In the last two weeks, over 700 South African refugees received phone calls from the government asking about their experience with resettlement in the U.S. The outreach efforts were prompted by an investigation in The Free Press, which found that newly arrived Afrikaner refugees had been largely left to fend for themselves in places like Detroit, Chicago, and San Jose, California.
Three refugees told me that they witnessed drug deals and prostitution while living for weeks in motels. One refugee said she ate just one meal per day as her initial government stipend of about $2,000 was quickly depleted paying for her extended motel stay, while others were shown cockroach-infested apartments in unsafe areas.
For decades, nonprofit organizations have been responsible for helping refugees find safe and clean temporary housing, sign up for food stamps and Social Security numbers, and seek employment. These intermediary nonprofits disperse government money to regional refugee resettlement offices throughout the country. Those regional offices are where the breakdowns occurred for some of the South African refugees.
