U.S. bishops praise Biden administration’s expansion of refugee resettlement program

Peter Pinedo   By Peter Pinedo for CNA

October 8, 2024 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 2 Print

 

Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, speaks at the “Responding to Changing Realities at the U.S. Border and Beyond” conference, hosted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Catholic University of America. / Credit: Photo courtesy of The Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 8, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The U.S. bishops issued a statement praising the Biden administration’s decision last week to expand the U.S. refugee resettlement program and commended the role of Catholic organizations in partnering with the government to resettle refugees.

President Joe Biden signed the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2025 on Sept. 30, setting the refugee admissions target at 125,000. This comes after the administration has made several changes and expansions to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and resettled over 100,000 refugees into the U.S. in 2023, the highest number since 1994.

A “refugee” is defined under U.S. law as a person who is “unable or unwilling” to return to his or her country because of “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is one of 10 “national resettlement agencies” that partner with USRAP to take in and assist these refugees.

The bishops said that dioceses and local Catholic Charities agencies “play an essential role in helping refugees to integrate successfully into their new communities.”

Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Migration Committee, applauded Catholic organizations’ contributions to the refugee resettlement program, saying that “from lifesaving protection for refugee families to the economic renewal they offer receiving communities, this is part of what it means to ‘love thy neighbor.’”

“My brother bishops and I could not be more grateful for the witness of faithful Catholics across our country who have, for many decades now, committed themselves to accompanying refugees as a visible sign of Christ’s love in the world.”

Seitz thanked the Biden administration for its efforts to “reassert and grow our nation’s proud tradition of welcoming refugees” as well as the “bipartisan support of Congress,” which he said “has played a vital role in the success of the resettlement program since its inception.”

“Resettling 100,000 refugees is a significant achievement, given the all-time low number seen in 2021 and some of the challenges facing American communities at this time, including a nationwide shortage of affordable housing,” Seitz said. “Guided by the Gospel and faithful to our national values, the U.S. Catholic community will continue doing its part to carry this endeavor forward.”

After being established through the bipartisan Refugee Act of 1980, USRAP has generally enjoyed wide support across the political spectrum.

While he has been sharply critical of many of the Biden administration’s immigration policies, Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, told CNA that “of all the things that the Biden-Harris administration is doing to facilitate the entry of people who don’t have visas to come to the United States, this is far and away the least objectionable.”

He said that though 125,000 is “high compared to prior years” it is still “well within” the limits set by the law.

Arthur emphasized that the refugee resettlement program differs greatly from the U.S. asylum system.

“We know from past experience that individuals who make asylum claims generally never follow through on them,” he said. “But when you’re talking about refugees, those are individuals who have already been adjudicated. They’ve already been determined to be refugees before they’re brought here. They’ve already been vetted abroad before they come here. So, the danger that they pose to national security is lower; it’s not zero, but it is lower.”

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Trump administration announces changes to travel ban

September 25, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Sep 25, 2017 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Just weeks before the Supreme Court was to hear a challenge to the Trump administration’s travel ban, the administration announced new restrictions to the ban on Sunday.

“Following an extensive review by the Department of Homeland Security, we are taking action today to protect the safety and security of the American people by establishing a minimum security baseline for entry into the United States,” President Donald Trump stated on Sunday.

“Our government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens – to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values,” Trump stated.
 
On Sunday evening, the Trump administration announced it was continuing the travel ban indefinitely just before it was set to expire, expanding the number of countries of restricted travel to eight, as part of “enhanced national security measures.” It also set new security standards for other countries to help the U.S. vet visa applicants and immigrants.

In March, President Donald Trump had signed an executive order “on Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” It was a revision from his January executive
order on immigration.

In the revised order, foreign nationals from six countries would be temporarily barred from travelling to the U.S. except in special cases. The countries were Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and the Sudan.

Then before the travel ban was set to expire on Sunday evening, the administration increased the number of restricted countries to eight, dropping the Sudan and adding North Korea, Chad, and Venezuela. The policy will be continued indefinitely, and the new countries experiencing “certain travel limitations and restrictions” will be added to the list on Oct. 18.

The administration also announced that it would, “for the first time in history,” set up minimum standards for other countries to comply with, for vetting of visa applicants and immigrants looking to travel to the U.S.

President Trump said the revised policy would improve U.S. national security and establish “a minimum security baseline for entry into the United States.”

“We cannot afford to continue the failed policies of the past, which present an unacceptable danger to our country,” Trump stated. “My highest obligation is to ensure the safety and security of the American people, and in issuing this new travel order, I am fulfilling that sacred
obligation.”

The March executive order on immigration had directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to investigate whether “additional information would be needed from each foreign country” to issue
visas and admit immigrants.

Then in July, the administration said it came up with new minimum standards for other countries, with regard to the vetting of visa applicants and other immigrants. The standards related to the issuing of electronic passports, “sharing criminal data” and helping identify
potential security threats to the U.S. looking to enter.

The administration gave countries 50 days “to work with the United States to make improvements” to their existing standards.

According to the administration, the eight countries remaining on the restricted travel list “remain currently inadequate in their identity-management protocols and information-sharing practices or present sufficient risk factors that travel restrictions are required.”

The countries can be removed from the list once they comply. Iraq, however, did not comply with the standards but Trump “determined” that “entry restrictions are not warranted.”

Iraq was originally on a list of countries with restricted travel in the President’s first executive order on immigration in January, but was not listed in the revised executive order in March, reportedly because of a deal with the U.S. to accept Iraqi nationals living in the U.S. who had been given a final order of removal from an immigration judge, in exchange for being removed from the list.

A challenge to the constitutionality of the previous order was scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court on Oct. 10 in oral arguments. However, the court canceled those arguments after
Sunday’s revisions were announced.

Bishop Joe Vasquez, chair of the U.S. bishops’ migration and refugee services committee, had voiced serious concerns before about the travel and refugee bans. The immigration executive order had also shut down refugee admissions for 120 days and set a cap on refugee admissions for FY 2017 at 50,000, less than half of the 110,000 set as a goal by the previous administration.

Bishop Vasquez said he was “deeply troubled by the human consequences of the revised executive order on refugee admissions and the travel ban,” saying it “still leaves many innocent lives at risk.”

“The U.S. Catholic Bishops have long recognized the importance of ensuring public safety and would welcome reasonable and necessary steps to accomplish that goal,” he said. Yet the current refugee resettlement process is secure, with “the most vigorous vetting process of anyone who enters the United States.”

Lawyers and advocates for Muslim immigrants said on Monday that the administration’s new travel ban still constitutes a “Muslim ban” since most of the eight countries’ populations are Muslim-majority, and that Trump had on the campaign trail proposed a ban on Muslims seeking to the enter the U.S.

There are also reports that the administration will consider lowering its cap on refugees even more in the next fiscal year, to below 50,000. The new quota is expected to be announced by the
end of September.

[…]

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