The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) presents the following backgrounder on the humanitarian crises in Mauritania as of March 10, 2021. Information and maps are from various sources and not the original work of USCRI. Mauritania was the last country in the world to abolish slavery, and only criminalized the practice in 2007. […]
Category: Policy and Advocacy
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021: USCRI Analysis
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) presents the following bill analysis of the U.S. Citizenship Act (USCA) of 2021. The Administration sent the USCA to Congress on January 20, 2021. On February 18, 2021, Representative Linda T. Sánchez (D-CA-38) and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) introduced the USCA. Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-19), Lucille Roybal-Allard […]
Policy & Legislative Recommendations to Increase Protections for Refugees and Other Forcibly Displaced Persons
The United States has traditionally been the global leader in refugee protection across both Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet, as global need reached an all-time high of 80 million people displaced in 2020, the United States set its all-time low refugee admissions goal of 15,000. U.S. refugee resettlement operates in a public-private partnership known as […]
USCRI Chooses to Challenge: Statement on International Women’s Day
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Choose to Challenge.” Every day, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) unwaveringly commits to challenging gender inequality in all of the work we do with refugees, immigrants and other vulnerable people worldwide. For this year, however, we would like to recognize the indomitable courage of […]
Policy Recommendations to Improve the Protection and Care for Unaccompanied Children
Thousands of refugee and immigrant children come to the United States alone or with their families each year, many having fled life-threatening dangers in their countries of origin. In fiscal year (FY) 2019, more than 69,000 unaccompanied children entered the custody of the U.S. federal government. Unaccompanied children (UCs) are under 18 years old, have […]
USCRI Advocates for Independent United Nations Inquiry on Missing Tigray Refugees
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) is an international non-governmental organization that has advocated for the human rights of refugees and immigrants for 110 years. USCRI is gravely concerned about the 20,000 refugees from the refugee camps in the Tigray region of Ethiopia who are missing. There is strong evidence that some of […]
USCRI Statement on President’s Executive Orders on Refugee Resettlement and Immigration
by Eskinder Negash USCRI is greatly encouraged by newly elected President’s actions to restore the country’s robust refugee resettlement program and other paths to immigration. The President has pledged to raise the annual refugee admissions ceiling from its historic low of 15,000 to 125,000 beginning next fiscal year. He has signed Executive Orders this week […]
Policy & Legislative Recommendations to Improve Protection and Assistance for Foreign National Victims
As we welcome a new presidential administration in the United States, we too welcome the opportunity for increasing our knowledge, action and responsiveness on human trafficking, particularly for the protection and assistance of victims. In the United States, the scope of both domestic and foreign-national human trafficking is significant. Although the exact figures are unknown, […]
Out of the Cold: Forced Marriage Trafficking Victims Need to Be Included in U.S. Definition
The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) was passed into law in October 2000 by Congress and President Clinton. At the time, it was praised as a bipartisan solution to address human trafficking as a distinct crime. Prior to 2000, human trafficking crimes were prosecuted using several different federal and state statutes that […]
Safe Processing and Transport of Arriving Unaccompanied Children in a Public Health Emergency
Overview At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an order to limit entry at the U.S. southern border. The CDC invoked a comprehensive quarantine power based in an expansive reading of Title 42 of U.S. Code[1]—added in the 1940s—to override protections that Congress explicitly required, such […]
