Resilience Revealed: Navigating Resettlement Realities - Summer Internship Insights and Policy Pivots

By Ila Dovre Wudali

This summer, I was fortunate enough to intern at the African Community Center (ACC), one of the Ethiopian Community Development Council’s resettlement sites in Denver. This opportunity was made possible by funding  from the Center for Immigration Policy & Reseach (CIPR). ACC is a refugee and immigrant resettlement agency that provides migrants basic resettlement services for the first 90 days after arrival and case management and employment services for up to 5 years. ACC’s main goal is to help community members in a brand-new country rebuild their lives in a safe, sustainable way. The term “community member” (CM) will be used thoughout this article in order to align with ACC’s values, which elevate the status of personhood for immigrants in the process of integrating. 

At ACC, I served as a resettlement program intern and worked closely with many community and staff members. In this position, I attended intake meetings where CMs are first connected to all of the different services provided. The meetings are long and can sometimes last more than 4 hours. An immense amount of information is provided to CMs, and information is elicited from them. This serves to ensure immigrants are placed in appropriate programs.  

Papers fly at these meetings as copies of every single immigration document are made. Staff members hand out business cards and speak about their roles. Countless documents are signed as everyone talks over each other. Translators struggle to hear and grow confused. Children get impatient and start to fuss. After several hours, the meeting is over, and families are taken to their new homes.  

Nearly every day I worked at ACC, I helped CMs with different social benefits applications. It made me realize how important it is for the organization to fill out the applications, rather than have the CMs themselves do the paperwork. Applications like those for PEAK or affordable housing are complex; they would be nearly impossible to complete by someone whose primary language is not English. Furthermore, actually receiving those benefits is a difficult and quite tedious process. CMs must go in person to receive benefits such as food stamps. Many refugees do not have cars, and have difficulty taking public transportation if they don’t speak English or know their bus routes. 

Because of these transportation barriers, I spent a significant amount of time during my internship driving CMs around the Denver metro. Whether needing to pick up food stamps or go to medical appointments, many people simply did not have a way to get around. This was a very new and difficult situation for me to navigate. None of the people I drove spoke any English. I always struggled to tell them I had arrived, often using Google Translate to help me text them. Then came figuring out how to tell them to put their seatbelt on. It seemed like such an easy task, one I previously never thought twice about. This was always a fascinating interaction because it was completely nonverbal: I would just act it out. This is a difficult position to be in, as I had to navigate my own privilege, being a native English speaker in an English-speaking place. I had to navigate that privilege while being unable to communicate with the CM, and simultaneously attempting not to appear condescending. 

Something that struck me was how Americans often slowed down their words and over-enunciated them to non-English speakers who didn't understand them. Because I experienced this myself with people who did not speak English but were trying to communicate with me, I now realize how unhelpful this behavior is. You can speak one word a minute to me, or I to you, and we will still have no idea what is being said. Language Line, a service that acts as a third-party translator, was a savior during my time at ACC. It served an invaluable purpose any time I needed to call a CM, interact with them in the office, or take them to a medical appointment. 

Sometimes, communicating was impossible. I once drove a man to get his cash benefits and used Google Translate to communicate. He was from Honduras and spoke Spanish, but we still could not understand each other. I called my supervisor, who told me the Honduran man was illiterate. Google Translate wouldn’t help because he couldn’t read what I was writing to him. I then tried using Language Line, but the translator said I had the wrong language. He looked at me confused. We ended up communicating nonverbally the entire trip.  

Later, when I was back in the office, I spoke to some of the staff about the situation. This is when I learned that he was from a small area in Honduras where they speak a very specific dialect and use a great deal of slang. Not being able to communicate made me feel so powerless, but in this situation, there was just nothing I could do. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for this man’s family to live in a place where next to no one speaks their native tongue. It must be lonely and isolating. 

The biggest tool that this internship gave me was information about the refugee resettlement process, and a perspective on how underfunded it is. Once refugees make it to the U.S., they truly receive much better treatment than immigrants who are not refugees, especially when it comes to social benefits and resettlement processes. This is important to note because even the best treatment is not sufficient in creating a smooth process to integration. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal funding, whereas refugees are. Additionally, other immigrants without a refugee status do not automatically receive assistance in obtaining benefits. Refugees are settled in the US through the Reception & Placement (R&P) program. The Department of State provides each refugee $2,425 worth of benefits. Of that, more than half is used by agencies to fund critical needs like rent, furniture, and food. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a federal financial assistance program that many refugees enroll in. It provides temprary cash assistance for families for a five-year period, and requires recipients to work within three years of receiving the benefits. Typically though, agencies are only able to provide resettlement services, like case management and employment assistance, for three to six months after arrival. Refugees are expected to be mostly self-sufficient after that. 

The R&P funding is barely enough to cover rent for one month, especially in a city like Denver. Because many refugees come here speaking little to no English, they struggle to get jobs, let alone ones that pay enough to provide for rent, food, mental health services, and childcare. It is clear that the policies and funding in place are simply not enough to support the success – let alone the happiness – of refugees in their new homes. Resettlement should not just involve aid like social welfare and employment services; it should include genuine opportunities to achieve personal goals and connect to one’s community. 

The Trump administration’s stricter immigration policies led to the number of refugees dropping by 86 percent between 2016 and 2020. The Biden administration raised that ceiling, but admissions still paled in comparison to the period before Trump. In fact, though Biden raised the ceiling, the number of people actually admitted into the US was nearly the same as during Trump’s presidency. Biden’s admissions rates resulted in an extremely slow progression in returning to pre-Trump numbers. With a high ceiling and a low admission rate, it also places a huge burden on resettlement agencies, as it is difficult for them to prepare for incoming refugees appropriately when they don’t know how many to expect.  

Of the many ways to work toward solving this problem, increasing private funding is at the top of the list. In 2023, the US expanded funding by allowing private sponsorship to relieve some of the burdens put upon organizations like ACC. Ukrainian refugees and those in humanitarian parole programs were the first to become eligible for private sponsorship, and the laws are now expanding to other groups. Such expansions can make a massive difference and don’t require high costs to the federal government. The positive impacts have been seen in policies other countries have created. Based on data from similar policies in Canada, the number of refugees accepted into the US could almost double. Stabilizing annual refugee flows would also help resettlement agencies, like ACC, better plan ahead. This could also improve federal funding for refugees, as more money can be allocated to each person. 

I valued the time I spent at ACC and am grateful for the moments with CMs and the staff. The opportunity gave me insight into the disruptive life changes immigrants and refugees have to face, and their deep need for more fully funded support systems in the US. I also valued learning from the staff that works miracles with limited resources every day. Working for a resettlement agency is extremely hard and emotionally draining. The ACC staff were saints, putting in grueling hours to help those in need. Many of them were also refugees with personal understanding of the hardships of moving to a new country.  

My internship at ACC would not have been possible without the help I received from CIPR. I will always feel so thankful for the opportunity to help immigrants adjust to their new country, and for the perspective this work gave me. I am excited about the work and research in this area that I will pursue in the future through a career in immigration law. 

Ila Dovre Wudali is a senior (BA ‘24) at the University of Denver and originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is double-majoring in Socio-Legal Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies with a minor in Wellness. Ila serves as Vice Chair on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Youthrive, and works on campus in the Office of Student Employment as the Program Assistant.