On the date the ad appeared in the Washington Post, Morton and Lawson were part of a march, led by then Senator Paul Simon (D-IL) and the singer Joan Baez, from the Lincoln Memorial to the north side of the White House.

At the end of that march, the crowd sang "Amazing Grace" and, to the crowd's surprise, President Jimmy Carter strode out from the doors of the White House and announced that he had just ordered the U.S. 7th Fleet to pick up all refugees on boats who were fleeing from Southeast Asia.

Refugees International, powered by only volunteers at its beginning, hired paid staff and expanded its scope beyond Southeast Asia in 1990, advocating for protection for Liberian refugees in Guinea and Kuwaitis in the Iraq-Jordan desert.

It now conducts field missions to identify displaced people's needs for basic services such as food, water, health care, housing, access to education and protection from harm.

[1][2] The organization is currently focused on displacement crises in and around Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria.