OpEd: U.S. should build refugee camps in Mexico

By Pat Bennett

SAN DIEGO — After the Vietnam war, the US funded multiple refugee camps in Southeast Asia to rescue and support victims of the war. I was fortunate to work in two of these camps, in Indonesia and the Philippines, and our current refugee crisis has me believing this would be a viable alternative now.

After working in the camps in the ’80s, I continued to teach new arrivals here in the US. When I retired and recently found myself recovering from late-stage cancer, I noticed that a large number of my caretakers were recent immigrants or their children. Seven surgeries over two years allowed me ample time to hear their stories and have time to reflect on my career and the lives touched by those in my field.

One young Cambodian woman, my respiratory therapist, told me her parents had been in a refugee camp on the island of Galang in Indonesia. We discovered I was teaching there at the same time. She was bright, competent and caring, and I reflected on the conditions her parents must have survived in their long journey to the US. When she finished my treatment, she said “You helped my parents in Indonesia, and now I can help you.”

As she left the room, I thought of the lives of not only my hospital caretakers but also the other students I had taught in my 40-year career: Russians and Ukrainians, Sudanese and Somalis, Afghans and Iraqis, Mexicans and Central Americans. I enjoy teaching newcomers because they inspire me with their optimism and hard work in the face of great economic and psychological challenges. While teaching them English and preparing them for the workplace, I was privy to their experiences of culture shock and post-traumatic stress. Despite the challenges, they persevered and contributed to our culture and economy, just as so many immigrant groups had done before them.

Now, as a survivor myself, I feel the distress and the hope of our current refugee populations. As we cast about for solutions, it occurs to me to offer the model of the camps we ran in Asia. Costs were lower since host country employees could work at local wages, and supplies were less expensive. Host countries benefited from the economic stimulus to provide food, security, transportation and housing. Refugees were kept safe and healthy until they could be identified, vetted, and sent to relatives and sponsors in the US. This allowed for orderly departure instead of chaotic scrambling for survival.

Once the refugees arrived here, educational and refugee resettlement agencies facilitated their transition into employment and self-sufficiency. Those institutions are still in place, and entry level jobs are waiting for immigrants all over the country.

If setting up refugee camps seems daunting, we still have expertise and a number of models of administration and the handling of challenges which arise from multinational, multi-agency coordination. There were camps in Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Most of the funding was through UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). IRC, (international Rescue Committee) was also involved in administration. Save the Children, International Catholic Migration Commission, and various educational and health organizations and NGOs were active as well. Other details can be found for the camps in Indonesia and the Philippines in links that can be accessed by clicking here and here.

In the camps, as the refugees waited for departure, they were able to attend classes in English and orientation to American culture. Thus, the pre-departure waiting time served to prepare for faster and more successful adaptation to American life and work. Employers, schools, health providers, and others working with new arrivals in the US sent information to the camps for American supervisors to include in the pre-departure curriculum. Host country teachers who were fluent in English taught the refugees, with refugee interpreters as needed, and American supervisors wrote curriculum and trained the teachers. In this way, there were fewer American experts working at US wages, and the competent host country teachers gained professional experience and training. Administration, supplies, facilities and security were also less expensive in Asian currencies.

If we consider such a model now, camps could be built south of the Mexican border instead of adding more cages on the American side. People could be invited to stay in camps to hold their places in line for consideration to enter the U.S. as asylees. Refugees would be kept safe and healthy, and there would be time for vetting and locating family or sponsors in the US. For those who do not qualify for asylum or resettlement, there would be time to consider and offer alternatives such as resettlement or employment in other countries or safe return to their home countries.

There is a current need for entry-level workers in many areas of the US economy now: hospitality, construction, agriculture, transportation, and medicine, to name a few. Some immigrants bring skills and education to this country, and others will never progress past entry level jobs, but their children most likely will.

Shortly before I left the hospital after my last surgery, I spoke with an older Vietnamese man who was removing soiled linens from my room. He had been at a high level in the South Vietnamese army but had endured seven years in a reeducation camp before escaping to a refugee camp. He had used his refugee resettlement money to learn English and study electronics assembly, but it was just before that industry moved out of the US. Still, he was grateful to be alive and working, and he proudly told me about the great success of his grown children and grandchildren here.

He reminded me of another grandfather I had seen in Balboa Park with his five-year-old grandson. They were standing in front of me in a large circle listening to a street musician. Below the Vietnamese man’s graying hair, his shirt collar was frayed. I thought about the price of a new shirt at Walmart. I wondered at the sacrifices this grandfather had made for his children. As I watched, the old man pressed a dollar into the hand of his five-year-old grandson and gently pushed him through the crowd to drop it into the guitar case of the American man who was singing beautifully, joyfully, looking up at the sun, as he strummed the guitar with his toes.

Of course, not all immigrants are noble or hard-working, but in my experience most of them bring an energy that infuses their lives and our country. It takes courage along with desperation to leave your home country, and after teaching immigrants for 40 years, I can attest to the values and strength of our newcomers.

After Vietnam, we felt responsible to help the boat people. Our responsibility may not seem as direct now, but are we blameless in contributing to any of the causes pushing people from their homes? In any case, can we ignore the need pressing at our border? At the very least, we should institute a cost-effective alternative to people living on the streets of border cities. Refugee camps would provide a more orderly and humanitarian response to the needs of so many hopeful people who are eager to start productive lives here.

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Pat Bennett lives in San Diego where she writes reflections from her 40-year career teaching new immigrants here and working in Asia and the Middle East.