By: Victoria Walker, USCRI Policy Analyst With thanks to Gaspard Atibu, Chairman of the Legal Refugee Center (LRC) and to the LRC Burundi Team for informing this reporting. LRC is a nonprofit humanitarian organization founded in April 2023 in the United States by a former Burundian refugee. Operating in Burundi, Tanzania, South Africa, and Ghana, […]
Category: Policy Briefs
Refugee Medical Assistance: A Strong Start Requires Strong Health Coverage
As refugees begin rebuilding their lives in the United States, access to reliable medical coverage is essential to give them the best chance at success. The 2025 reduction of Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) from 12 months to four months undermines refugees’ ability to achieve medical stability, economic self-sufficiency, and successful integration, while increasing long-term public costs. In [...]
Indefinite Separation – What Asylee Families Are Facing
In this policy brief, we share with you the experiences of 25 families from Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Cuba. They represent countless children, spouses, and parents. They are fathers who have yet to meet their sons in person. They are wives who face gender apartheid who have lived as a de facto single parent for years. [...]
Refugees Twice Over: Climate Migration and ‘Double Displacement’
By: Alexia Gardner, USCRI Policy Analyst, and Anum Merchant, USCRI Policy Intern Extreme weather continues to drive new large-scale displacement, with 2024 ranked among the highest years recorded. From typhoons to droughts, climate-related disasters threaten people’s ability to sustain themselves in their homeland, forcing them to seek safety elsewhere. Marginalized communities, despite contributing little to the burning of fossil fuels, will disproportionately face the devastating effects […]
Family Separation as Policy: The Human Cost for Children
A child who is separated from their parent or caregiver does not experience a policy decision; rather, they experience fear, confusion, and a complete collapse of the world they trust. Globally, family separation—particularly the forced or involuntary separation of parents and children—is a profound human rupture. It is measured in the enduring trauma of sudden […]
Policy and Advocacy Newsletter: VOLUME 9 | ISSUE NO.5 January 30, 2026
Our Policy and Advocacy Newsletter introduces our latest project: From the Archives. For more than a century, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants has advocated for the rights and dignity of refugees. For our 115th anniversary, we are revisiting our archives to pair earlier works with contemporary reflections on how the lessons of history resonate today. Looking […]
Policy & Advocacy: Volume 9 | Issue No.4 December 11, 2025
P&A Monthly Snapshot Since our last newsletter, the Policy & Advocacy team has been busy, leading a 60+- organization letter supporting the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, issuing a statement on the Administration’s decision to end TPS for Burma, reporting on the refugee reinterview plan, and continuing our coverage from last month’s brief on institutionalizing third-country […]
The Struggle for Documentation in Mexico’s Asylum System: The Human Impact of Withholding the TVRH
By Ana Martinez, Welcoming Communities Program Intern at USCRI Mexico covering the protection and integration of migrants, returnees, asylum seekers and refugees in Mexico and Central America. Introduction A single mother and her daughter from Cuba arrived in Mexico seeking safety. Under Mexican law, they should have received a Tarjeta de Visitante por Razones Humanitarias (TVRH), or Visitor’s Card for Humanitarian Reasons, the official document that grants asylum seekers temporary access […]
The Danger of Globally Institutionalizing Third Country Returns
Third country deportations should not be used as a tool for immigration enforcement. Often used as a tool to manage a politicized migration “problem,” third country deportations have the potential to normalize rights-free zones, forced exile, and indefinite detention. In February 2025, DHS issued a policy directive on third country deportations. The policy proposes forcibly […]
The Loss of America’s Truckers: The Revocation of Commercial Driver’s Licenses from Refugees and Asylees
By Alexia Gardner, USCRI Policy Analyst You can listen to this brief here “We refugees are the lifeblood of America… We hold a sacred profession—truck driving— and we deliver to you all the materials, from the food you eat and the clothes you wear to the car you drive and the supplies used […]