Are there just under 6,600 Afghans living in Queens, or somewhere closer

Are there just under 6,600 Afghans living in Queens, or somewhere closer to 20,000? This is the question Afghan leaders in Queens are asking as they await the 2010 Census figures on the community, underscoring what may be both a historic and systemic problem with the government data.

Last week, when Mayor Bloomberg formally challenged the U.S. Census Bureau for allegedly undercounting several neighborhoods in New York, including Astoria and Jackson Heights, by reporting housing units as vacant that actually aren’t, there was no mention of immigrant populations.

But Councilman Danny Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), certainly believes that immigrant undercounting may have had a part in the alleged 2010 Census flubs, at least in Jackson Heights.

“All you have to do is walk down Roosevelt Avenue to know that that’s impossible,” Dromm said, addressing the Census’ finding that Jackson Heights’ population has decreased since the last survey in 2000.

The data, he said, “wasn’t collected in a culturally sensitive way.” Dromm cited instances he’d heard about in which English-speaking Census workers were sent to Spanish-speaking residences. He also said that sometimes a Census worker would knock on a door just once or twice before determining no one lived in a building.

Beyond any error on the bureau’s part, many immigrants simply fear giving information to the government, he said.

That is certainly the case with one of Queens’ most vulnerable immigrant communities — the Afghan population — according to Suzanne Strickland, an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College, who has been working on a study on Afghan assimilation in Queens.

WHY ARE THE AFGHANS THE MOST “VULNERABLE” IMMIGRANT.
“They’re terrified,” Strickland said. “They have no trust in the government.” Many Afghans speak only Farsi and may not be able to read or write, even in their native language, exacerbating the issue.

While 2010 figures are not yet available for the Afghan community — the bureau releases the data incrementally — the Census has provided an estimate of what these figures might be, called the American Community Survey. According to the 2005-2009 ACS estimate, there are about 6,600 Afghan immigrants in Queens, a number Strickland contests.

Her project, which involves mapping Afghan welfare cases brought to the Human Resources Administration against the estimates provided by the ACS, is already proving there have been major undercounts, she said. Strickland’s study will be released in the next few months.

What makes the issue more than an academic one is that numbers dictate how much money a given district can receive from the Federal Government. New York officials, aware of that reality, are preparing to challenge the undercount in court, if necessary.

As the United States pulls out of Afghanistan, Strickland predicts more Afghan refugees will be coming to Queens since the situation will most likely worsen there, according to whom.

Shirin Shokouhi, a board member and volunteer at the Women for Afghan Women center in Flushing, which also runs shelters in Afghanistan, echoed Strickland’s fears for the country’s future post-drawdown. The work they do there, she said, “is really in jeopardy.”

Numbers are also likely to increase because of a new refugee category, the “Special Immigrant Visa,” which makes it easier for Afghans — and Iraqis — who helped U.S. forces in those countries to come to the United States, according to Lisa Raffonelli, a representative of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Just how incorrect the ACS estimates are remains unknown. Naheed Bahram, a leader and case manager at Women for Afghan Women, estimated there might be some 20,000 Afghans in New York, most of them living in Flushing, based on her own experiences with the community.

There have been several waves of immigration, she explained, with many Afghans arriving in the 70s and 80s, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and another, smaller wave arriving during the last decade’s war in the country.

Most Afghans fleeing the country have landed in Pakistan, India and Iran, according to Strickland. Still, while she would not give a figure, Strickland agreed with Bahram that the numbers of Afghans in Queens are significantly higher than the 6,600 estimate.

What must change, Strickland argued, is greater outreach to immigrant communities on the part of the Census bureau. Otherwise, Queens will continue to be undercounted, and its residents will continue to get less than they should.

By Paula Neudorf, Queens Chronicle, 18 August 2011.