Resettlement program offers thousands the chance of a new life in the West

Nowadays, we don’t greet people any more with ‘How are you?’” said Tun Tun, 40-year-old secretary of the committee administering Mae La refugee camp in Thailand’s Tak Province. “We say, ‘When is your resettlement interview?’”

Third-country resettlement is a major topic of discussion among the residents not only of Mae La but of the other eight camps strung out along Thailand’s eastern border with Burma. With hopes of returning in the foreseeable future to their shattered villages at an all-time low, resettlement in the West offers refugees their only realistic chance of leaving the camps and leading normal lives again.

Since the Thai government gave the green light to resettlement in 2005, more than 46,000 refugees have left the camps for the US and 10 other countries. About three-quarters have been accepted by the US—the rest have gone to Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

The US has been working on its resettlement program on a camp-by-camp basis, beginning with Tham Hin, then moving on to the largest camp, Mae La, in 2006, and farther north in 2009, to the Karenni camps 1 and 2 in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province. The two remaining camps, Mae Ra Ma Luang and Mae La Oon, will take their turn next year.

The selection procedure is thorough. After registration by the Thai authorities, refugees are admitted to the camps, where they are screened by officials of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The UNHCR information is added to a database kept by the US Overseas Processing Entity (OPE), and refugees expressing interest in resettlement in the US are interviewed by officials of the US Department of Homeland Security, who tour the camps three or four times a year. “About half those screened by the UNHCR and OPE express interest in resettlement in the US,” said a US official.

The Patriot Act passed by the US Congress after the 9/11 attacks made a controversial addition to the requirements for resettlement in the US, barring refugees who had provided material support to terrorist groups or rebel movements. The restriction effectively blocked entry to the US to any refugee with links to the Karen National Union and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army or the border-based All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), even though none of the groups appeared on the US State Department list of terrorist movements.

A later amendment watered down the unpopular provision, which now confines the ban to refugees who took up arms for a rebel cause—unless applicants for resettlement can prove they were coerced into military service.

Although resettlement has relieved pressure on the camps, it has also created problems.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium estimates that the nine border camps have lost three-quarters of their qualified residents—teachers, medics and administrative staff—in a worrying “brain drain.”

Relief workers say the loss of a proportionately high number of young, qualified refugees is an inevitable result of the demographics of the camps, where the majority of residents are under 40.

New refugee arrivals include people with the skills or the potential to fill posts left vacant, but even here problems arise. Often they are from different ethnic groups, leading to language and communication difficulties.

“We have struggled resiliently to prevent our community services from collapsing by recruiting new work forces and giving them capacity-building training,” said Mae La camp’s Tun Tun. “It takes time, but it works.”

An interview conducted in June with a young Karenni couple as they left for the US vividly illustrated the problem. Plu Reh, 23, and his 20-year-old wife, Pray Meh, both taught in the Karenni refugee camp 1, Ban Mai Nai Soi.

Plu Reh, who had lived in the camp since 1996, taught health and social studies in one of its primary schools. His wife had library experience and also taught in the camp. They left for the US with their 2-year-old daughter—and also took with them a useful collection of classrooms skills.

“I have great hopes for my daughter, Naw Gay,” said Pray Meh in an interview with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) before the family flew out of Bangkok on the long journey that would change their lives for ever. “She will go to a good school and get a good education. She has no future here.”

Pray Meh and her husband, like all successful candidates for resettlement, had been prepared by the IOM for their new lives in the US with “cultural orientation” instruction and language lessons.