The news article “Welcome, Refugees. Now Pay Back your Travel Loans” was found on The New York Times. This article was written by Fabrice Robinet and was published on March 15, 2019. The New York Times is known to be a neutral but has a slightly skewing left leaning bias on the media bias chart.
This article recounts the details of what it is like for these families after they arrive to the US and having to pay the travel loans that allowed them to take a flight over. Many times the families have no way of being able to pay these loans back. the article states that, “The average loan per person is $1,100, and that amount can quickly increase when considering a full family.” Robinet writes about a particular family and what they went through to get to the United States, as well as the process afterwards. For example, her travel loan was more than $3,000 since she also brought her three children. It took her 4 years to pay it off.
A quote that stood out to me in the article was “… in 2017, refugees made over $66 million in loan repayments. Of that amount, a bit over $14 million went to the resettlement agencies.” This stood out to me because it blows my mind of how much money is taken from these refugees. They have done and given everything to be in this country. Although the resettlement agencies that claim they are just trying to help and the money is just a fee for administration costs and programming, which is supposed to continue to have the ability to help these refugees.
Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/nyregion/refugees-travel-loans.html