funding, and encourage collaborative efforts. For

example, there might be significant benefits to

immigrants and the community if refugee-serving

agencies could expand some of their services

to the immigrant population, or if these agencies

engaged in collaborations for recruiting and

training volunteers.

Many critical issues related to newcomer

integration need to be addressed on systems

and policy levels. Advocacy is critical to raising

awareness of these issues and educating

policymakers, legislators and others to assist

them in making informed decisions. Yet most

newcomer service providers are so overwhelmed

with meeting the immediate needs of their clients

that they have few resources for addressing

advocacy issues. Some programs – such as some

legal assistance programs for migrant workers –

are even prohibited from engaging in advocacy

work, such as testifying at legislative hearings.

Funder support for advocacy work is essential to

engaging the community in addressing not only

symptoms of problems but also underlying causes

of these issues.

The process by which refugees arrive and

resettle in the United States is well-defined on

the international, national, state and local

levels, with designated refugee-serving agencies,

including the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement

and national resettlement programs and their

local affiliates, at various levels. Funding mechanisms

to support refugee integration – ranging from initial

settlement assistance to employment assistance –

are contained within this structure. For example,

local refugee resettlement programs receive funding

from the Office of Refugee Resettlement for initial

settlement assistance and from state workforce

development funds for employment assistance.

No such structure or funding streams exist for

non-refugee immigrants; for example, there is

no national office focusing on immigrant affairs,

although the creation of such an office has been

suggested in a major analysis of immigrant

integration issues by the Urban Institute in 2001

(Fix, Zimmerman, Passel, page 42). At the

local level, availability and visibility of services for

the general immigrant population are considerably

more limited than for the refugee population,

although non-refugee immigrants make up at

least 90 percent of the newcomer population.

While there are three major refugee resettlement

programs in Grand Rapids, resources available for

immigrants are far more limited. Greater availability

and visibility of support services for immigrants

could have a major impact on the speed and success

of integration.