The Darkest Day 15 August of 2021 marked the darkest day in the past 20-year history of my life. My country had fallen to the hand of the Taliban – a group whose leaders were on the blacklist of the United Nations. They had control over the whole nations who somehow practiced the democratic process […]
Category: Refugees
World Refugee Day Virtual Panel : New Beginnings
For World Refugee Day, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) hosted the virtual panel New Beginnings, where former refugees had the opportunity to share how their personal stories led them to work for other refugees today. Moderated by USCRI Policy Analyst Aaron Escajeda, the panel features USCRI North Carolina Field Office Director Omer […]
Celebrating Jason Lin during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
We are excited to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May, which was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, given that the majority of the workers who […]
USCRI Welcomes Announcement That the U.S. Will Accept 100,000 Ukrainian Refugees
USCRI welcomes the U.S. government announcement that the country will be accepting up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 3.6 million Ukrainian refugees have already fled the country following the Russian invasion. Over 2.1 million refugees are in Poland. UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, has reported […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]