Monday, October 22, 2007 at 1:01am
A resettlement proposal
Column: Left Coast Lions' Den
At a recent gathering of fellow Presbyterians I learned that foster parents for unaccompanied minor refugees are in very short supply in the San Francisco Bay Area. These are kids under the age of 18 who have been separated from their families by the chaos of war, and the county where I live — Santa Clara County in California — is among the few places in the United States where such refugee children are being resettled.
My wife and I currently are being trained in the art of foster parenting for a refugee child, and folks tell us we're crazy, but bringing such a young person into our home seems like a good thing for us to do. After all, if our children ever were alone in a war zone or a refugee camp, we would want a family like ours to care for them.
We're not becoming foster parents for a refugee child because our house lacks people or chaos. We have thee young children and we live in a condominium. We are welcoming another child into our lives because — to quote my 5-year-old daughter, Mimi — it's the right thing to do.
We don't care where our foster child will come from, but I confess I am disappointed by the knowledge that she or he almost certainly will not be from Iraq. Since the United States marched into Babylon six and a half years ago, nearly 2.2 million people have become refugees living within Iraq or in neighboring countries. This, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is more than 20 percent of all refugees worldwide.
Yet for reasons that are inaccessible to my imagination, our nation's leaders decided to resettle just 200 Iraqi refugees last year (that's less one ten-thousandth of the Iraqi refugee population), this despite an admirable and long-standing American tradition of welcoming refugees from all over the world.
The State Department has suggested that more Iraqi refugees may arrive on American shores someday, and I hope they do. Welcoming and resettling a significant number of Iraqi refugees would be moral, compassionate and responsible (after all, we started the war from which the Iraqi refugees are fleeing). And it seems to me that if my family of five can welcome a refugee foster child into our inner-city condo, then a nation as large and as wealthy as our own certainly can come up with a lot more hospitality toward refugees in Iraq.
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Ben Daniel is the pastor of Foothill Presbyterian Church in San Jose, Calif. Visit his website or send him an email at {email ben@bendaniel.org}ben@bendaniel.org{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Ben Daniel.
My wife and I currently are being trained in the art of foster parenting for a refugee child, and folks tell us we're crazy, but bringing such a young person into our home seems like a good thing for us to do. After all, if our children ever were alone in a war zone or a refugee camp, we would want a family like ours to care for them.
We're not becoming foster parents for a refugee child because our house lacks people or chaos. We have thee young children and we live in a condominium. We are welcoming another child into our lives because — to quote my 5-year-old daughter, Mimi — it's the right thing to do.
We don't care where our foster child will come from, but I confess I am disappointed by the knowledge that she or he almost certainly will not be from Iraq. Since the United States marched into Babylon six and a half years ago, nearly 2.2 million people have become refugees living within Iraq or in neighboring countries. This, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is more than 20 percent of all refugees worldwide.
Yet for reasons that are inaccessible to my imagination, our nation's leaders decided to resettle just 200 Iraqi refugees last year (that's less one ten-thousandth of the Iraqi refugee population), this despite an admirable and long-standing American tradition of welcoming refugees from all over the world.
The State Department has suggested that more Iraqi refugees may arrive on American shores someday, and I hope they do. Welcoming and resettling a significant number of Iraqi refugees would be moral, compassionate and responsible (after all, we started the war from which the Iraqi refugees are fleeing). And it seems to me that if my family of five can welcome a refugee foster child into our inner-city condo, then a nation as large and as wealthy as our own certainly can come up with a lot more hospitality toward refugees in Iraq.
— — —
Ben Daniel is the pastor of Foothill Presbyterian Church in San Jose, Calif. Visit his website or send him an email at {email ben@bendaniel.org}ben@bendaniel.org{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Ben Daniel.