United States Refugee Admissions Program
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) states that USRAP's mission is "to offer resettlement opportunities to people overseas who are of special humanitarian concern, while protecting national security and combating fraud.
"[3] The goals of USRAP are:[4] "Every year, immigration law requires that the Executive Branch officials: "Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a refugee is a [person] who, generally, has experienced past persecution or has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
Groups of concerned citizens worked to assist political, intellectual, cultural and scientific leaders who had fled the increasing repressive Fascist governments in Germany, Italy and Spain.
Among those rescued in that initial group of refugees were the political scientist Hannah Arendt, the painter Marc Chagall, the novelist Franz Werfel, the philosopher Alfredo Mendizabal, the medical scientist Fritz Kahn, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, the historian Golo Mann, and the Nobel Prize–winning biochemist Otto Meyerhoff.
[9] After the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, the U.S. faced the challenge of resettling hundreds of thousands of displaced Indochinese refugees.
[7] On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13769 (Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States) aka the "Muslim Ban," which lowered the number of refugees to be admitted into the United States in 2017 to 50,000, suspended the USRAP program for 120 days, suspended the entry of Syrian refugees indefinitely, and directed some cabinet secretaries to suspend entry of those whose countries do not meet adjudication standards under U.S. immigration law for 90 days (e.g., Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen).
Attorneys rushed to airports nationwide to aid immigrants on incoming flights to the United States, who were being denied entry.
[19] On March 6, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13870 ("Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry into The United States"), which revoked EO 13769.
[20][21][22][23][24] Proclamation 9645 ("Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats") of September 24, 2017 supplements EO 13780 March 6, 2017.
[29] On October 24, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13815 ("Resuming the United States Refugee Admissions Program with Enhanced Vetting Capabilities").
[50] A 2017 paper by Evans and Fitzgerald found that refugees to the United States pay "$21,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits over their first 20 years in the U.S."[48] An internal study by the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration, which was suppressed and not shown to the public, found that refugees to the United States brought in $63 billion more in government revenues than they cost the government.
[54] "The following agencies are also involved in this effort: USCIS is responsible for activities that could be termed the "legal side" of USRAP operations.
As part of the U.S. Department of State, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration is primarily responsible for USRAP's operations abroad.
[56] According to the Bureau's website, its roughly 130 staff members perform primarily pass-through operations where they do not work directly with refugees.
Specifically, each nonprofit provides housing, food, clothing, enrollment in school, English language classes, employment, health screenings, and other public services.
[59] The following descriptions detail the unique contributions of two of the USRAP-involved nonprofits: the Church World Service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)[61] works within the Jewish Communal Network Commission to provide basic services to refugees.
"[63] According to USRAP, "A refugee is someone who has fled from his or her home country and cannot return because he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
A recent study conducted by Columbia University argued that the programs failure to take individual circumstances into account when providing cash assistance has led to most of the problem: ...
Instead ... quick placement in employment is emphasized across the board, access to supplementary services and community support is determined essentially by lottery, and secondary migration is not accounted for.
[66]: 27 In addition to employment assistance, USRAP is also responsible for the health, both mental and physical, of refugees entering the United States.
[66]: 2 As one article posited, this rise in mental illness among refugees calls for better training for psychologists in working with diverse populations: "The diversity of the refugee population in the United States requires practicing psychologists to respond by adapting clinical services to meet their mental health needs.
At times, United States foreign policy has had negative implications for the lives of the refugees USRAP aims to serve.
[70]: 395 During the Cold War, the United States used refugee admissions policy largely as a propaganda tool in an attempt to discredit communism by granting asylum to those seeking to escape communist nations.
[citation needed] Third, regardless of each refugee's situation in regards to education, health, or psychological background, the government has applied a "one-size-fits-all assistance" approach.
In order to help the cities and refugees with these problems, this study suggests seven strategies for improvement: (1) ensure the local leaders involvement in decision-making processes, (2) provide better language courses, (3) establishing strategies in education, (4) remove "one-size-fits-all assistance", (5) improve accountability, (6) search for innovative models, and (7) promote community engagement.
At no point during the resettlement process does a government employee or contracted party have the responsibility to investigate and report "the presence of a needs-related vulnerability for the purposes of ensuring post-arrival assistance.
[65]: 35 "Refugees seeking resettlement to the U.S. experience major barriers that cause delays, confusion, and, ultimately, a failure to fairly adjudicate their claims for protection.
"[75] "Improving the capacity, efficiency, and transparency of USRAP this year will ensure the program can continue to be a life-saving protection tool for refugees, advance U.S. strategic interests overseas more fully, and strengthen the resiliency of local communities across the country.
[75] "Expand Adjudication Capacity by onboarding additional refugee officers; scheduling regular circuit rides in advance of Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23); eliminating backlogs; addressing family reunification; and expanding private sponsorship, domestic capacity, and access for climate-displaced people.
