KIRK SEMPLE
NY Times
August 12 2009

Not long after the Iraq war began in 2003, Uday Hattem al-Ghanimi was accosted by several men outside the American military base where he managed a convenience store. They accused him of abetting the Americans, and one fired a pistol at his head.

Now, after 24 operations, Mr. Ghanimi has a reconstructed face as well as political asylum in the United States. On July 4, his wife and three youngest children joined him in New York after a three-year separation.

But the euphoria of their reunion quickly dissipated as the family began to reckon with the colder realities of their new life. Mr. Ghanimi, 50, who has not been able to work because of lingering pain, is supporting his family on a monthly disability check of $761, food stamps and handouts from friends. They are crammed into one room they rent in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in a city whose small Iraqi population is scattered. And Mr. Ghanimi’s wife and children do not speak English, deepening their sense of isolation.

“They say, ‘Let’s go back,’ ” Mr. Ghanimi said glumly. “It’s not what they were thinking. I told them, ‘Just be patient.’ ”

For years after the American invasion of Iraq, thousands of Iraqis clamored for admission to the United States and found the door all but closed — until the government reacted to widespread criticism in 2007 by making it easier for more to enter with special visas or as refugees.

But now that Iraqis are arriving in larger numbers, many are discovering that life in the United States is much harder than they expected.

A report released in June by the International Rescue Committee, a refugee resettlement organization in New York, said that many Iraqi immigrants have been unable to find jobs, are exhausting government and other benefits and are spiraling toward poverty and homelessness.

Advocates for immigrants in New York and elsewhere say that Iraqis have had more difficulty getting settled than most migrant populations. Many are well educated and arrive with unrealistically high expectations of the life that awaits them. Though most have received assistance from government or private agencies, large numbers have immigrated in the depths of the recession.

Many also need help dealing with the physical and emotional wounds of war.

“I’ve never seen a population where the trauma is so universal,” said Robert Carey, vice president for resettlement and migration policy at the International Rescue Committee.

More than 30,000 Iraqis have been resettled in the United States since the 2003 invasion as refugees, or with special visas for those who worked closely with the American government. At least 1,500 more have been granted asylum, federal officials say.

A vast majority have arrived in the past two years, settling thinly across the country, with larger concentrations in San Diego, Phoenix, Houston and Dearborn, Mich. More than 1,100 have been resettled in the New York region, with at least 100 in New York City.

In Iraq, many worked as doctors, teachers, scientists and interpreters — often for Americans, giving some the hope that they would be rewarded with a comfortable life here. But like accomplished immigrants from other countries, most have found that overseas credentials do not always apply in the American market, compelling them to compete for lower-skill jobs.

Nour al-Khal, 35, who arrived in New York as a refugee in 2007, has been mentoring several Iraqi families. Among the hardest adjustments, she said, is accepting the likelihood that they will not make a lateral professional move.

“We fight over that,” said Ms. Khal, who was shot in Basra, Iraq, in 2005 while working as an interpreter for Steven Vincent, an American journalist who was killed in the attack. Ms. Khal was a senior manager for an American development contractor; in New York, the best job she could initially find was as a receptionist at a real estate firm.

“I just accepted it,” said Ms. Khal, who now works as a translator. “It was so hard.”

The New York region offers notable opportunities for newcomers. Public transportation is good, and social service agencies have a wealth of experience with recent immigrants. But living costs are high, and the Iraqi population — unlike other immigrant groups that have colonized neighborhoods and formed associations — is atomized, fostering an alienation that is aggravated by the city’s relentless pace.

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