Manus, Nauru refugees hit by US shutdowns
Maryam Mohammadi felt she finally had her life on track.
The 30-year-old Iranian refugee was living in Las Vegas, working at the MGM Grand Casino and attempting to forget about the almost seven years she spent detained on Nauru after her attempt to arrive in Australia by boat from Indonesia was thwarted.
Jobs have been bountiful in Las Vegas with mega-sized casinos lining the strip open 24 hours a day, but the unthinkable happened last week when the coronavirus pandemic shut the city down until at least April 16.
More than 200,000 hospitality workers, including Ms Mohammadi who was working as a cashier at the MGM food court, were instantly out of work.
"It is terrible," Ms Mohammadi, who does not have friends or family in the US, told AAP on Sunday.
"I don't know what I am going to do.
"I have no money."
Ms Mohammadi is one of the estimated 700 former Nauru or Manus Island held refugees transferred to the US under the resettlement deal hatched between the Australian and US governments.
Ads-Up, an Australian-run group supporting the refugees in North America, said the refugees are among the hardest hit by New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities shutting down.
Ms Mohammadi does not have $US500 to pay rent for her shared apartment and fears she will be homeless.
"Most of the refugees are living pay cheque-to-pay cheque in low-pay service or hospitality jobs, and many of them have pre-existing health conditions which have been exacerbated by their time in detention, so they're really on the front lines of this crisis," Ads-Up co-founder Ben Winsor told AAP.
"Over the past week we've spoken with about a dozen refugees who've lost their jobs and will have trouble paying rent and providing for their families."
Ads-Up has set up a GoFund Me page to raise money to distribute to the refugees.
