“A very specific and narrowly focused program”: Former Mayor Lauren Poe meets with agency representatives to discuss refugee resettlement plan

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – On May 17, former Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe held a meeting with representatives of various agencies about his plan to bring refugees to Alachua County.

The attendees of the meeting included:

• Erica Schmidt-Portnoy, technical advisor for new site development for the International Rescue Committee
• Karen Duncan, Community Engagement Program Officer at the headquarters level with the International Rescue Committee
• Gracia Fernandez, the Alachua County Immigrant and Language Access Coordinator
• Will Karl, from the Gainesville City Clerk’s Office
• Alachua County Commission Chair Mary Alford
• John John, Immigrant Affairs Manager for the City of Gainesville
• Dr. Dakeyan “Dre” Graham, Director of Educational Equity and Outreach for Alachua County Public Schools

Although Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward, Alachua County Sheriff Emery Gainey, Interim Gainesville Police Chief Nelson Moya, Alachua County Health Department Administrator Paul Myers, and State Refugee Health Coordinator Tammi Garrett were invited to the meeting, they were not directly represented.

New “affiliate partner” model for resettlement programs

Poe began by saying there is a “gap in ability to serve” refugees in this area, with Jacksonville and Tallahassee as the closest two cities that accept refugee resettlements. Poe said Tampa also participates in the program. He said that in many areas, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) builds and staffs their own resettlement programs, but “they’ve been moving to a new model, over the last several years, of partnering with local organizations in what they call an ‘affiliate partnership’ to do that same work… So through that process, IRC decided that the Greater Gainesville International Center (GGIC) was a good match, and we started some discussions.”

Poe said the Zoom meeting on May 17 was part of a “pretty exhaustive due diligence process… But at the end of the day, what we are talking about here is saving lives. People who are granted refugee status by the U.S. federal government are in extreme threat of losing their lives or being punished, tortured, imprisoned, or otherwise subjugated because of their religious beliefs, their political beliefs, or a variety of other reasons… And so for a long time, the United States has served as a safe haven for people fleeing this kind of oppression, hoping to get people out of harm’s way and then hopefully return to their county of origin when situations improve.”

Greater Gainesville International Center

Poe said GGIC is a d/b/a under Sister City Programs of Gainesville, Inc., a 501(c)(3) that was incorporated in 1982, when Gainesville became the first city to become a sister city with a Soviet city. The program was originally aligned with the City of Gainesville but split off in 1997; Poe took over the organization after his mayoral term ended, in early 2023. Poe said the local effort is a three-way partnership between the federal government, the IRC, and GGIC. 

International Rescue Committee

Poe said IRC will provide administrative support, logistical support, training, and “some financial support.” He continued, “This will only be successful if we have broad community support, and that is a parallel effort I’m working on, trying to mobilize and coordinate our many community organizations, especially through the faith-based community, to assist in this effort. It goes back to the old African proverb: ‘It takes a village.'”

Who is eligible for refugee status?

Poe spent a few minutes defining a refugee “versus, you know, somebody else entering our country under a variety of different circumstances. So the definition, according to our State Department, is that a refugee resettlement is a ‘durable solution for individuals with humanitarian protection needs, who have left their country due to persecution on account of a protected ground, cannot safely return home, and require permanent resettlement to a third country because they’re unable to remain in the country where they currently reside.’ You know, I think the the most high-profile of those cases in recent years have been Afghanistan, so when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, many of the people who were assisting in the efforts there, especially assisting the United States, were under immediate threat. And, you know, faced, you know, imprisonment or even execution, if they were located and apprehended by the Taliban. So there’s been a massive resettlement effort to try to get those folks who helped support the United States, and our diplomatic and military efforts, you know, to safety.”

Poe read the definition of a refugee: “A refugee is an individual who is outside their country of nationality, and who is unable or unwilling to return, and is unwilling or unable to avail themselves of the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

He said the applicants go through an “incredibly extensive vetting process – it’s very, very difficult to earn refugee status… And so folks that are granted are thoroughly investigated by the U.S. government.” He said that once they’re granted that status, they have a “very short window in which to relocate – in some cases, it can just be a couple of weeks.” Poe said that the refugees are expected to be self-supporting within 90 days of resettlement, “and so we have a very short window to get them settled, housed, connected with the resources they need, employed, get their kids registered for school, so they can start supporting themselves.”

Biggest challenge is housing

Refugees, Poe said, “come eligible for many U.S. benefits, including they immediately have a right to employment. After one year, they can apply for a green card. They’re entitled to SNAP, to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families… as well as other benefits… The biggest challenge is housing, that’s, you know, everywhere in the United States.” He said GGIC would work to find the refugees “safe, sanitary, and affordable housing – very importantly, close to public transportation and shopping, schools, jobs.”

Next steps

Poe said GGIC’s next steps are to report the feedback from the meeting and work with IRC to file the application with the federal government, while “building our welcoming plan,… hiring the right caseworkers,… and building community connections.”

