many immigrants disenfranchised and lacking a voice.

“Of course, I think one's own citizenship should be freely chosen,” Egmont said. “But resistance to naturalization represents a feeling of non-integration. It may represent an experience of a culture that says, ‘You're never really one of us’.”

He continued, “If the ‘immigrant nation’ chooses not to become ‘the nation,’ then our nation becomes very weak. It's in the interest of our culture to have people buy in – and, more importantly, to have the government be responsive to them. If they can't vote, or won't vote, there is much less we can do for them.”

To that end, Egmont is looking to raise $2 million to start the Association of New Americans (ANA), a national immigrant association that will support foreign born Americans and amplify their voice in nationwide policymaking while developing needed educational and economic services. It will function as a member-service model along the lines of the AARP.

“I've always considered myself a social entrepreneur,” he said of his idea to start the ANA. “It’s been my interest to be on the cutting edge of issues – taking the initiative to create something that wasn't there before.”

By Stacy Reiter Neal, MALD '07

Posted by jessica at December 19, 2005 09:06 AM