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(CNN) — The Biden administration on Thursday unveiled a new program that will allow civic groups to sponsor refugees from around the world to live in the United States.
Dubbed the “Welcome Corps,” the program was hailed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as “the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.”
The program allows groups of at least five people to apply to sponsor refugees and help them adjust to life in the United States, with support from a consortium of non-profit resettlement organizations.
Sponsoring groups must raise a minimum of $2,275 per refugee but are not required to provide ongoing financial support to the refugees they sponsor.
That initial amount will be used to “provide initial support to refugees during their first three months in the country,” a senior State Department official said Thursday, noting that the money will be used for things like bails on housing, clothing and furniture .
“The goal is for the refugees to become self-sufficient as soon as possible,” the official said.
Julieta Valls Noyes, Deputy Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), said the program requires groups of at least five people, rather than one person who can collect the minimum amount, because the work to help sponsored refugees is “far more than the average American can do alone”.
“It’s not about money. It’s about commitment. It’s about community. It’s about bringing people together and forming a group so that refugees have more than one person to turn to and work with.” , he said at a State Department briefing on Thursday.
“It’s a lot of work to sponsor a refugee: finding schools, helping them find affordable housing, enrolling their children in school, helping them find a job, showing them where the pharmacy is, which bus to take Must. It’s so much more than the average American can do. So we think deploying a group of five or more Americans is more likely to be successful,” Valls Noyes said.
She said the groups “could come from all walks of life, including community volunteers, civic and religious groups, veterans, diaspora communities, businesses, colleges, universities.”
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The senior State Department official noted that “all refugees receiving support from private sponsors are admitted through the same comprehensive security clearance required for all refugees admitted into the United States.”
Sponsors are screened, verified and approved by the non-profit consortium funded by the Department of State. Sponsors must provide a detailed “Welcome Plan” outlining how they plan to welcome refugees and connect them to homes, jobs and schools.
“The consortium will also provide training to sponsors before they begin their sponsorship” and will communicate “regularly” with sponsors and refugees, the official said.
“There are many, many checkpoints, many, many failovers, checks, everything that is part of this program to prevent abuse. That being said, I think we’re very excited about the show; We believe it will be very successful,” they said.
Refugee intake into the US has plummeted in recent years after former President Donald Trump lowered the refugee limit to a record low. Although the Biden administration has raised the cap to 125,000 in the last two fiscal years, admissions last year and so far this year have been well below that.
“In the first year of the program, our goal is to mobilize at least 10,000 Americans to serve as private sponsors and extend a welcoming hand to at least 5,000 refugees from around the world,” Blinken said in a statement Thursday.
The Welcome Corps program is different from other programs instituted by the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security to allow people to sponsor refugees from Ukraine and Venezuela.
“In these programs, sponsors must demonstrate that they can provide financial support to refugees during a two-year supervised release. Welcome Corps, on the other hand, will allow private sponsors to support refugees of all nationalities who will be permanently relocated to the United States…and who eventually can, and in many cases I am confident, become citizens of the United States,” he said senior State Department officials.