WASHINGTON — Within six years of arriving in Boise, Idaho, Iraqi refugee Salam Bunyan — forced from his Baghdad home for working alongside the U.S. military — realized his version of the American dream by opening a restaurant.
It was the culmination of 17 years of culinary experience in Iraq, a Jordan refugee camp and Boise. He named the Middle Eastern restaurant The Goodness Land.
“Business is very good,” Bunyan said of the restaurant’s success over the past year. “I have big support in the community.”
Bunyan’s story is emblematic of the give-and-take many seeking asylum in the United States experience. Though the safety and financial support provided by their new home grants refugees the opportunity to build new lives, the communities in which they resettled often reap the economic benefits that come with an expanded tax base, supplemented workforce and greater diversity of businesses — like The Goodness Land.
“Refugees over time tend to contribute to growth and economic vitality in any community, and we certainly feel that in Boise,” said Patty Haller, assistant director of the Idaho Office for Refugees. “Most Boiseans see refugees in our community as a very positive influence.”
As the national debate over admitting Syrian refugees continues, many economists and refugee advocates across the nation fear that public officials are missing a point: Although refugees require a minimal amount of cash assistance to get them on their feet, their rapid integration into the workplace and atypical upward mobility have been shown to boost economic growth and employment rates for the nations that offer them legal residence — the United States among them.
“Even though initially they get public support, in most cases they lose that and rely quickly on work,” said Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute. “It’s a strength of the U.S. system and of the economy.”
The economic benefits aren’t just at the federal level, either.
Once refugees are employed, they are able to pay rent, buy groceries, and otherwise are consumers in the communities that have welcomed them. That provides an often much-needed boost to local economies, something cities across the nation are coming to appreciate.
Once they’re financially stable, refugees enjoy a level of prosperity unmatched by other immigrant classes.
In a 2004 study, Kalena Cortes, then a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, found that over a decade, refugees had earned 20 percent more, worked 4 percent more hours, and improved their English skills more than their economic migrant counterparts.
The discrepancy is likely the result of a refugee’s unique life experiences, said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. Having been denied every other option available to them, he said, those who seek asylum are often more than ready to throw themselves headfirst into whatever opportunities they may be granted.
“Refugees are more likely to work, more likely to work more hours, and more likely to see poverty reduction than similarly skilled Americans,” Nowrasteh said. “They’re more upwardly mobile than other immigrants or natives, just because they start at such a low level and many are interested in putting down firm roots in their new country.”
“A lot of economic migrants to the U.S. have the option of returning home” Nowrasteh said. Refugees do not have that option. So they have to make that permanent investment — learning English, getting an education.”
Syrian refugees in particular may be even better equipped to make that investment than others, data show. Coming from a country with relatively high education rates, Syrians are more likely than other immigrants to have high school, college and graduate degrees, Capps said.
