With migration increasing throughout the Americas, “border policy is no longer a sufficient means to control immigration,” writes Andrew Selee, President of the Migration Policy Institute in a recent opinion piece published in the New York Times.

“The United States must enlist other countries in the hemisphere to become partners in measures to prevent recurrent political and humanitarian crises that force people to flee their homelands,” writes Selee.

He notes that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Colombia’s foreign minister, Marta Lucía Ramírez, convened a hemispheric conversation in October to begin this process.

“The temptation will be to create a new regional arrangement to make borders harder to cross by increasing enforcement and deportations,” writes Selee.

But cooperation around deterrence “is particularly hard to sustain among countries with varying capacity to welcome migrants and distinct concerns about migration,” he notes.

Selee floats the idea of countries in the region seeking to reach a common understanding of what cooperation around migration means. “However, these almost certainly have to be broad principles rather than specific agreements, which will have to be negotiated around much more specific issues with countries that share similar concerns and approaches.”

The Migration Policy Institute is a nonpartisan think tank that seeks to improve migration policies.

Selee is the author of “Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together.”

Do you want to help refugees? Here’s a unique way to do so.

A group called Miles4Migrants is a 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to using donated frequent flyer miles to help people impacted by war, persecution, or disaster start a new beginning in a new home.

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The White House recently released a report that marks the first time the U.S. Government is officially reporting on the link between climate change and migration.

“Migration in response to climate impacts may range from mobility as a proactive adaptation strategy to forced displacement in the face of life-threatening risks,” the report said, “This mobility may occur within or across international borders.”

This report provides an overview of climate change and its impact on migration that informs a proposal for how U.S. foreign assistance can better address the effects of climate change impacts on displacement and migration. It also outlines options for protection and resettlement of individuals displaced directly or indirectly from climate change and identifies opportunities for the United States to work with other stakeholders, including through multilateral engagement, to address migration resulting directly or indirectly from climate change.

The report concludes with a primary recommendation and a list of considerations for further evaluation that may guide the United States’ approach to climate migration, if funding and policy priorities allow.

The report recommends the establishment of a standing interagency policy process on Climate Change and Migration to coordinate U.S. Government efforts to mitigate and respond to migration resulting from the impacts of climate change that brings together representatives across the scientific, development, humanitarian, and peace and security elements of the U.S. Government.

President Biden directed the issuance of the report in his February “Executive Order on Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration.”

“The Biden administration’s report is a major milestone, representing the first time the U.S. government has formally recognized the link between climate change and migration,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

“It is an important acknowledgement of a troubling lack of a policy framework to protect those uprooted by the climate crisis. We are grateful that federal officials are taking proactive steps to align outdated public policy with the reality of this 21st century challenge and to expand access to refuge to those increasingly impacted by climate disaster,” she said.

She said that the “time for action to protect climate-displaced people is overdue, and the U.S. is uniquely positioned to lead the way. As one of the world’s largest carbon emitters, we have a moral responsibility to strengthen protection pathways for people who are losing their homes and livelihoods to the climate disaster.”

The report is available here.

States across the U.S. are taking steps to prepare for an increase of refugee arrivals after President Biden set a goal in May to admit 125,000 refugees into the U.S. next fiscal year.

“With renewed interest in refugee resettlement coming from the top of the federal government, North Dakota officials and nonprofit workers anticipate the state will take in about five times as many refugees in the next federal fiscal year as it has this year,” reports Jeremy Turley in the Grand Forks Herald newspaper.

In Connecticut, the need to help refugees coming to the state has grown, notes Mary O’Leary in a New Haven Register article.

“Integrated Refugees and Immigrant Services hopes to welcome close to 250 refugees to Greater New Haven this year and in 2022, as well as 100 refugees for settlement in Greater Hartford with 50 to be supported throughout the state with the help of private groups, usually organized by religious organizations,” writes O’Leary in the article.

In the Midwest, Wisconsin refugee agencies “expect to welcome more refugees into the state in the coming months and years, many likely from Myanmar, as President Joe Biden’s administration lifts restrictive policies on refugee admissions put in place under his predecessor,” reports Sarah Volpenhein in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A unique project created by award-winning photographer Robin Hammond called “One Thousand Dreams” seeks to change prevailing refugee narratives through a storytelling project that tells the stories of 1,000 refugees across Europe. The project is entirely authored by storytellers with a refugee background.

The 1,000 interviews, conducted entirely by storytellers with a refugee background, “amplify the voices of refugees and open a door to their misunderstood and misrepresented world,” the project’s website notes.

Click here for a story about the project published in the Guardian.

Immigrants and refugees in Oregon “will enjoy expanded protections and benefits from legislation that majority Democrats passed during this year’s session,” reports April Rubin in the Oregonian. “And lawmakers are continuing to press for more policies and spending to improve the lives of those new Oregonians in the session’s waning days,” she reports.

Bills headed to the desk of Gov. Kate Brown will make Oregon a safer sanctuary state, create an Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement and expand a tax credit for working non-citizen parents of U.S. citizen children, Rubi reported.

The Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement “will advocate for Oregon’s newest residents, seek to connect people to resources and programs helping to reduce social, economic and health disparities,” reports Stan Stites for Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The office “will be tasked with collecting data on immigrants and refugees who are new to Oregon in an attempt to better understand their needs and to track progress in reducing social, economic and health disparities. It will also track legislation impacting both populations and advocate for federal resources to support local programs and groups, as well as monitor investments made by the state to ensure resources are being allocated effectively,” wrote Stites.

In the wake of President Biden’s recent move to revise the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year, towns, cities and states are preparing to help refugees who will soon arrive in the country.

“With the country opening to more refugees, the five-year-old Hyde Park Refugee Project is entering a new phase of its existence: a time of great expansion and a rapidly spreading web of partnerships,” reported Andrea Holliday, a contributing writer for New York’s Hyde Park Herald.

“Their new goal, in tune with the Biden administration, is to multiply the number of families who come directly to Hyde Park after escaping desperate situations overseas,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, two programs dedicated to resettling refugees in Idaho “are preparing for more people to call Idaho home,” reports KTVB’s Katija Stjepovic.

But raising the annual refugee resettlement cap “is just the first step in rebuilding a complex program that involves coordination among several U.S. government agencies, the United Nations refugee agency U.N.H.C.R. and nongovernmental organizations in the United States and abroad,” note Melanie Nezer and Leon Rodriguez in a recent New York Times opinion piece.

“This will take serious effort and resources. After all, the prior administration did all it could to dismantle the infrastructure that supported every step in the refugee resettlement process,” they wrote.

Nezer is the senior vice president for public affairs at HIAS, a Jewish humanitarian organization that provides services to refugees and asylum seekers around the world. Rodriguez was the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2014 to 2017 and is a board member of HIAS.

Rebuilding the refugee resettlement program in the U.S. “is not a problem for Biden to solve. It is an opportunity for the U.S. to seize,” writes David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Time Magazine.

“For that to happen, the country needs more than a signature of a Presidential Determination. Successful social change depends on public engagement as well as policy smarts. There are lessons here for other parts of the immigration debate,” writes Miliband.

He argues that the U.S. should expand the use of community, family, and co-sponsorship models of resettlement. “By building on the existing public-private partnership model, community sponsorship will expand the number of refugee families that can safely resettle, build community buy-in towards the program, and improve the welcome and integration offered to these families when they arrive in their new communities.”

President Biden on Monday “reversed himself and said he would allow as many as 62,500 refugees to enter the United States during the next six months, eliminating the sharp limits that President Donald J. Trump imposed on those seeking refuge from war, violence or natural disasters,” the New York Times reported on May 3.

Biden is raising the cap from 15,000 to 62,500 “after outrage from progressives and refugee agencies,” the BBC reported.

Refugee resettlement agencies “have waited for Biden to quadruple the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year since Feb. 12, when a presidential proposal was submitted to Congress saying he planned to do so,” the Associated Press reported.

Since the fiscal year began last 1 October, just over 2,000 refugees have been resettled in the U.S., the Guardian reported.

“It is important to take this action today to remove any lingering doubt in the minds of refugees around the world who have suffered so much, and who are anxiously waiting for their new lives to begin,” Biden said in a May 3 statement.

The sad truth is that we will not achieve 62,500 admissions this year. We are working quickly to undo the damage of the last four years. It will take s”ome time, but that work is already underway. We have reopened the program to new refugees. And by changing the regional allocations last month, we have already increased the number of refugees ready for departure to the United States,” Biden said.

There are growing questions in Washington, D.C. as to why President Biden is not taking action to increase the flow of refugees into the U.S.

To be clear, this is a separate question from the current situation on the U.S.-Mexico border.

During the presidential campaign, Biden made it clear he would move to raise the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the U.S.

While he was president, Donald Trump dramatically reduced the number of refugees allowed into the U.S.

“Democrats are pushing the administration to explain why President Joe Biden has not signed paperwork raising the cap on the number of refugees allowed in the United States, which has put hundreds in limbo even as the Biden administration had promised to reverse former President Donald Trump’s policies,” CNN reported on March 24.

“There are fewer refugees being resettled to safety in the U.S. right now than there were during the last year of the Trump administration. Read that again,” wrote Mary Elizabeth Margolis, Acting Managing Director of Voice for Refuge Action Fund, in a recent opinion piece for the Hill.

She notes that Biden “quickly signaled his intent to follow through on his commitment to support refugee resettlement” and through executive action, he “rescinded the previous administration’s wrongful refugee bans and laid the foundation to strengthen refugee protections and increase refugee admissions.”

It has been almost two months since his announcement “and more than one month since the consultations, and President Biden has still not signed on the dotted line to allow more refugees to travel. Seven hundred flights have been canceled, and there is now an indefinite suspension on booking travel for refugees who are not in the restrictive categories,” Margolis wrote.

“With increasing needs for protecting asylum seekers at the border, it appears the administration is holding the resettlement program hostage as it figures out what to do next. History has clearly shown that the U.S. has the resources and the will to have both a robust resettlement program and a humane system for protecting asylum seekers and unaccompanied children. This is an excuse based only on optics, and ignores the reality that resettlement and asylum protections are complementary,” she said.