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.

Google has launched an ad campaign in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic “that is meant to educate the viewers about how to avoid being manipulated by the misinformation spreading about how Ukrainian refugees fled Russia’s invasion,” reports Sophie Webster of Tech Times.

Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary will launch a campaign aimed at tackling disinformation about Ukrainian refugees. The campaign is based on research by psychologists at two British universities, reports DW Akademie.

It took some time for me to finish Caitlin Dickerson’s article in the latest issue of the Atlantic about the Trump Administration’s cruel and devastating child separation policy at the border.

It wasn’t just because of the length of the article, but also because it was hard for me to emotionally process what Dickerson’s incredible feat of reporting reveals. I needed to take several breaks as I read the story.

The heart wrenching descriptions of children being pulled away from their parents and the long-term emotional damage to those children is devastating and will be a permanent dark chapter in the history of our country.

And one thing is clear from this article …if Trump and Steven Miller ever take power again, they won’t hesitate to resume the separation of children at the border from their parents.

Are you interested in helping to welcome refugees to your community but don’t know where to start?

One place to start is the Sponsor Circle Program, a community-led resettlement initiative that supports Americans in taking on the responsibility of welcoming newcomers to their communities.

I came across this organization in a recent Foreign Affairs article, which argues for the need for new approaches to refugee resettlement in the U.S. (click here for the article).