A video game called “Path Out” was relaunched in June for use by teachers as a way to help schoolchildren experience and understand the oftentimes perilous journey of refugees. The relaunch by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees occurred on World Refugee Day, June 20.

The video game was developed by Jack Gutmann, a Syrian refugee.

Click here for additional details on the game and how it was developed.

The Biden Administration should increase the rate of refugee admissions for the remainder of Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, a group of U.S. Senators said in a recent letter to President Joe Biden.

The Senators also urged the President to maintain or increase the target of 125,000 refugee admissions in FY 2023 and take meaningful steps to meet this target.

“We commend you for recommitting the United States to its historic role as a global leader in refugee resettlement by setting a ceiling of 125,000 for FY 2022,” the Senators wrote. “However, we are deeply concerned that as of June 30, 2022, the United States has only resettled 15,100 refugees this fiscal year.”

The lawmakers said that despite the challenges of rebuilding the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program “that your Administration inherited, we can and must do better. The dismantling of programs by the Trump Administration has hindered our efforts to resettle more refugees, and as such, your Administration must take the necessary steps to promptly ensure the United States has a robust, functioning, durable refugee resettlement system.”

Click here for the letter.

This is so heartbreaking.

At least 40 migrants were found dead on Monday inside a tractor-trailer in Texas, and 16 others were taken to area hospitals in varying conditions.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Immigrants-dead-tractor-trailer-Texas-17269754.php

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, is calling on countries to lift remaining pandemic-related asylum restrictions.

More than two years on from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 20 countries across the world today still deny access to asylum for people fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution based on public health measures. Some of these countries apply exceptions for the entry of asylum seekers in an inconsistent or arbitrary manner, UNHCR said.

“With wars and violence raging across the world, and people fleeing from persecution, these measures deny the fundamental human right of people to seek asylum. Women, men and children continue to be turned away at land borders and sea; or are returned or transferred to countries where they may face threats to their life or freedom,” Grandi said.

In a recent interview with NPR’s Ari Shapiro, David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, discusses the Ukrainian refugee crisis and the global response.

When asked whether he thinks Ukrainians are being treated differently than other refugees, Miliband said, “Yes, they are, and that’s quite wrong. It’s actually formalized, which is that the European commitment that Ukrainian refugees can have the three years of work, residency, etc. – that’s not true if you’re not a Ukrainian. And, of course, globally, rights to work, rights to residency are much prized but not often given in the way that they have been.”

He said that there is both a moral and legal argument, “but also a geopolitical argument that this needs to be a learning moment for the way the world recognizes that a refugee is defined not by their nationality, but by their status. And that’s what it says in law, and that’s what should be played out, especially by richer countries who have no excuse, frankly, for the discrimination that exists.”

Click here for the full interview transcript.

An aggressive effort in St. Louis is trying to draw Afghan refugees to the city, reports Jim Salter of the Associated Press, who noted that about 600 refugees from that country have arrived so far and another 750 are expected later this year.

“Civic leaders are hopeful that over the next few years, thousands more will decide to relocate to the Midwestern city, helping to offset seven decades of population loss and rejuvenate urban neighborhoods — just as the arrival of Bosnian refugees did three decades ago,” wrote Salter.

He notes that in the 1990s, St. Louis “became America’s most popular landing spot for Bosnians displaced by war in the former Yugoslavia. Among the estimated 300,000 who fled to the U.S., some 40,000 now call St. Louis and the region home.”

Those refugees “revitalized an area of the city’s south side that is now often referred to as Little Bosnia. The area features Bosnian-owned markets, coffee shops, auto repair shops and other businesses. They have their own online newspaper, their own chamber of commerce.”

Click here for the full article.

The U.S. government recently started accepting applications from individuals and organizations seeking to help Ukrainians fleeing the war in Ukraine come to the U.S., CBS News reported.

The Biden Administration has set up an online portal for the program, called Uniting For Ukraine.

“Uniting for Ukraine builds on the robust humanitarian assistance the U.S. government is providing as we complement the generosity of countries throughout Europe that are hosting millions of Ukrainian citizens and others who have been displaced,” the Department of Homeland Security notes on its website.

Additional details on the program and the portal are available here.

Dozens of Ukrainian children have been separated from relatives, friends or older siblings with whom they have traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border under a law designed to prevent migrant children from being trafficked, reports Miriam Jordan in the New York Times.

“The brunt of the law has been felt by Central American children, the largest group of minors to reach the border in recent years and who are often fleeing gang violence,” writes Jordan. But those children “typically are aware of the policy and know that they will be taken into temporary custody. For Ukrainian children, the separation from their caretakers has been an unexpected, shocking twist in their escape from a war zone.”

Jordan reports that the separations are different from those in 2018, “when the Trump administration intentionally removed children from migrant parents to discourage border crossings; the punitive measure also resulted in children being sent to government shelters.” (click here for full story).

A recent episode of NPR’s “State of Ukraine” podcast also examined the separation of Ukrainian children at the border from family members who are not their parents (https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510366/state-of-ukraine).

I completely agree with what the leader of the Anglican church recently said in his response to the British government’s plan to place some asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said that “sub-contracting out our responsibilities” to refugees can’t stand up to God’s scrutiny, noted Jill Lawless in a article for the Association Press.

Speaking at a recent joint news conference in the Rwandan capital Kigali, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said that people relocated to Rwanda “will be given the support including up to five years of training, integration, accommodation, health care, so that they can resettle and thrive,” according to a CNN report.

Delivering a sermon on Easter Sunday at Canterbury Cathedral, Welby said “The details are for politics and politicians. The principle must stand the judgment of God and it cannot.”

Millions of displaced families across eastern Africa will fa”ll deeper into hunger as food rations dwindle due to humanitarian resources being stretched to the limit as the world grapples with a toxic cocktail of conflict, climate shocks, and COVID-19, combined with spiraling costs of food and fuel,” UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on April 13.

Despite efforts to make resources stretch through prioritization strategies, meaning food assistance is prioritized for the most vulnerable families, “the sheer number of refugees in need of support has grown, along with the gap between resourcing and needs. In the past decade the number of refugees in eastern Africa has nearly tripled, going from 1.82 million in 2012 to almost 5 million today including 300,000 new refugees last year alone,” the agencies said in a joint news release.