Listening to grassroots organizations could be the key to a more welcoming America
This is the first in a series of OpEds published by Hello Neighbor Network members. Kathie O’Callaghan, Founder of Hearts & Homes for Refugees, provided us with the following overview and OpEd below.
With a pro-refugee Administration possible after November, now is the time to reimagine the U.S. Refugee Admissions program. It’s old. It’s been decimated over the last four years, and it needs rebuilding. Biden’s promise of 125k refugees admitted annually will challenge its capacity.
There are a number of long-overdue updates and revisions that need to be taken. And there are resources that have not been tapped that would enhance refugee resettlement outcomes, offer life-saving resettlement options for more refugees, bring communities together, foster greater understanding of refugees and result in more inclusive and stronger communities. All without overburdening the system.
Things have been distressingly quiet on the refugee resettlement front these the last four years. Weaving a web of bans and budget cuts, the current Administration has all but closed our doors to refugees. But the news hasn’t been all that bad.
Grassroots groups organized around welcoming refugees have sprung into action to help resettle and advocate for refugees at the local level. The community nonprofit groups, often volunteer-driven, embody the American values that have made our country home for new citizens from all over the world.
If elected, Joe Biden has promised to restore a robust and bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, raising annual protection to at least 125,000 refugees, the highest number since 1993. This is a refreshing and long overdue humanitarian stance. Yet, it is a daunting task for a 40-year old system that was designed for a different era and in need of significant updates, even before being weakened by this Administration.
There is a way to increase refugee arrival numbers and improve outcomes for the program and the refugees it serves.
The Biden administration should carve out a new plan in the US Refugee Admissions Program and institutionalize formal partnerships between secular and faith-based community-led community organizations and the nine U.S. State Department approved Resettlement Agencies.
These agencies and their local affiliates are brilliant and experienced at resettling refugees, but budgets are outdated and bandwidth is limited. Get a job, learn a language, navigate the health and education systems, learn new customs and practices — refugees have a lot to do when they arrive. Typically, this critical government support channeled through the nine resettlement agencies, tapers off after 90 days and ends by the six-month mark.
In communities where this community-driven model is at work, everyone benefits. Refugees find softer landings, smoother transitions and longer-term connections. Where our current Administration has failed to deliver services, these community groups have stepped up to stitch together strong networks of social, emotional and material support for their new refugee neighbors.
They are often volunteers living next door to the refugees who have entered their communities, their kids go to school together, they tap their networks to help find them work, volunteer language tutors and they share meals and ideas. They know how to effectively organize to deliver goods, services, and a helping hand, the way good neighbors help each other in good times and in bad.
In Canada, where the private sponsorship of refugee (PSR) model has been in use since 1975, volunteers provide arriving refugees with assistance in housing, food, language, employment and more. PSRs achieve slightly quicker self-sufficiency that Government Assisted Refugees (GAR). They find employment more quickly and garner higher earnings during their first 10 years. PSR employment rates are higher, especially during the initial settlement stage.
Engaging grassroots volunteers and other partners can also be transformative for communities. A study by Hello Neighbor found that nearly 90% of volunteers have a greater sense of pride in their communities and more than 80% believe their organization reduces polarization in their communities. These grassroots efforts result in greater cross-cultural awareness and a personal understanding of refugees for stronger and more inclusive communities.
Kudos to private funders who are stepping up and standing behind this model. A coalition of funders including the Open Society Foundations, The Shapiro Foundation and philanthropists G. Barrie Landry and Laurie T. Franz, recently came together to establish a new fund to help organizations across the U.S. develop, implement, and enhance community sponsorship programs: The Community Sponsorship Catalyst Fund.
It is time to restore and breathe new life into the refugee resettlement program by embracing community sponsorship as part of the US Refugee Admissions program. We need to adopt policies that steer refugees to people of goodwill who raise their hands and choose to light the torch of welcoming.
This is how a Biden Administration can welcome and integrate 125,000 refugees “commensurate with our responsibility, our values and the unprecedented global need.”
Together, we can shift the paradigm of refugee resettlement.
If you want to learn more, here are a few links to read more:
The Canadian Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative
The Long-term Economic Outcomes of Refugee Private Sponsorship
Kathie O’Callaghan is the Founder of Hearts & Homes for Refugees, a community organization in Westchester County New York that welcomes and advocates for refugees. Hearts & Homes for Refugees leads the Westchester Refugee Initiative, a coalition of more than 40 partners and 2,000 people of goodwill.
Hearts & Homes for Refugees is one of eight founding members of the Hello Neighbor Network representing nonprofit refugee- and immigrant-serving community organizations from across the U.S.
