Since the American invasion of Iraq, more than 5 million Iraqis have been driven from their homes by violence and terror. One of these Iraqis is Ahlam Ahmed. This is her story.
Chicago is home to the second largest Iraqi population in the United States (the first is in Dearborn, Michigan). But the absence of the Iraqi community is being felt by Chicago resettlement agencies, like the Heartland Alliance’s Refugee and Immigrant Services. With the resettlement of Iraqis increasing almost 15 fold, representatives of these agencies say this void was not something they expected.
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Highlights:
“They really haven’t been that welcoming. Especially when we started resettling this population we were surprised that we didn’t get as much community support as we had anticipated.”
“There is not a culture of forming organizations, there is no background in this. So it is a rather American construct that we are trying to merge with this Iraqi community and I think that is going to be a challenge.”
“You have to choose, either to have a good safe haven in the US working hard to survive or go to Iraq and have the risk there but maybe a better standard of living.”