In 2017, 659 refugees arrived in St. Louis, which represents a sharp decrease in resettlement from the previous year, when 1,135 refugees came here. This decrease came because of White House executive orders and travel bans. Afghan, Congolese, Somali and Iraqi refugees were the largest groups admitted during the year.
About 20 percent of those refugees, from Afghanistan and Iraq, worked with the U.S. Army at some point before resettling here.
“As the American military pulls out of those countries, then they’re obviously also bringing people who worked with them – interpreters and drivers and civil engineers that built the roads, and doctors that patched them up in the hospital,” said Anna Crosslin, president of the International Institute of St. Louis, a nonprofit that (among other things) provides integration services to new immigrants and refugees coming to St. Louis.
Though the decrease in refugees admitted this past year is stark, proposed admissions for 2018 are even bleaker. The International Institute has received word that they should only expect 450 arrivals this year, according to the organization.
“There is no question that fewer refugees being sponsored to St. Louis negatively affects the amount of work that the International Institute does,” Crosslin said. “However, in total, we serve about 8,000 immigrants and refugees a year from 80 countries. So the refugee resettlement program itself, and the decline in numbers in the refugee resettlement program, does have an adverse effect, but we are still very, very busy.”
She added that, although the current national government seems less than welcoming to immigrants and refugees, “St. Louis has been historically very open and welcoming to refugees. One of the most notable instances of that is back in the 1990s, when Bosnian refugees were resettled here. In total, we sponsored about 7,000 Bosnian refugees over a period of 1993 to 2001. Then family and friends joined them from other cities, creating a community that now is in excess of 60,000 people, certainly one of the largest in the U.S.”
She said that St. Louis has benefited enormously from taking in large numbers of, specifically, Muslim refugees in the past.
“And Bosnians, people may not remember this, are actually Muslims,” she said. “So there’s been a history of resettling refugees in large numbers, and there’s been a history of them being Muslims, and there’s been a history of St. Louis being welcoming to them. And we have seen that continue in the current climate.”
Crosslin said she has seen decreases in the number of refugees resettled here in St. Louis before, as public opinion shifts. “We have had years when we have had fewer than 450 arrivals in St. Louis,” she said. “In the period following 9/11, for several years the arrivals were in the 250-350 per year range.”
The International Institute has seen waves of immigration come and go before. But Crosslin said that for refugees, a change in relocation allotment numbers on a page can make a life-changing difference.
“The real tragedy is for the individuals themselves,” she said.
“Many, many more who are desirous and desperate for freedom and safety will not be able to come. And it’s too bad for the community, which benefits from the multicultural environment that these people bring, and the opportunities that they present in terms of being entrepreneurs and skilled workers, and others who really can contribute to our community and help us grow.”
