The State Department announced the Welcome Corps program, through which groups of five or more US citizens can volunteer to help resettle refugees.
So far, the State Department has relied on non-profit organizations to resettle refugees.
However, these groups are struggling to rebuild after deep cuts during the administration of former President Donald Trump, NPR explains.
The new pilot program is based on previous experiences with Afghan refugees evacuated over the past year and Ukrainians fleeing the war in their country. Now this approach is expanding to other refugees around the world.
How does it work?
The new sponsorship program will allow citizens and permanent residents to sponsor refugees from around the world, the State Department said.
- The groups, made up of five or more private sponsors, will offer support in much the same way organizations do: helping them find housing and jobs, and showing them how to navigate their new communities.
- Sponsors must initially raise $2,275 per refugee to help them for their first three months in the country, Politico reported.
- As pointed out by a senior State Department official, these resources are used for things like bails on an apartment or clothing for the winter.
After the first three months, refugees are entitled to other federal programs.
“The goal is for the refugees to become self-sufficient as soon as possible,” the official said.
A two phase program
The program will be implemented in two phases, with a goal of matching 10,000 U.S. citizens with 5,000 refugees in the first year, the State Department said.
- In the first phase, administration will allow matches between private sponsors and refugees already admitted under the USRAP Refugee Admission Program.
- These refugees could come from anywhere in the world. However, most refugees who were allowed to resettle in the country were displaced from a relatively small number of countries.
- So far this fiscal year, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Syria and Afghanistan are at the top of this list.
The second phase, due to start mid-year, will allow sponsors to identify refugees for onward transmission to the resettlement agency.
While the Trump administration lowered the annual refugee limit to 15,000, the Biden administration reversed course and raised it to 125,000 for fiscal year 2022.
Despite that surge, the government resettled fewer than 20,000 refugees between October 2021 and August 2022, State Department figures show, CBS reported in September.
How is it different from the recent program that allows 30,000 Venezuelan, Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants to enter the country?
The Welcome Corps program is for people who have been granted refugee status, a status that is different from asylum seekers.
- According to the United States Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a refugee is “…(A) any person found outside a country of that person’s nationality or, in the case of a person without a nationality, outside a country in which this person has his last habitual residence and cannot or does not want to return and cannot or does not want to claim the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution because of his race, religion, nationality, affiliation with a specific social Group or political opinion…”
- While an asylum seeker must also meet the above criteria to be granted this status, the main difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker is that a refugee is granted refugee status while still outside the United States, in a process This usually includes recommendations from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or other organizations, as well as interviews with Department of Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) officials, security clearances and doctors, etc.
- Asylum status is granted to an asylum seeker after entering the country or while applying for admission at a port of entry.
“Welcome Corps” differs from the recent initiative, which allows 30,000 people a month to enter the country from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.
They also need a sponsor, but are admitted to the US under a two-year probation condition on humanitarian grounds and offer no route to becoming permanent residents or citizens.
About refugee status in the United States
To be considered a refugee in the United States, you must be referred through the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).
- USRAP has three categories of people eligible to participate in the program, which it calls “priorities.” They are divided into P1, P2 and P3.
- P1 are individuals referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a US embassy, or certain non-governmental organizations.
- The next priority (P-2) is special humanitarian interest groups, which primarily include members of religious minorities, and the third priority (P-3) is family reunification cases.
The P3 category provides access to USRAP for members of certain nationalities who have immediate family members in the United States who entered the United States as refugees or who have been granted asylum.
For fiscal year 2020, processing in this category was available to individuals from Afghanistan; Burundi; Central African Republic; Cuba; Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK); Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); Eritreans; Ethiopia; Iran; Iraq; Mali; Somalia; South Sudan; Sudan and Syria.
According to the United Nations, refugees are people who are outside their country of origin because of fear of persecution, conflict, general violence or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order and are therefore in need of international protection.
In the case of Venezuelan nationals, UNHCR changed the category to designate them twice. In 2019, they were dubbed “Venezuelan displaced persons abroad,” drawing criticism from sociologists and defenders as their rights and chances of being recognized as refugees diminished.
In a 2022 report, the agency changed the term back to “Other persons in need of international protection”. According to the document, the concept was first introduced in mid-2022 and refers to:
“People who are outside their country or territory of origin, generally because they have been forcibly displaced across international borders, who have not been reported under other categories (asylum seekers, refugees, people in refugee-like situations) but who are likely to be international protection, including protection against forced return, and needing temporary or long-term access to basic services”.
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