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REFUGEE ADMISSIONS CAPS — The numbers are official. Late Friday, President Biden followed through on his intent to raise the refugee cap to 125,000 for fiscal year 2022, Rebecca Morin of USA Today reports. It’s a worthy goal that would help restore U.S. leadership, but it will require rebuilding the resettlement pipeline, as is clear from another official number: The U.S. admitted only 11,411 refugees in fiscal year 2021, reports Annika Kim Constantino of CNBC — the fewest admitted via the Refugee Act since it passed in 1980, Constantino notes. "We are saddened but unsurprised by the record-low admission figures," said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (and a speaker at Leading the Way). SECURITY FRAMEWORK — Mexican and U.S. officials met Friday to work on a new security framework, reports Mary Beth Sheridan of The Washington Post. "It’s time for a comprehensive approach to our security cooperation" that emphasizes "not only strengthening law enforcement, but also public health, the rule of law, inclusive economic opportunities," said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In a separate meeting with Blinken and other top officials, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador "urged the United States to commit more to development programs in Central America to deter migration." The meeting came as sources including government officials from the two countries said that the migration of Haitians last month "was the result of a well-organized effort by human smuggling organizations facilitated through social media, and by Mexican authorities who either looked the other way or were simply overwhelmed," reports Alfredo Corchado of the Dallas Morning News.
ENDLESS CYCLE — In an interactive feature for The Washington Post, Arelis R. Hernández and Whitney Leaming detail Paulnick "Nicko" Archelus’ journey from Haiti to the U.S. — and his cycle back and forth across the Mexican border. Nicko had earned a civil engineering degree in Haiti, but with no jobs available after Haiti’s devasting earthquake in 2010, he was among thousands who left for South America. The story of his eventual journey to the U.S. is gripping — so please make time to watch the incredibly powerful interviews. ‘NO TIME TO SPARE’ — Members of Congress are working behind the scenes, pushing for the U.S. to help rescue Afghan relatives of active U.S. service members, reports Catie
Edmondson of The New York Times. Meanwhile, small nonprofits in the D.C. area such as Homes Not Borders are helping resettle
Afghan refugees at an accelerated pace but say they need more support, reports Nicole Asbury of The Washington Post. And in an op-ed for Newsweek, mayors Erias Lukwago of Kampala,
Uganda and Marvin Rees of Bristol, U.K., of the Mayors Migration Council write: "We have no time to spare: funders, national governments and cities need to work together to build a network of
policies and structures that are resilient to the shocks that push people around our planet." Here’s today’s roundup of local stories:
Thanks for reading, Ali |
