Greetings Friends of Refugee Resettlement,
Our newsletter today offers a State of the Refugee Program from the national perspective, our local Rochester resettlement numbers and an upcoming event hosted by our friends at the Jewish Federation.
National News
The picture of refugee resettlement on the national level continues to look bleak. While the administration set an admission ceiling of 45,000 refugees for fiscal year 2018, there has been no intentional effort by the administration to ensure the U.S. reaches that goal and provide that relief so desperately needed by refugees who have no other recourse for durable solutions. In concert with that lack of will are a variety of additional obstacles that will stall refugee admissions for the foreseeable future including:
- New vetting requirements for refugees (yet undefined by the administration) which will require previously travel-ready refugees to be “re-vetted” before being allowed to resettle. It is likely that many refugees’ previously approved security and health checks will time out and will need to be redone as refugees are put through the new vetting measures, causing further delays.
- Executive Order banning admission of nationals from 11 countries mentioned in the Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) for 90 days. Those countries include Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen and represent 60% of all refugees currently in the pipeline to resettle in the U.S.
- The temporary halt of Visa 93 case movement until new vetting requirements are established. Visa 93 case individuals are spouses and minor children of persons already admitted to the U.S. as refugees. At present there are about 2,000 Visa 93 cases – wives, husbands, sons and daughters – who are affected and unable to reunite with their immediate family member in the U.S., even though their applications have been approved by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
While refugee arrivals to the U.S. remain at historically low levels, there is legitimate concern about the continued health of the national resettlement network. Resettlement programs and the refugee assistance collaborations that have been built across the country are in danger of losing their capacity to assist refugees in their communities. Our national agencies have had little success in gaining assurances from federal refugee agencies within the Department of State and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) regarding their intended direction and maintenance of refugee programs designed to assist newly arrived refugees and promote their self-sufficiency. Amid that uncertainty, many refugee support agencies (and particularly smaller ones) are facing significant challenges and some may be forced to close.
National Resettlement Numbers to Date
Only 2,400 refugees have arrived in the U.S. in the 2018 fiscal year to date (10/1/17 to 11/28/17). At this time in fiscal year 2017, 18,300 refugees had already arrived. The below chart reflects national refugee admissions over the previous and current fiscal years.
