I am deeply disturbed by recent attacks on refugee centers in Germany and England. Vitriol aimed at refugees and immigrants has consequences and it needs to stop.

In October, a hotel in Germany housing refugees from Ukraine was set on fire in what police believe is a a case of politically motivated.

“As things stand, arson is suspected and a political motivation is assumed,” the police said in a statement, Reuters reported.

“Those behind a suspected arson attack on a German hotel intended to house refugee families will be tracked down and held to account, a top security official in eastern Germany,” ABC News reported.

In the middle of 2021, Germany reported almost 1.24 million refugees and 233 000 asylum seekers, making it the biggest host country for refugees in Europe. Half of the refugees are from Syria, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

More than 1 million refugees from Ukraine traveled to Germany seeking protection since Russia invaded Ukraine.

On Oct. 30, a man attacked a center that processes migrants in the port of Dover in England and then killed himself.

Police said up to three incendiary devices were thrown at the Western Jet Foil facility in Dover, where asylum seekers are processed after being rescued in the English Channel, the Independent reported.

The United Kingdom’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman recently detailed plans “for new powers which would ban refugees who cross the English Channel from claiming asylum and said it was her ‘dream’ to see a government flight deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda,” the Independent reported.

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) is leading 15 of his colleagues in urging the Biden administration to immediately extend and redesignate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti, which would authorize Haitian nationals in the United States to remain in the country until conditions improve in Haiti.

The lawmakers on Oct. 26 sent a letter to Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Markey’s office notes that the island nation continues to face compounding crises that have forced thousands of Haitians to leave their home in growing numbers. The current TPS designation for Haiti is set to expire in February 2023.

“In light of the worsening conditions in Haiti, including prolific gang violence, widespread civil and political unrest since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and the inability of average Haitians to obtain gasoline, food, water, health care, and other basic necessities, extending and redesignating Haiti’s TPS status is urgently warranted,” the lawmakers wrote.

The International Organization for Migration´s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project has documented at least 5,684 deaths on migration routes to and within Europe since the beginning of 2021, with increasing numbers of deaths seen on routes across the Mediterranean, on land borders to Europe and within the continent.

At least 2,836 deaths and disappearances were documented on the Central Mediterranean route since 2021 (as of 24 October 2022), an increase compared to the 2,262 deaths recorded between 2019-2020, IOM reported on October 25.

On the West Africa-Atlantic route to the Spanish Canary Islands, 1,532 deaths were documented in the reporting period, a figure already higher than any two-year period since IOM began documenting deaths in 2014.   

“On both of these long, hazardous overseas routes, data for the current year is highly likely to be incomplete given the labor-intensive process of verifying all-too-frequent ‘invisible shipwrecks’ – cases in which entire boats are lost at sea without any search and rescue being conducted,” IOM said.

Click here for the IOM report.

Refugees from countries other than Ukraine or Afghanistan are growing increasingly frustrated, “saying they are being pushed to the back of the line as the Biden administration prioritizes those fleeing crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan,” reports Miriam Jordan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs in a recent New York Times article.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “said she understands that the Biden administration is working with an overburdened system inherited from the Trump years. But, she said, her patience is wearing thin,” the article said.

“We’re at a point in the administration that while we recognize how the Trump administration decimated the infrastructure, it can’t be an excuse for too much longer,” Vignarajah said. “Because lives depend on the administration stepping up.”

In a report submitted to Congress last month, the White House acknowledged that the effort to provide temporary protection to roughly 180,000 people escaping Ukraine and Afghanistan “required a significant reallocation of time and resources” and “hampered the program’s rebound, the story noted.

President Biden on Sept. 27 signed the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2023, setting the refugee admissions target at 125,000 for this upcoming fiscal year.

“This ambitious target demonstrates that the United States is committed to rebuilding and strengthening the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), including by building capacity, modernizing and streamlining overall operations, and resolving long-delayed applications,” the State Department said. 

