Immigrants and refugees should not be political pawns, but if you have been paying attention, Haitians are now in the spotlight and the subject of lies and deception for political gain.

Forget about the jokes targeting tropes of the dietary habits of New Americans; the vitriol and its amplification on social media would merely be disheartening if it wasn’t so dangerous. Bomb threats, school closures, and people fearing for their safety are the result of candidates and pundits who are punching down on immigrants and refugees.

Every time people spread lies or misinformation about immigrants and refugees, all of them pay the price. Subtlety and nuance mean nothing to those trying to score political points. New Americans who look, speak, dress, or worship differently than mainstream Americans become targets merely for being who they are. For many, it is the reason why they left their home countries to begin with. This is, dare I say, un-American.

Soon, we will provide resources under the heading “Know the Value” on our website, offering bipartisan and apolitical information for you to use when you hear people sharing lies and incorrect information about New Americans.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

Don’t be silent. Please do your part to help make Western New York (and America) a better place for, and because of, immigrants and refugees by speaking out.

Learn more about our work at the International Institute of Buffalo by clicking here.

Jennifer Rizzo-Choi, 

Executive Director

Click on the Video Above!

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 @ 6:00 PM

WNED Studios, 140 Lower Terrace, Buffalo, NY 14202 

Join IIB for its biggest fundraiser of the year! A night of stand-up comedy featuring internationally touring comedians!

After a sold-out performance last year, Vietnamese refugee and comedian Thom Tran is back to support IIB. This time, he’ll bring his friends, Jose Sarduy & Jose Barrientos, to join in the laughter!

The event will feature ethnic food from local restaurants, an open bar with beer/wine/soft drinks, and music by infusion sitar artist Naryan Padmanabha.

All proceeds will benefit the International Institute of Buffalo.

We have started receiving registrations from local schools and are looking forward to the competition on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Please get in touch with us if your school would be interested in joining at communications@iibuff.org.

Thanks to all the people who make Western New York more welcoming to immigrants and refugees. We honor them for their efforts on behalf of the New Americans we serve. Click here to see those we are honoring this month. 

Between September 15 - October 15 we will celebrate the scientific, economic, cultural, political, and social contributions of influential Hispanic immigrants and refugees who’ve helped shape the vibrant tapestry of America. Here is who we featured so far:

From Left to Right- Volunteer Megan Gerrity, IIB’s Steve Bosco, IIB’s Dawn Obe

Welcoming Week is an annual national celebration to showcase communities striving to be more welcoming to immigrants and refugees. Recently, we invited community members to our campus to paint “Welcome” signs in the languages of the New Americans we are currently resettling. The artwork will hang in the homes of the refugees we resettle in the future! Click here to see some of the artwork!

From L to R: IIB’s Summer Cerbone, Molina’s Said Ahmed (a former IIB client), and Molina’s Kathrine Dukes-Weber.

Update: We are no longer holding open donation hours on site, so you can coordinate your drop offs with our donations team at: donations@iibuff.org

Here are the basic household items to significantly help our newest American neighbors as they begin their new lives in our community. If your organization wants to coordinate a donation drive on our behalf, please do so by contacting us!

A special thanks to Molina Healthcare, Mary Igoe, and an anonymous donor for donating bookbags and school supplies to help our New Americans succeed in the classroom!

Our Community Outreach team ensured all 14 families originally from Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Syria, Tanzania, and Venezuela had homes that were move-in ready. 

Many thanks to the 18 volunteers and six interns who provided us 177 hours of good work with home set-ups, donated goods, and other work for IIB this month. 

If you volunteered with us before, we would love your feedback! Please consider taking this short survey.

This month we welcomed 103 new citizens to our community!

We welcomed 37 candidates from 20 countries who took their citizenship oaths at the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Naturalization Ceremony and the William-Emslie Family YMCA in Buffalo. They are from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, China, Congo (Kinshasa), India, Iraq, Italy, Libya, Mexico, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Syria, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Yemen.

Earlier this month, we welcomed 27 New Americans from 17 countries while they took their citizenship oaths at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. The countries they represented Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burma, Canada, China, Cuba, Dominica, Guinea, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. 

