The international Rescue Committee, Inc. (IRC) is an organization based in the US and is normally obligated with the duty of helping refugees in ensuring their welfare is as stated in the policies. IRC acts in response to the humanitarian crises and helps people stay alive, recuperate, and restructure their lives.
The United States thinks about the problem of refugees as an exceptional humanitarian concern that can be subjected to discrimination because of race, belief, ethnic group, membership in a particular social group, and biased opinion. The IRC provides refugee resettlement services to all people and before a displaced person receives refugee status and becomes eligible for resettlement in the US, one has to pass through pre-arrival procedures for verification.
There are three categories of reception and placement of refugees that enter the US. These categories include Geographic (Geo) case, which involves refugees that have a friend or a relative in the US, but who do not have a prior agency relationship or a family or friend who has sponsorship links (Prebish, 2003). The second category is the free case. These are the individuals without family links in the US, but placed by a resettlement agency.
The final category are the pre-marked or interest-based refugees. This category involves refugees who are joining family members already living in the US, the people who have formally applied for reunification on behalf of their overseas family members. The US government has developed procedures for applying for refugee status globally or seeking asylum in the country.
Until 1982, there was a numerical limitation on the admission of refugees in the financial year, but thereafter, the law provided that the president, after consultation with the Congress, set refugee admission levels and allocated regional resources for the upcoming fiscal year based on the humanitarian concerns and the national interests of the nation (Chan, 2006).
ICR guides the refugee or the asylum seekers in filling the processing forms, which include the Affidavit of Relationship (AOR). The AOR offers a means for people with permission admitted as immigrants or asylum to ask for refugee processing. ICR is knowledgeable about who may file an AOR under current circumstances, which vary year to year according to the US government policies. ICR guides the refugees through the whole process ensuring that it is in line with the set laws of the state.
The Verification of Placement forms allocates the overseas family members to the IRC by the Refugee Processing Center upon approval of the AOR. The organization supervises and guides the anchor relative who filed the AOR to complete the Verification of Placement (VOP) and an individual assures the IRC that he or she is still living in the area and is suitable to act as a sponsor.
In addition to the VOP, the anchor completes and signs a Statement of Responsibility (SOR) and the Anchor Relative Assessment. An SOR is an agreement between the IRC and the anchor relative, it explains the different responsibilities of the IRC and gives information on the IRC’s partnership with the anchor relatives (Khamis, 2005).
The primary role of ICR is to provide the core resettlement services. These services are outlined in the IRC’s Cooperative Agreement with the Department of State and the operational guidelines are clearly stated. Once the refugee or the asylum arrives in the US, IRC is charged with the obligation of picking up the visitor and arranging for the meeting with the anchor relatives.
Housing and safety orientation policy ensures that ICR provides additional information about housing and renting in the United States, including information on the client/tenant relationship and the responsibilities of renters. Safety orientations depend on family size or the living situation of the family, but it is important for all refugees to receive information about safety procedures during these orientation sessions. Within five working days, ICR arranges for refugees and asylums to get cash assistance.
Several programs provide the service namely Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), which is a federal assistance program designed to provide cash assistance to working and low-income families. Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA), which is accessible to all migrants and asylums within eight months of arrival, is an extra program. Another program is the Supplementary Security Income (SSI). This helps refugees and asylums who are elderly or disabled.
The regulations of giving funds are similar in all states since the Social Security Administration administers this program. Among the scope of work of the ICR is to provide job training and employment services to at least 60 adults receiving TANF benefits. This helps the refugees settle down until they become independent financially. ICR also assists medically needy clients such as children, pregnant women, disabled and physically impaired clients in obtaining medical care within the seven days of arrival.
Employment is usually the most common source of health care in the US, but since most of the refugees and asylums are not employed by then, ICR arranges medical assistance from organizations such as Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA), which is the only program open to clients within 8 months of arrival. The Federal Government funds the benefits (Weissbrodt, & Danielson, 2005). Medicaid program also offers support to the aged, disabled, families with children, and low-income citizens.
These programs are aimed at improving the health situations of the refugees and asylums by ensuring that the medically needed are attended to. According to the US government, Social Security cards are required for work authorization in the US. Therefore, ICR helps their clients to obtain this important document. Social Security Administration must verify the refugee’s status before approving a social security card. State Department and the SSA have agreed that verification can take place at the Refugee Processing Center.
ICR has many responsibilities among the social ones, ICR ensures that school-age children are enrolled or are in the process of enrolling in the education system within 30 days of arrival. Enrollment in the US can be very complex at times and hence ICR helps ensure the requirements and regulations for joining school are met. ICR also makes sure that all its clients receive health screening within 30 days of arrival.
Each state develops its own protocols of screening and ICR has to guarantee regulations of screening according to every state regulation. The social responsibility of ICR is to establish the issues affecting single parents and work with them and their families to come up with solutions and alternatives that permit single parents to achieve economic and cultural sufficiency.
The elderly also require additional care. ICR makes sure that elderly refugees have adequate access to health care services. It mobilizes family and friends to provide support to these people. This will help them overcome challenges, such as isolation and loneliness. Providing employment opportunities for the elderly refugees reinforces a sense of self-esteem and well-being. ICR assesses the overall emotional health of a child and makes appropriate referrals to services and activities.
Youths are normally faced with numerous challenges as refugees and hence ICR help them overcome them. Language barriers and cultural differences are some of the challenges affecting the refugee youths. ICR uses cultural practices and leaders to assist the children. ICR is an open resource to the refugee children.
This ascertains and upholds a good association with them. The organization provides the family unit with care for its children through resuming educational, recreational, and cultural activities in their daily lives through referrals to MAAs, community groups, and religious organizations. It takes into consideration people living with disabilities. When it comes to housing, ICR finds a home that accommodates the physically and psychologically challenged.
Appropriate accommodations may include accessible building entrances (common and public), wide doorways (routes into the home), accommodations for the blind and hearing-impaired. When it comes to transportation, ICR makes referrals to accessible transportation. ICR helps clients with mental health disfunctions overcome these traumas.
Refugees may suffer mental health problems resulting from rape and sexual assault, loss of property, death, and separation from loved ones, displacement, and resettlement (Sundquist, Johansson, DeMarinis, & Sundquist, 2007).
The organization plays a critical role in counseling its clients, advising them, and encouraging them to ensure that their refugee status does not affect them. In severe cases, the clients are referred to medical experts, such as psychiatrists. This helps them recover from the damages hence improving their living conditions.
References
Chan, S. (2006). The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation: Stories of War, Revolution, Flight, and New Beginnings. New York: Penguin.
Khamis, V. (2005). Post-traumatic stress disorder among school age Palestinian children. Child Abuse Neglect, 29(1), 81–95.
Prebish, C. S. (2003). Buddhism—the American Experience. London: JBE Online Books.
Sundquist, K., Johansson, L.M., DeMarinis, V., & Sundquist, J. (2007). Posttraumatic stress disorder and psychiatric co-morbidity: symptoms in a random sample of female Bosnian refugees. European Journal of Psychiatry, 20(2), 158–64.
Weissbrodt, D. & Danielson, L. (2005). Immigration Law and Procedure. New York: West Group Publishing.