It noted that a new private sponsorship pilot program will also expand opportunities for communities across the country to participate “in welcoming the world’s most vulnerable to the United States, recognizing and building on the enormous outpouring of interest we have seen from the American public in supporting our newest neighbors.”

In the lead up to recent national elections in Italy, Pope Francis urged Italians to welcome migrants.

“Francis traveled to southern Italy on Sunday, as Italians went to the polls for a general election, and delivered a message that hit on key campaign issues including immigration,” wrote Politico’s Hannah Roberts.

The Pope noted that Sunday marked the Catholic Church’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees. “Migrants are to be welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated,” he said.

Italy on Sunday elected a far-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni. Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, has called for a naval blockade to stop the flow of refugees across the Mediterranean.

A new approach to the resettlement of refugees in the U.S. could be a game changer by leveraging the power of communities to welcome migrants.

The U.S. State Department, “working with humanitarian organizations, turned to ordinary Americans to fill the gap. Neighbors, co-workers, faith groups, and friends banded together in ‘sponsor circles’ to help Afghans get settled in their communities,” report Julie Watson and Amy Taxin for the Associated Press.

Since the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Kabul last year, the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans “has helped over 600 Afghans restart their lives. When Russia invaded Ukraine, a similar effort was undertaken for Ukrainians,” report Watson and Taxin.

“Now the Biden administration is preparing to turn the experiment into a private-sponsorship program for refugees admitted through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and is asking organizations to team up with it to launch a pilot program by the end of 2022.”

Refugee advocacy group HIAS has set up welcome circles in the U.S., an effort that was recently highlighted in an episode of the group’s podcast, “Crossing Borders.” Click here for the episode, “Forging an Unshakable Bond in Baltimore.”

Additional information about sponsor circles is available here.

Dozens of America’s largest employers and best-known brands recently announced new commitments to hire 22,725 refugees in full time positions in the U.S.

The U.S. Business Summit on Refugees brings together companies including Amazon, Hilton, PepsiCo, Pfizer, and Tyson Foods that have committed to hire and train thousands of refugees in the United States over the next three years.

The U.S. Business Summit on Refugees is organized by the Tent Partnership for Refugees, which was founded by Chobani’s founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya in 2016.

The Biden Administration plans to allow up to 125,000 refugees into the United States for the 2023 fiscal year, which mirrors the same ceiling for refugee admittance set for 2022, CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez reported, citing sources.

On Sept. 9, State Department spokesperson Ned Price confirmed the move.

Biden set the annual refugee cap at 125,000 last October, but as of July, the program has allowed in only 17,690 refugees. Voice of America (VOA) notes in a recent story.

“Advocates say that the Biden administration is going to fall short of its ambitious target for fiscal 2022, but they note the refugee program is still rebuilding,” VOA reported.

I just finished “Nomad Century” by Gaia Vince and this is one of the most compelling and informative books I have ever read about migration.

Vince makes it clear that climate change will continue to dramatically drive global migration in the coming years and that countries need to proactively develop effective strategies for welcoming migrants. Canada is an example of how this can be done, she notes.

In chapter 5 of the book, “Wealth of Migrants,” Vince details how immigrants expand economies, innovation and wealth.

In an interview with NPR about the book, Vince said that “Migration this century is inevitable. This is my way of staring head-on what we are facing, which is degrees Celsius hotter. These are deadly temperatures. So what I’m saying is we have mass migration. Let’s manage it. Let’s not veer from one utter crisis to another with many deaths and with social unrest and political unrest. And we need people to do this. This could be done in a manageable, safe, equitable way. Or it could be a catastrophe.”

In an an extract from her book published in the Guardian, she states that global population will continue to rise in the coming decades, peaking at perhaps 10 billion in the 2060s. “Most of this increase will be in the tropical regions that are worst hit by climate catastrophe, causing people there to flee northwards. The global north faces the opposite problem – a “top-heavy” demographic crisis, in which a large elderly population is supported by a too-small workforce,” Vince writes.