In a separate ceremony earlier this month we also helped welcome 39 New Americans from 18 countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Canada, Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Jordan, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Somalia, United Kingdom, and Yemen. 

Employment Services

Fifty-three New American clients recently graduated from Job Club, which offers classes to help them learn how to work effectively in the American workplace. Essential topics include resume building, interview skills, and job searching strategies.

The graduates from Afghanistan, Burundi, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Myanmar (Burma), Sudan, and Venezuela recently toured the Downtown Buffalo & Erie County Public Library to learn about its vast resources; twenty-nine clients got their library cards!

In addition, we provided financial literacy education facilitated by our partner M&T Bank, a refugee health session presented by our Education Department, and a workers' rights class offered by the Department of Labor. The Department of Motor Vehicles was also on hand to provide services for clients and staff at IIB.

Click here to learn more about how we help New Americans become effective employees.

International Exchanges and Education

This month, we hosted 11 visitors from Croatia, European Union, Iceland, Moldova, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom on "Collaboration and Cooperation on Refugee and Migration Issues." In Buffalo, they focused on immigration policies and protocols along the U.S.-Canada border, local government perspectives on integration services, addressing physical and mental health needs, and firsthand perspectives of refugee resettlement and integration experiences. They also attended a Bisons game and had an excellent time!

Our Education Department offered two sessions for D'Youville Physical Therapy students on best practices when working with foreign-born populations and addressing cultural and linguistic barriers.

We held a Refugee Health session for IIB's Job Club participants on "Preventing Infections to Lead a Healthy Lifestyle." These sessions support the integration of our refugee clients by providing information and resources to navigate the American health system and encourage wellness in everyday life.

Learn more about how our International Exchanges & Education team contributes to greater knowledge and understanding in our community.

New American Integration

At the start of our fiscal year, we anticipated resettling 330 refugees. That quota was bumped up to 496. As of this publication we stand at 507 new arrivals and that number could go higher as we prepare to close out the current fiscal year at the end of this month.

Suffice it to say, September has been an incredibly busy month for the NAI team. This month alone, we have made a significant impact by resettling 14 families, totaling 57 people originally from Afghanistan, Burma, Congo, and Iraq. Each family we help is a step towards our larger mission of making Western New York a better place for, and because of, immigrants and refugees.

As we do with our clients, IIB team members greeted them at the airport. However, in some cases this month, family and friends welcomed them too. Some they hadn't seen in over ten years!

Our resettlement team provided orientation to all the families by providing four cultural orientations where clients learned about the rights and responsibilities of living in the United States, what to expect during their first 90 days of living here, and how to be a good neighbor.

A favorite part of orientation is a presentation from the Tifft Nature Preserve/ Buffalo History Museum, showing clients what Buffalo offers and providing free passes for them and their families to visit! A group of volunteers accompanied some of our new families on a field trip, and they had a wonderful time visiting.

Find out more about what New American Integration is about.

Interpreting & Translation

Did you know that our team of linguists is proficient in over 85 different languages, providing on-demand phone and audio/video remote services? This diverse range of languages allows us to cater to a wide audience.

Our Interpreting team has been in high demand, receiving 1,639 requests for interpreting services in 42 different languages. This high volume of requests underscores the value and need for our services.

Our dedicated interpreters were onsite at Buffalo Public Schools all day for several days, providing language access to Buffalo’s students with limited English proficiency taking the Regents exams in Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Dari, Pashto, Rohingya, Somali, Spanish, and Swahili languages. To request interpreting services, email interpretation@iibuff.org.

Our Translation team completed 99 individual projects last month. The team also translated marketing materials and informational flyers for many local non-profit organizations. For questions about document translation projects of any size, email translation@iibuff.org.  

If you are multilingual and interested in joining our team of linguists, we are always looking to add quality people to our roster. By sourcing talented local interpreters and translators, we are better able to provide first-rate language access to our community. Click to apply.

For a comprehensive overview of the Interpreting & Translation department’s work, click here!

Come Work with Us!

We are always looking for people who want to help New Americans become part of our community, take a look at our careers page.