When did Ishkashitaa start, and how did it get its name and mission?

In 2003 our founder, Barbara Eiswerth, returned from doing post-PhD work in Malawi, Africa. She noticed how much food waste there was in Tucson and thought about the potential to tap into the food supply, especially citrus trees in people’s backyards, and other sources of untapped food.

The refugee component really just kind of happened. Somebody she was working with at the university was like, “Oh, there’s these Somali refugee teenagers who just arrived. Can you take them with you and work with them?” And she did. She created a youth program, and they were harvesting and mapping food-producing trees throughout Tucson. The harvest program proceeded from there, and since then it’s been a mission, a guiding principle of the organization, that refugees are major stakeholders and provide the input into our programs.

It was the Somali teenagers who came up with the name Ishkashitaa, which is a Somali word for working cooperatively together. Because what the Somalis were telling Barbara, and many subsequent populations of refugees since then, is that they needed a place to give back. They felt like they had been given so much coming to the United States. The work and community were also instrumental in helping them recover from trauma, reclaim their sense of identity, and rebuild from having nothing, from having lost their home, family, and place of origin.

How does the food-harvesting program work?

People sign up to have their yards harvested. We have a form on our website that people can fill out to have their trees harvested. And we’ll drive out to their homes. We’re trying to devote about half of the food to refugees, but about half of it also goes to community partners who distribute it to food banks, food pantries, and tribal communities.

There are tons of citrus every year that are still untapped because we can only harvest so much. This year we’ve probably harvested at least 150 properties during the citrus season. We have some people where this will be our eighth year in a row harvesting the same trees. We fill out the rest of the year with community gardens, orchards, and farms. For instance, there are some pumpkins outside that we just received from a farm in Marana.

Besides harvesting, do you also offer other programs?

In 2020 we added the Refugee Garden Art Program as a way to combat social isolation during the pandemic. We host a resident artist through a program called Artists at Work, and she’s developed the Refugee Garden Art Program where people can express their voice through crafts that they might share or the monthly African drum circle. We’re also reestablishing cooking demonstrations with a local chef.

How many refugees does Tucson receive on average, and from what parts of the world?

The number has fluctuated over the years. The ceiling as to how many people are resettled under the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program is set by the president. [In 2024, the ceiling under President Biden was 125,000, and in 2026, under Trump, it was reduced to 7,500, for primarily white Afrikaners, and is the lowest number of admissions in the program’s nearly 50-year history.] People go through a very rigorous vetting process with at least five agencies. They interview people to determine what they’re threatened by and why they’ve been displaced.

The process can take years. And so to say that people are let in without any vetting is complete misinformation. The program is a major success story in my view. It’s just such a quiet success that no one knows about it. And now, unfortunately, it’s being targeted by the Trump administration as some kind of threat.

The United States has traditionally been one of the countries that receive the most refugees. There are people who have been living in refugee camps for decades. Less than 1 percent of refugees globally are ever resettled to what they call a third country, to an asylum country. So it’s very rare that somebody is resettled.

We’ve had situations like in 2015 during the Syrian war, where people lost their homes and livelihood instantly, had never been in a camp, and went from living a lifestyle similar to what we have here and then just lost everything. The drawdown of the war in Afghanistan in 2021 was another major source of refugees. When people are resettled, they don’t get to choose where they will go. For instance, we have an older couple in the program. Almost all of their adult children are in Norway, and another family member is in Egypt. Quite a few refugees are resettled here in Tucson, because it is a midsized city with enough resources that people can have access to transportation and health care, but not so big that it’s extremely expensive. We work with a lot of people from Africa and from Afghanistan. I’d say among our refugee volunteers, at least 10 countries are represented.

How many people are you serving right now?

We’ve probably got about 200 individuals that we’re serving in the past year. And that ranges from a household of one single person to a family of eight. So overall we’re impacting around 1,000 people.

You also work with asylum seekers. How is their situation different from a refugee’s?

It was during the last Trump administration when we started serving asylum seekers. And there are different statuses for claiming asylum. There are people who crossed the border. They’re “defensive.” And then there’s people who are “affirmative.” They’re here in the U.S. already, and their visa has expired, and they file for asylum. We have both. Our asylum seekers are the most vulnerable. There’s really nothing stopping them from being deported by this administration. We’re very worried about them right now.

What kinds of pressures are the families you serve facing right now?

Under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” refugees can longer access the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. They’re not allowed to get SNAP until they have green cards, but the green card process is on hold. The citizenship ceremony process is on hold too. And refugees are one of the only immigration statuses that have a clear path to citizenship. After five years with a green card, they’re eligible for citizenship. They’ve also made the citizenship test more difficult with more questions.

Also, after waiting so long and being vetted by the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, the administration is now talking about re-interviewing and revetting everyone who was admitted to the United States during the Biden administration.

In Minnesota they’ve detained refugees, reinterviewed them, and then shipped them to detention centers in Texas. Eventually, they release them out on the street in Texas without any resources. I don’t believe there were any refugees that were reinterviewed in Minnesota who lost their refugee status. Because the vetting process is already so stringent. But the process now, I believe, is that refugees are going to receive a letter in the mail, which they may or may not see or read. And if they don’t respond within a certain time frame, they can be detained. We recently held a know-your-rights meeting with immigration lawyers to talk about what people can do. But mostly the advice was that they should just get lawyers. But that’s not always feasible.

How can people get involved with your program?

We need harvest leads and drivers. During the school year we have student interns who help us with the food distribution, but they’re gone over the summer, so we can always use people during the summer. We need people to help pick up food from our partners and drop off food, and as we expand our volunteer base, and with the SNAP benefit cuts, we will need volunteers to introduce refugee families to food banks and other resources.

What drew you to Ishkashitaa?

I started volunteering here more than 10 years ago, because it was an opportunity for an average person, like me, to get involved and get to know people who have been resettled here. People in the U.S. can be very xenophobic, but once you get to know someone personally who is a refugee, you’re less likely to fall for misinformation or demonizing immigrants as a group. That really is the core of our program.