Saleh Mohammed fled his native Myanmar in 2015.
“Too much fighting over there,” he said.
As a member of the Rohingya ethnic minority, he was in particular peril. His life was in danger.
He settled in Garden City. Now 24, he may gain citizenship in a year. That, in turn, will put him in a position to bring over his family and free those loved ones from a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
To navigate life in western Kansas — he’s a meat carver in a Tyson packing plant — he’s relied on aid groups in the region. Those organizations have put him on a path to citizenship and to bringing over his relatives.
But that safety net for refugees is experiencing its own transition. The International Rescue Committee had been the lead agency helping refugees in southwest Kansas until the flood of refugees became a trickle.
The IRC closed its Garden City office last year and consolidated operations in Wichita. Now Catholic Charities helps Mohamed and the dwindling number of refugees in the area like him.
On average, the IRC agency resettled 50 to 100 refugees a year in Garden City and other U.S. cities.
“In 2016 and 2017, we were very busy out there,” said IRC Kansas Executive Director Michele Green said. “There (were) still hundreds of refugees moving to the area.”
But in late July 2018, IRC closed its office in southwest Kansas. That came after the U.S. State Department announced the year before that it would no longer support offices servicing fewer than 100 people per year.
(Read more: News – The Hutchinson News)