Located in DeWitt, Iowa, around 30 minutes outside campus, is a nonprofit immigrant organization known as the Iowa Newcomer Integration Community and Exchange (IA NICE). Augustana’s Visiting Instructor of Business Administration Angela Boelens founded the nonprofit in 2022.
IA NICE allows Ukrainian refugees to relocate to America through legal sponsorship. Since the organization was founded, Boelens said IA NICE has helped over 20 Ukrainian families.
Boelens said she found a love for volunteering after having a feeling she needed to give back, which ultimately led to her founding of IA NICE. She has served on many different boards and committees, including the Jordan Catholic School board and the Arrowhead Youth and Family Services board.
“I got really lucky in my career. I had awesome jobs, beautiful location [and] my parents were super proud. And I had this moment, and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m not sure this was so much deserved,’” Boelens said. “I was born in the right place, the right time, to right parents and the right people, and [I] started to feel like I should be giving back to the less fortunate.”
Boelens, along with several other volunteers and donors, assists immigrants with housing, food and employment to help refugees become financially independent. IA NICE volunteer Karen McWilliams serves as assistant treasurer and assists refugees with doctor’s appointments, housing and emergency situations.
“I completely set the house up from top to bottom, from an empty house initially, to everything you need to live,” McWilliams said. “That includes making the beds, all the linens on the beds, towels, toiletries, all their food in the refrigerator, all the basic stuff in your cabinets.”
IA NICE is able to provide temporary housing through their own house, she said, that was donated to the nonprofit to help house immigrants. McWilliams said refugees will live here until they are ready to move into permanent housing.
Through donations, she said the nonprofit is able to fill the house with furniture and anything else immigrants could need during their stay.
“They leave the furniture in the house that I set up, and they get to go shopping in our donations,” McWilliams said. “I take them over and let them go through and take the furniture that they want until they can purchase exactly what they want in the future.”
In order to bring their families to safety, the Ukrainian refugees had to leave everything behind, she said, including their professions and many personal belongings. Vice President of IA NICE Ann Eiesenmen organizes the board meetings and works closely with the refugees from Ukraine, helping them adjust to their new lives.
“I think that anyone that has an opportunity to get to know and observe these Ukrainian people who are so courageous, you think about what happened to them, this war was thrust upon them,” Eisenmen said. “They were professional people, they’re educated, they have families and jobs and homes and dreams and futures in their country and then this happened to them.”
With new executive orders surrounding immigration and deportation, IA NICE officials are uncertain about the refugees’ futures in America. A new bill, Protecting our Guests During Hostilities in Ukraine Act, was issued from U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Feb. 24 and states Ukrainains already in the country will be granted “temporary guest status.”
The bill was co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Peter Welch (D-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
According to the bill, refugees are allowed to stay in the United States “until the Secretary of State determines that hostilities in Ukraine have ceased and it is safe for them to return.” Once Ukraine is deemed safe again, immigrants will only have 120 days to return to their home country.
Boelens said she has been in contact with several government officials to protect the rights of the refugees from IA NICE.
“There for a while it was daily with the governor’s office, but I’d say one to two visits per week with staffers,” Boelens said. “We’ll be meeting with a group of senators in the next couple of weeks.”
