International Institute of Minnesota has helped thousands of refugees rebuild lives in America
Around 400 new U.S. citizens from more than 70 countries waved the American flag and sang along to the national anthem at a naturalization ceremony held in Brooklyn Center recently — marking a new milestone in a long journey to Minnesota.
One of them is 32-year-old Shalom Mugisha who was born in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Mugisha says he felt an overwhelming feeling of excitement as he listened to “This Land Is Your Land” for the first time during the naturalization ceremony.
“My heart was beating. I was extremely happy,” Mugisha said.
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Mugisha fled from Kinshasa to Rwanda when he was just a little boy and spent most of his life in a refugee camp surrounded by tents.
He recalls that time in his life when he and his family ate once a day. Now, life is different.
“The time I arrived in America, I was totally confused,” he said. “Big city, big houses.”
Mugisha is one of thousands of refugees who received help through the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program, and one of hundreds who got connected with the International Institute of Minnesota.
Housing case managers from the institute help refugees like Mugisha find housing, jobs and resources they need to start a new life.
“They helped me to pay my rent for about three months. And in that period, they helped me to find a job.”
Senior Director of Immigration Refugee Services at the International Institute of Minnesota Micaela Schuneman says there are multiple steps to the resettlement process.
She says the resettlement program is run by the U.S. State Department. The State Department then works through the institute’s national office, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
“So they’re the ones sending us the travel notification to tell us, hey, this is a family of five. They’re going to be coming on April 1 and then that’s to us the moment we start putting everything in motion,” Schuneman said.
Schuneman says the institute’s refugee resettlement program is funded through federal grants that pay for the cost of resettlement. She says once they arrive, refugees can then apply for federal benefits like health insurance, and public benefits like cash assistance, or food stamps.
“So there really aren’t state funds being used to support this program. We’ve received support from the state, we have quite a few employment programs that are funded through state grants. We also have a lot of donors in the community. So local resources through foundations and donors come to us, but the initial resettlement costs are funded by the federal government,” she said.
She says the institute has resettled more than 25,000 refugees in the state so far since the 1970s.
The institute finds local landlords who are willing to help secure housing, and the organization covers rent for the first 90 days.
The goal is for new arrivals to find employment in that timeframe.
Recently workers from the institute helped set up a house in St. Paul for a refugee family of five arriving from Somalia.
Volunteers cleaned, assembled beds and furniture, and organized donated items.
Like Mugisha, many families who received this type of help, have once stood to take their oaths of citizenship.
Mugisha looks back on the five years it took him to reach that goal, the challenges in between, and what’s ahead in the next five years.
The current truck driver hopes to go to school to become a civil engineer. He plans to get married in June and buy a house.
“I feel so excited that we have to get citizenship in this country with a lot of opportunities,” said Mugisha. “So blessed and so excited. I’m very happy.”
The institute anticipates 670 refugees to arrive this year, compared to 303 people last year.
Between 2005 and 2020, a little more than 33,000 people moved to Minnesota with refugee status, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
