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President Donald J. Trump
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Trump and Members of Congress,
As more than [XX] religious leaders and [XX] faith-based organizations across faith traditions, we write to express our deep concern about the low level of refugees who have been resettled to the United States thus far in Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18). President Trump set the U.S. refugee admissions goal at a historically low 45,000 for FY18, but as of [DATE], the U.S. has resettled fewer than 10,000 refugees. This means that the United States is on track to provide life-saving resettlement to less than half of the people the administration promised to welcome by the end of the fiscal year. This low level of arrivals signifies an abdication of our nation’s leadership in humanitarian protection through resettlement.
We are called by our sacred texts and faith principles to love our neighbor, accompany the vulnerable, and welcome the sojourner. Our congregations, synagogues, and mosques have historically played key roles in assisting refugees with housing, language, jobs, and social supports necessary for rapid and effective resettlement into U.S. communities. Yet, our commitment to offer refuge from violence and persecution requires the moral leadership our nation was founded upon. To restrict thousands of people from seeking safety would be to forsake our nation’s values of compassion, hospitality, and welcome.
Since the inception of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) in 1980, the U.S. has been an international model providing refugees protection through our historically bipartisan public-private resettlement program. The USRAP has successfully offered over 3 million refugees tools for integration and self-sufficiency to start over in safety and our communities have in turn benefitted from these individuals. As a pillar of our national foreign policy, our nation’s resettlement program represents a standard of excellence that other countries around the world look to as a touchstone for their own policies.
Refugee resettlement is an option for those who cannot return to their home country due to ongoing violence or for reasons of personal safety, and who cannot stay in the country into which they have fled. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that one million individuals meet these standards and are in need of resettlement this year. We believe it is not only our moral duty as a nation to do our fair share to welcome the world’s most vulnerable, but we know that resettling refugees is a part of advancing our nation’s strategic foreign and national security interests. In fact, refugees are the most scrutinized traveler to the United States and face the most rigorous screening someone entering this country must undergo, spending roughly two years in exhaustive vetting processes by our nation’s top security and counter-terror experts.
At no other time has our moral responsibility to uphold these principles been greater. War, conflict, and persecution have forced millions to leave their homes, creating more refugees than at any other time in global history. More than 65 million people are currently displaced, including over 22 million refugees, over half of whom are children. In a world where conflict or persecution forcibly displaces nearly 20 people every 60 seconds, our nation’s responsibility to protect vulnerable refugees is more important than ever.
People of faith are especially concerned by the implications of the historically low refugee admissions goal and the incredibly low refugee arrivals for particular populations of concern such as families seeking to reunite, religious minorities, and children. Family unity is a cornerstone of U.S. refugee resettlement, given the importance of family values in our country and the crucial role that a united family plays in refugee protection and integration, and it is unacceptable to see families being separated due to U.S. policies. Similarly, we express our deep concern for the impact of low arrivals on religious minorities, including Christians, Muslims, and others who find themselves persecuted because of their religious affiliation and are thus left without options to safely practice their faith. Finally, Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) are truly the most vulnerable refugees and as the U.S. is the only country to operate a resettlement program for children, low arrivals have a unique impact on refugee children.
Faith communities in particular remain ready and eager to welcome resettled refugees and decry the policies that are preventing refugees from receiving protection at this time. Many of our faith communities have made public statements of our commitments to offer hospitality to refugees in recent months. For decades, people of faith have welcomed refugees into our homes, houses of worship, and communities. Refugees are powerful ambassadors of our founding principles of equal opportunity, religious freedom, and liberty and justice for all. Our experiences working alongside refugees mirror the statistics that demonstrate that refugees bring tangible benefits to U.S. communities by starting business, becoming homeowners, revitalizing local economies, and becoming civic leaders.
Given the many ongoing and emerging regional refugee and displacement crises around the world, people of faith will not stand by idly as the U.S. turns its back on these individuals. Refugee resettlement is a critical tool our nation can use to relieve human suffering, and we urge the administration to utilize it. As we look ahead to the final two quarters of this fiscal year, we urge the administration to do all in its power to resettle at least 45,000 refugees and to commit to resettling at least 75,000 refugees in Fiscal Year 2019. Our collective scriptural mandate and our nation’s history and capabilities as a world leader demand no less.
We pray that in your discernment, compassion for the plight of refugees will touch your hearts. We urge you to be bold in choosing moral, just policies that provide refuge for vulnerable individuals seeking protection.
Sincerely,
