Faith-based refugee resettlement groups are celebrating the Biden administration’s proposal to admit as many as 125,000 refugees to the United States in the coming year, calling the decision a “return to moral leadership”.
The news came Monday afternoon as the Biden administration submitted its report to Congress setting the refugee ceiling for the new fiscal year, which begins in October.
A man holds a certificate acknowledging his work for Americans as hundreds of people gather outside the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Tuesday, 17th August. The Taliban declared an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport as desperate crowds tried to flee the country. PICTURE: AP Photo.
The proposal fulfills a campaign pledge from President Joe Biden and reverses years of cuts to the US refugee resettlement program by former President Donald Trump.
“Today we celebrate a return to moral leadership and our nation’s commitment to welcome and generosity,” Church World Service Senior Vice President Erol Kekic said Monday in a written statement.
US EXPULSIONS OF HAITAINS MAY VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW – UN REFUGEE BOSS
The mass expulsion of Haitians from the United States without screening for their protection needs may contravene international law and constitute forced returns, the United Nations’ top refugee official Filippo Grandi said on Tuesday.
He urged the United States to lift its Title 42 health-related restrictions in place since March, 2020, saying they “deny most people arriving at the south-west US land border any opportunity to request asylum”.
“The summary, mass expulsions of individuals currently under way under the Title 42 authority, without screening for protection needs, is inconsistent with international norms and may constitute refoulement,” Grandi said in the Geneva-based agency’s strongest statement since the crisis began.
He voiced shock at images of the “deplorable conditions” under a concrete highway overpass in Del Rio, Texas, where more than 14,000 Haitians had gathered after fleeing countries in the Americas, many hoping to seek asylum.
The camp under a bridge over the Rio Grande along the southern border with Mexico has become the latest flashpoint for US authorities seeking to stem a flow of migrants fleeing extreme violence or poverty in their home countries.
Earlier, both the UN refugee agency and the UN human rights office voiced concerns.
“We are disturbed by the images that we have seen and by the fact that we have seen all these migrants and refugees and asylum-seekers in transport to Port-au-Prince,” UN human rights spokesperson Marta Hurtado told a briefing in Geneva.
“We are seriously concerned by the fact that it appears there have not been any individual assessments of the cases…and that therefore maybe some of these people have not received the protection that they needed.”
US President Joe Biden faced pressure on Tuesday to halt the expulsion of asylum seekers to Haiti from the camp, as worries about their safety compounded disquiet at images of officials on horseback using reins as whips against migrants.
Title 42 relates to an order issued in March 2020 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which cited the need to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Several hundred people have been sent to Haiti from the camp in Del Rio, since Sunday. Thousands more have been moved into US detention for processing and more flight are due to leave on Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
“While some people arriving at the border may not be refugees, anyone who…claims to have a well-founded fear of being persecuted in their country of origin – they should have access to asylum and to have their claim assessed before being subjected to expulsion or deportation,” UN refugee agency spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told the briefing.
– STEPHANIE NEBEHAY, Geneva, Switzerland/Reuters
“At long last there is hope for refugees in search of safety, including Afghans who are in imminent danger and thousands of families waiting to be reunited.”
Earlier this year, Biden raised the refugee ceiling – the maximum number of refugees allowed into the country – from 15,000 to 62,500. That number is usually set by the president in consultation with Congress each fall ahead of the new fiscal year.
At the time, the Biden administration called it a steppingstone to reaching 125,000 in his first full fiscal year in office. Biden had pledged that number as a presidential candidate and reiterated it in the days after his election in a speech to Jesuit Refugee Service.
The number is not historically unusual – former President Barack Obama set the refugee ceiling at 110,000 the last year he was in office. And, Church World Service pointed out, the country welcomed more than 207,000 refugees the year after Congress passed the bipartisan Refugee Act of 1980, creating the current US refugee resettlement program.
But it is an about-face from the numbers set by Trump, which were historic lows each year he was in office.
Still, amid a pandemic and the work of rebuilding the US refugee resettlement system after four years of devastating cuts, the US had admitted only 7,637 refugees in 2021 through the end of August.
Faith-based refugee resettlement groups – which make up the backbone of the US refugee resettlement system – agreed on Monday there is more work to be done. Even as they praised the higher refugee ceiling, the groups also asked Congress to commit to rebuilding and fully funding the US refugee resettlement program so it could reach that number.
“Raising this cap without dedicating significant resources, personnel, and measures to streamline the process would be largely symbolic,” said Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service President and CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah.
Six of the nine refugee agencies the US government contracts to resettle refugees in the country are faith-based: Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, World Relief and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Church World Service and HIAS both noted they had called on the Biden administration to raise the number of refugees allowed into the US this coming year even higher – to 200,000.
Naomi Steinberg, HIAS vice president for policy and advocacy, called raising the refugee ceiling “the right thing to do.”
But, the organisation said in its written statement, it’s only a “first step.” It also said the US must provide the same services to Afghans arriving in the country after fleeing the Taliban that refugees receive when they come to the US.
Faith-based refugee resettlement agencies have been welcoming Afghan evacuees brought to the US on Special Immigrant Visas, which were created for Afghans who assisted the US Government, or on humanitarian parole. They are not counted toward the total number of refugees admitted to the country and do not receive the same resources or path to citizenship that refugees do.
Vignarajah of LIRS stressed the need for more refugee processing officers in the field to conduct the necessary interviews to vet refugees before they are able to come to the US. She also suggested remote interviews to allow those interviews to continue during the pandemic – an idea a number of agencies have pushed over the last year and a half.
“It bears repeating that refugees make our nation stronger in innumerable ways, and welcoming them embodies the best of the American spirit,” said Vignarajah.
“We have a unique opportunity to build back the refugee program to meet the unprecedented need – with so many lives on the line, we must seize it.”
