The United States is a classic country of immigration, but it is also a traditional country of resettlement for refugees. Since the enactment of the 1980 Refugee Act, the United States has resettled over two and a half million refugees. Out of all of the groups that have been resettled, there is one group that has gained national and even international attention as a result of their migration practices here in the United States. In 2002 Lewiston, Maine became a site for the secondary migration of Somali refugees. The financial hardships the town faced as a result of that migration caused then-Mayor Laurier T. Raymond to write a public letter pleading for the Somali elders to put a halt to the migration. The letter, which was construed as racist, attracted national and international attention. At the time, Lewiston was not a resettlement city, thus it did not have the resources or skills to deal with this new population. Therefore, the challenge and cost to settle the Somali initially fell on the community. The events that took place in Lewiston - the unexpected influx of Somali secondary migrants - have taken place in numerous cities and towns across America. The problem is that little is known about the factors that influence the residential distribution of the Somali or the factors that motivate them to embark on secondary migrations after their initial resettlement in communities in the United States. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research analyzes several social, economic, and demographic variables from various U.S. government databases in order to identify the order of the factors most associated with not only the residential location of the Somalis, but also their migration destinations. To further elaborate on the quantitative findings, this research employs qualitative instruments such as surveys, unstructured interviews, and participant observation conducted in Columbus, Ohio - home to the second largest concentration of Somalis in the United States.Results indicate that the Somali were dispersing from their initial resettlement communities in secondary migrations not only to frontier communities, but also to communities with an existing Somali population. The time frame of the data indicates that this was a period of ethnic community building for the Somali. This fits in with the results of the analysis of diversity, which indicated that the growing Somali communities became more diverse with respect to clan-family representation over time. This growing diversity can be contributed to the expansion of the number of Somali tribal/clan groups considered to be in imminent danger as the civil conflict progressed. Survey results suggest that the presence of one's own clan would never serve as the primary reason for secondary migration, but it would serve as a strong motivator because of the social network resources it could provide at the destination. While the destination communities for Somali secondary migrants were somewhat similar to the communities where they originally resided - which typify refugee resettlement communities - subtle important differences were noted. Results of the principal components regression on migration determinants revealed that these differences included, but were not limited to, the presence of an older population, lower crime rates, and a decreased importance placed on the black or white racial demographics. Results also indicate that, while the employment aspects of the migrant destinations decreased in importance, the health of the welfare aspects associated with the destination of the Somali migrants increased in importance.
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