Employment: A Significant Indicator of Socio-Economic Upward Mobility for the Lost Boys Living in the Kansas City Area

The United States Citizenship and Immigration services (USIS) have a provision that grants refugees who enter the United States permission to work. The government policy requires adult refugees, who are eighteen years and above, get jobs within six months of resettlement. They are to be assisted by agencies specializing in resettlement aid and services to find employment so as to become self-reliant quickly. This study examines the socio-economic dynamics and processes of adjustments the South Sudanese refugees commonly known as the Lost Boys since their resettlement in 2000 in the U.S. The study argues that the resettlement process of the Lost Boys had a problem in the first place in that the Boys were resettled according to their arbitrary given ages. This had important consequences as those resettled as minors had advantages over those resettled as legal adults. The minors, who were resettled as dependents in foster families and started off without economic empowerment, were placed in schools. Those resettled as Legal adults were placed in apartments and were required to start working. This produced a clear reverse trend, in terms of acquisition of social economic capital of the minors over legal adults more than ten years since their resettlement.