ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, September 23, 2007 7:00 pm
Largely because of the work of Catholic Social Services and Lutheran Social Services, Lincoln long has been known as a destination point for Iraqi refugees.
“Honestly, Lincoln has been a very welcoming community,” said Christine Kutschkau, the state’s refugee resettlement coordinator.
People typically step forward to offer help in finding a job and in learning a new language, she said.
But even as some Iraqi refugees continue to struggle to become citizens, the flow of others who arrive without connections to local family members has virtually stopped.
Although changes in policy among immigration advocacy organizations may not have been widely publicized, records on file in Kutschkau’s office suggest dramatic changes since Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2000, those records show that 89 Iraqis — so-called free cases with no relatives already living in Nebraska — resettled in the state. In 2001, the number grew to 97.
But in 2002, the first full year after tragedy struck at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field where a fourth hijacked passenger jet crashed, the total was 11.
For 2004, the last year for which an annual national report has been authorized by Congress, the number of “free case” Iraqis arriving in the state was down to three.
“So, obviously, there has been a significant decline,” Kutschkau said.
The explanation for a dip on the numbers chart at Catholic Social Services is simple enough.
Curt Krueger, a social services official with the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, said a policy change was put in place there after the events that Americans have come to refer to simply as 9/11.
“We just made an agency decision at that point to concentrate our efforts in other areas,” Krueger said.
The local Catholic agency still would help families already here to bring their relatives to Lincoln, but its staff no longer would work with other potential newcomers without family connections.
Jeff Vandenberg of the Lutheran Refugee Services office in Omaha said the Lincoln office was involved in only one Iraqi resettlement for the fiscal year that ended in September.
There was one resettlement to Lincoln in fiscal 2005.
“There has certainly been a decrease, certainly, since 9/11,” Vandenberg said.
He cited “so much security process” as a contributing factor.
“And with Iraqis, there was additional screening put in place to ensure these people being admitted pose no threat whatsoever to the United States.“
After a long lull in Iraqi resettlements in Nebraska, events could be about to shift rapidly in the other direction.
With more and more Iraqis trying to flee the spreading sectarian violence, federal officials are talking about bringing as many as 7,000 of them to the United States by Oct. 1.
In positioning itself for possible action, Church World Services, parent agency to Lutheran Refugee Services in Nebraska, is looking to Lincoln as one of 10 sites across the nation to accept more free cases.
Vandenberg spoke of Lincoln as “one of the sites they intend to use.“
Of the 7,000, “I would hazard a guess that there are people in the screening process and probably people who are already done with it.”
In fact, “there are probably people already cleared for travel,” he said.
Reach Art Hovey at (402) 523-4949 or ahovey@alltel.net.