Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Program is teaming up with the Worker Justice Center in Fayetteville to assist an Iraqi married couple and their adult daughter resettle in northwest Arkansas.
Frank Head, refugee resettlement director, said Catholic Charities works with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services and the U.S. State Department to help refugees who have family in Arkansas. Refugees, who are forced to flee certain countries because of persecution, are given legal status permanently in the United States and are able to work. After a year, they can apply for a “green card.”
“They are investigated and approved by the State Department,” Head said. “It is the State Department who allows them to come here legally.”
The family is expected to arrive in Fayetteville by March 14.
In most cases, Head assists the family with getting their social security cards, drivers’ licenses, temporary housing and schooling for minors. Their other needs are handled by the refugees’ family living in the state.
But in this situation, Head is asking the Catholic community and all Arkansans to come forth to support the Al Azzawi family. He said Al Azzawi’s uncle and aunt in Little Rock are elderly and not able to assist them.
Head opened up the Azzawi Family Fund at Arvest Bank, which will be monitored by a small committee. Individuals have already come forward to provide housing for six months, furniture and a used car. Other services, such as medical care, have been donated.
“They had a life and they lost everything,” Head said. “They will come into town only with their suitcase … They have no winter clothes, no pots and pans, nothing.”
Head said he has been encouraged by the Christian, Buddhist, Jewish and Muslim communities in northwest Arkansas who want to help this family.
The Azzawis, who are Sunni Muslim, were forced from Iraq two years ago and have been living in a refugee camp in Jordan. With the camps closing, people are being forced to return to Iraq and move to another country, Head said.
“Nobody wants these refugees,” he said.
Before they escaped the war in Baghdad, the 28-year-old daughter worked as an executive secretary and translator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The father, who is in his 60s, was a mechanical engineer for water projects. Head said he was told they all have college degrees and speak English.
More than 2 million Iraqis have moved to Jordan and Syria since 2003. The United Nations Refugee Agency referred 15,477 Iraqis to the United States for resettlement, but only 1,608 have moved by the end of 2007, according to Refugees International.
“The existence of large numbers of vulnerable refugees is a tragic and unfortunate byproduct of the war,” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last year.
Donations, which are not tax-deductible, can be made at any Arvest branch or mailed to Head at Catholic Charities, 2022 Sunset Ave., Springdale, AR 72762.
