Built over Decades—Damaged in Days
“This is just a way of putting us out of business, because if you make us wait long enough, we’re not gonna be able to pay our bills. So, you know, who can wait longer, the federal government or a nonprofit organization?”
— Kathy Cloutier, Executive Director of the Dorcas International Institute
Rhode Island’s refugee program has taken nearly 100 years to build.
The Providence YWCA requested a survey of local foreign-born residents in 1920, the first step towards transitioning into immigrant and refugee services.
After finding that immigrants comprised nearly 30% of Providence’s total population—and that none of the city’s “eight evening schools…offered English classes for women of foreign birth,” the YWCA decided to establish an immigrant services organization: one that would later become the Dorcas International Institute.
While the Dorcas Institute’s—and Rhode Island’s—resettlement capacity has grown exponentially, the number of refugees welcomed to the state each year has not.
During its first operational year, the International Institute served 498 total individuals; today, they serve over 6,000 annually. The number of refugees resettled, however, has not increased at a similar rate. In 1921, the International Institute alone resettled 287 refugees—meeting boats at the Providence Pier and stationing workers at Ellis Island. Last year, the entire state of Rhode Island resettled only 398 refugees—the greatest number of refugees the state has welcomed over the past decade.
Rhode Island’s capacity to welcome has increased exponentially. The number of refugees they have welcomed has not.
America’s refugee program is not one Rhode Island can rely on. While Rhode Island’s refugee program has a bottom line, America’s does not.
As a result, Rhode Island’s resettlement agencies—like the International Institute—cannot plan for growth, hire new resettlement case workers, and line-up new partnerships. When they do, new programs are often a result of temporary immigration initiatives created via executive action—not longer-term, sustainable systems Rhode Islanders and refugees can rely on.
Only a national resettlement program with a guaranteed minimum number of refugee arrivals—established by bipartisan consensus—can enable Rhode Island’s refugee program to match its welcoming ambitions.
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