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The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has 700 refugee children in foster care, has asked various states in the United States to prepare to foster more international refugee children from various countries, whose parents either have disappeared or been killed by war or natural disaster.The need is heightened by continuing armed conflicts in Africa and recent events, such as the earthquake in Haiti, according to the Associated Press.
This means that states will be asked to open up their homes for foster care and ask existing foster care families to take in refugee children during this recession.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says 14 states and the District of Columbia participate in the federal Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program-Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.
The Obama administration recently said it will allow orphaned Haitian children to enter the U.S. temporarily on an individual basis. The Heartland Alliance in Illinois helps unaccompanied undocumented children by providing housing and legal representation.
The U.S. program, developed in the early 1980s to help thousands of parentless children in Southeast Asia, has aided more than 13,000 refugee children fleeing war, famine and economic turmoil. It remains the most consistent source for refugee children in the United States, with the assistance of the United Nations.
In tough economic times where homes are already being stretched, will an influx of refugees leave open the possibilities of abuse by the system? What do you think?
Comments: (2)
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By: living4thecity on 2/23/2010 11:07AM
The US Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement has a poor record in placing and follow-up interviews of children in foster homes. Culture shock on top of the shock and the emotional problems these children are facing will make adoption a real challenge both for the families willing to take in the children and for the children themselves.
A better plan might be expedited rebuilding of Haiti and first on the list should be homes and schools for children. I have said before and it bears repeating, the Amish community can build a barn in a day (really a week) and we should engage people like them and Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity to get Haitians sheltered.
Then the children should be started back to school. In every instance of natural and man-made (war) crisis, the children's well-being improves in leaps and bounds the sooner they can get back to normal everyday activities.
We are not being smart in the ways we are going about assisting Haiti. The US Marines stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba could have reached Haiti with purified water and other supplies (the US has set up specialized water purification tanks in fear that the Castro government would cut off the H2O supply to the base) less than 2 hours after the quake yet they did not even attempt a rescue.
I am not sure resettlement in the US is the answer while US families own financial circumstances are stressed beyond limits and the Feds are short staffed as are all the local governments child support services.
There has to be a better way and it is beyond time for our government to stop looking at short-term solutions and deal with all that has been wrong with the US foreign policy towards Haiti since the first invasion of the Island by US Pres. Wilson back in the 1930's. International debt relief for Haiti would also be a good start on the road to recovery.
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By: rose on 2/26/2010 11:03PM
i think it is great that we want to help. But we have so many problems of our own. Such as overwheming system of foster children that needs homes. What about them. Go online and you list thousands of children in United States that want to have a home. Take care of us then them. We thousands of Americans homeless and without jobs on the streets feed them, give them shelter for the day.
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