Portland State University social work professor Ann Curry-Stevens today released a 186-page report calling for vast improvements in the way Portland-area government services support immigrants and refugees moving to the area. The release was held at PSU’s Native American Student and Community Center, and was attended by a broad array of community members, many of whom were immigrants themselves.
The report, “In Need of a Long Welcome: Supporting the Integration of Newcomers to Portland,” follows the Portland City Council’s June 18 establishment of the New Portlanders Policy Commission. The commission is tasked with advising city government on ways to improve the integration of immigrants and refugees into the Portland community.
Curry-Stevens says the task of integrating newcomers is harder today than in prior decades.
“Our research shows that today’s newcomers of color (Latinos, Africans, Middle Easterners, Slavs, Asians and Pacific Islanders) have a much harder time gaining an economic foothold than just a decade ago,” Stevens writes in the report. “This exists despite the fact that the most recent newcomers of color are much more educated than those who arrived about a decade earlier,” she adds.
A total of 62,677 refugees arrived in Oregon between 1975 and 2014, accounting for 2 percent of all refugees arriving in the US. Nearly 31 percent of Oregon refugees were from the former Soviet Union, and 27 percent were from Vietnam. The rest comprised a broad representation of the world’s countries from Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean. Nearly one in every seven people in Multnomah County was born outside the US, and almost three-quarters of them are people of color.
The report makes the distinction between refugees, who are forced to leave their home countries due to violence or persecution, and immigrants, who leave by choice in search of better opportunities. Both groups fight an uphill battle to establish themselves in their new homeland, but refugees have a tougher time because of the violence they have suffered and the involuntary nature of their departure, Curry-Stevens says.
“Newcomers are not tapped for their business experience, their experience with social innovation, and their education and professional background. This means the region loses out on the economic benefits of newcomers,” said Lee Po Cha, Chair of the new Commission and Executive Director, Immigrant & Refugee Community Organization (IRCO).
Speakers at the Tuesday event included Oregon Sen. Michael Dembrow, who sits on a national task force on immigration reform; Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who discussed the New Portlander Policy Commission; and Wajdi Said, board president of the Muslim Educational Trust, who said “we hope this report becomes the GPS for our leaders.”
The recommendations made in the report include fighting anti-immigrant rhetoric; expanding immigrant representation in government bodies; allowing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants; providing culturally-specific health services; improving police relationships, and immediate solutions to the housing crisis
Curry-Stevens is the head of PSU’s Center to Advance Racial Equity, which provides research on racial matters to community organizations and government entities.