National Refugee Day of Action Monday, October 26, 2020 Background: The Trump administration has proposed the lowest refugee admissions goal in history — just 15,000 refugees in FY 2021. To make matters worse, the administration is not resettling refugees based on their vulnerability. Instead, the administration’s roadmap for resettlement is based on very restrictive categories […]
Category: Policy and Advocacy
Learning from COVID-19: An Early Analysis of “Pain Points” in Congregate Care for Unaccompanied Children in Pandemic
Readers will be well aware that the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing. While many scientific questions about COVID-19 remain, scientists and public-health officials are reasonably certain about a number of aspects of the virus. Transmission is primarily airborne. Individuals have several days between contracting the virus and becoming symptomatic. A large proportion of people afflicted with [...]
USCRI Statement on the President’s Report to Congress on the Proposed Refugee Admission for FY2021
ARLINGTON, VA – The President’s Report to Congress on the Proposed Refugee Ceiling for FY 2021 calling for a maximum of 15,000 refugees to enter the U.S. is a serious and consequential action that significantly weakens the longstanding global humanitarian leadership role of the United States. The report, required to be submitted to Congress preceding […]
Statement on the Conditions at the Irwin County Detention Center
Media reports on conditions at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia paint a picture of neglect, mistreatment and abuse of migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility houses immigrant detainees, along with inmates for Irwin County and the U.S. Marshals Service. Most concerning are reports of women being subjected to […]
The Scope of Displacement: Reading the Watson Institute Working Paper
Last week, a working paper from the Watson Institute at Brown University made a small stir in the immigration advocacy community. The paper’s hook is that U.S. military interventions are responsible for huge numbers of displacements: “at least 37 million people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has […]
Recent Developments in the H-2B Visa Program and the Impacts on Horseracing Industry in the United States
A statue of the famous American racehorse Secretariat stands at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, one of the world’s largest international equestrian competition centers. Led by his longtime groom Eddie Sweat and Canadian jockey Ron Turcotte in the irons, the bronze Secretariat memorializes the historic 1973 Triple Crown win. The sculptor specifically included Sweat […]
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Statement on the COVID-19 Pandemic
ARLINGTON, VA – The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) expresses its solidarity with our global community in their efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This kind of pervasive and far-reaching global event reminds us all that we share one planet and our lives are inextricably linked together in an unbroken chain of […]
USCRI Statement on the Decision to Further Restrict Immigration
ARLINGTON, VA – Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a rationale for further eroding legal immigration to the U.S., the Administration has halted issuing green cards to applicants outside of the country until the end of the year. The ban also includes many temporary work visas, including H-1B visas, used by the technology sector, and H-2B […]
Understanding Migration: Mixed Migration
In an earlier brief, we discussed the common pushpull model of migration. To recap, push factors and pull factors are approximations—part of a cognitive model of how migration operates—to describe the reasons that individuals might emigrate (push factors) and the reasons why individuals might settle in a particular location (pull factors). However, the push-pull model […]
Casting a Wide Net: Climate Change, Migration, and the Hidden Victims of the Fishing Industry
At the end of January, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled for the first time that countries may not deport refugees who face climate change-induced conditions that put their lives at risk, or place them in danger of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.1 While the landmark judgment is not binding, it does emphasize that […]
