A refugee would like to have your problems

That's something my sister Linda, who has worked all her life with refugees and immigrants, always says, when either of us complains about our lot in life. This story in the New York Times about the impact of the "recession" on recent refugee arrivals really drove that home today.
Yesterday, a colleague in the refugee program at the state health department explained how the US State Department has slowed the flow of refugees into Minnesota to a trickle, by insisting that most of them be DNA-tested to prove that they are, in fact, related to some earlier refugee who is alleging to be a family member and a willing sponsor. Given the state of the economy and the likely grimness of their potential new life, maybe this is one instance in which life in a refugee camp, while not better than life in a US housing project or tenement, may not look all that bad.