GGIC is already approved to bring in “one family at a time”

Duncan, an IRC representative, said that GGIC is also participating in an IRC program called the Remote Placement Community Partner Program, “and it’s a great way for Greater Gainesville to really kind of get their feet wet in this process – they’ll be welcoming one family at a time and kind of walking them through this process; that’s kind of separate from the application to be an affiliate partner… And we’ll make sure that they’re very well prepared when they do start welcoming more than one family at a time.”

Alford: “We have a real shortage of affordable housing here”

Commissioner Alford said, “I personally do support this quite a bit,” but she said there needs to be “community education about what a refugee is and how that differs from other folks that, you know, migrate or immigrate to our country… Secondly,… we have a real shortage of affordable housing here, and since that is one of the things that you look for,… I was curious if you had specific plans on how to address that.”

Poe said those are “not new questions that communities have…. As far as housing, this is, you know, Commissioner, not unique to Gainesville. This is a national crisis, and because of that, IRC has done some extensive work… on how to approach finding housing that meets those minimum qualifications… But ultimately, we’re going to have to build relationships here on a local level.”

Poe said he’s been having conversations with owners of multi-family properties and Airbnb properties to find housing for each family for the first three to six months. He said he had found that many Airbnb properties are rented for football weekends “and then sit empty a lot of the rest of the time.”

Alford concerned about whether LGBTQ people would qualify

Alford responded that “folks… see our limited community resources being displaced. I don’t see that, but I think people are picturing 100 families descending on Gainesville suddenly, and I think they just have a lot of misconceptions.” She continued, “One group of people I don’t see listed on the types of folks that you welcome are the LGBTQ community. I assume that is hidden in one of those groups of people.”

Poe answered, “Yeah, that’s one of the areas of focus or protected status for how the federal government determines whether somebody is granted status. If they live in a country that is not only intolerant but is hostile and violent towards people who identify as LGBTQIA+, then they are eligible for that, as well.”

Alford said, “And we have a large and vibrant LGBTQI+ community here, and that could be also possibly a source of housing and other things.” She then asked how many families would be sent to Gainesville.

Poe: “It will start with a trickle” and then “accelerate a little bit”

Poe responded that it’s “way too early… What I can tell you is, it will start with a trickle. Both the State of Florida and the federal government want to see that the infrastructure is in place, it’s functioning well, and – everybody has a vested interest in this being successful.”

Poe said it might start with a new family every other week, but “we will be told that number.” He said it would likely be “a new family every three or four weeks. And then if things go well, it’ll accelerate a little bit more after that.”

Schmidt-Portnoy from the IRC said that typically the IRC does not send more than 50 people a year to new affiliate sites – “not [50] families, but individual people.”

Fernandez: Is IRC limited to “folks who have been officially warranted refugee status”?

Gracia Fernandez, who works for Alachua County, asked whether the IRC is “limited to working only with folks who have been officially warranted refugee status,” and Schmidt-Portnoy said the program “does not allow for the support of other immigrant families that are in need of potentially the same resources. GGIC will be… assigned specific individuals to support.” She said GGIC is free to support other immigrant families using non-IRC resources.

Fernandez said she was concerned that the program would “continue to reinforce this division of, ‘Oh, well, you’ve been granted refugee status,’ even though there are a lot of people coming from Mexico, Central America, who are escaping really similar dire situations but haven’t been granted or haven’t finished being granted, because oftentimes they’ll show up at the border and say, ‘Hi, I’m in a really dire situation, here’s my passport,’ and then they’re given a sheet of paper. And so I’m concerned that there is already a high level of ignorance of how the immigration system even works in the first place and how we speak of people who are immigrants, regardless of their status.”

Fernandez: “We have to think about the people who are already here and flying under the radar”

Fernandez, who wore a keffiyeh – sometimes used to show solidarity with the Palestinian people – as a shawl during the meeting, continued, “I think this is a great program. I am a first-generation Latina, I’m a very white-passing Latina, and I think that we, as people who are white or white-passing allies, have a responsibility to kind of say, you know, I think this is great, but we have to think about the people who are already here and flying under the radar and going through really critical [situations].”

Poe agreed that is “part of an important and ongoing conversation. You know, I like to use ‘and’ language and not ‘or’ language.” He said the “incredible gift” of bringing a refugee to the community “doesn’t diminish or in any way take away from all of the other families that also need support… This is a very specific and narrowly focused program.”

Graham: ACPS will be “equipped and ready to receive and communicate”

Graham, from Alachua County Public Schools, said that because they don’t know how many children will be part of the program or where they will live, “the only plan that we can make is to make sure that we are equipped and ready to receive and communicate and make sure that they have the needs met that they need in order to get registered and access to schools.”

Poe: “We’re going to become a richer, more vibrant, better community”

Poe closed by telling the group to “think about this as a process; we’re not at the end of anything, we’re far from the beginning… But we as an organization would not be embarking on this if I didn’t already know that we have the community that is ready, willing, and able to stand up and help welcome these folks… Let’s remind ourselves, we’re going to become a richer, more vibrant, better community and that these folks coming will only add to who we are and make us that much better of a place to live.”