PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/tag/immigration/)
The Ixil immigrants in Pittsburgh are almost exclusively from Santa Maria Nebaj, often referred to as Nebaj. In 2014, unaccompanied Central American minors had just begun to arrive en masse.
Francisco's 23-year-old son had gone out the night before and never returned home. The following day, Francisco's neighbor came knocking on his door to inform him that Manuel had been killed and his body was laying on the side of a road nearby.
Changes to federal immigration policy under the Trump administration have prompted one of three Pittsburgh-area nonprofits that provide refugee resettlement to end those services.
The federal government announced in September that the United States in fiscal year 2019 will accept only 30,000 people fleeing persecution — the lowest level since the creation of the U.S. Refugee Act in 1980. The reduced cap this year and for next year translates into fewer refugees entering te region and a decline in funding, which contributed to the Sharpsburg-based Northern Area Multi-Services Agency [NAMS] deciding to shutter its refugee resettlement services.
We — the children of parents who at one point made the difficult decision to leave our home countries due to crime, poverty and abuse — are humans and we have a voice.
The women think often about their futures in America — their own, their children’s and what their families may be able to achieve here.
I moved to Pittsburgh from Germany about a year ago as the wife of a science nomad. For my husband, coming here meant giving his career a real boost. For me, it meant a range of limitations that I think no adult should be subjected to.
Hortencia Ortiz Reyes is among 800,000 people living in the United States whose lives have been affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Hortencia recently graduated from high school and is now living in Pittsburgh. She is 18.
Being a minority, the one out of 100, isn’t fun or easy. I don’t feel unique in a positive way. Nor do I feel safe and accepted in many spaces. I’m sharing my story in the hopes that it will help others who feel the same way.
With the advent of Donald Trump’s presidential administration, which is intent on dismantling the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on which many of them rely, Pittsburgh’s refugees have yet another hurdle with which to contend.
Under the ACA, those who come to the United States as refugees have the same rights to health care as any American citizen.
