The news came Sept. 20 as the Biden administration submitted its report to Congress setting the refugee ceiling for the new fiscal year, which begins in October.
The proposal fulfills a campaign pledge from President Joe Biden and reverses years of cuts to the U.S. refugee resettlement program by former President Donald Trump.
LOL! Church World Service celebrating a return to moral leadership!
“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.
We need money, money, money to do our religious work!
Still, amid a pandemic and the work of rebuilding the U.S. refugee resettlement systemafter four years of devastating cuts, the U.S. 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 U.S. refugee resettlement system — agreed 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
They wanted 200,000 more poor people for American taxpayers to support!
Church World Service and HIAS both noted they had called on the Biden administration to raise the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. this coming year even higher — to 200,000.
This will all make America stronger says Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service President and CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah (as she pulls down a quarter of a million dollar salary, more than Senators and Members of Congress or Supreme Court Justices, at an organization that is almost completely funded by US taxpayers)!
I love you, Glenn, but this group is a fraud. https://t.co/pwjTjMAR1q
— Millions for Truth (@Millions4Truth) September 8, 2021
*** For new readers here are the nine federal resettlement contractors, six of which are (ha! ha!) "faith-based" "religious charities"!
For long-time readers (who get sick of me writing about the contractors) know that the only way to reach past and around the mainstream media is to repeat, and repeat, and repeat some more, and maybe that is the best contribution I can make!
I have the patience to report on them day after day, and year after year!
Hope springs eternal that some day corporate media will tell the truth that these are not charities, but are indeed extended arms of the federal government which have been doing their "good works" for 40 years.
