By October of this year, Mississippi’s only refugee resettlement office—Catholic Charities of Jackson—will be unable to resettle refugees.
The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has forced the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops–which oversees around 60 of U.S.’s 360 resettlement offices–to withdraw from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program by October. Catholic Charities of Jackson is one of those offices.
Some of Mississippi’s remote placement partners, in addition to Reception and Placement sites (tracked by our map!), will be unable to resettle refugees too.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Mississippians need a Refugee Program they can rely on. Refugees and America do too.
How can we build a reliable Refugee Program?
If you’ve read our newsletter before, you know: by passing the Guaranteed Refugee Admissions Ceiling (GRACE) Act.
The GRACE Act would build a Refugee Program with a bottom line, requiring the President to admit a minimum number of refugee each year.
This foundation would provide resettlement agencies, refugees—and Mississippians, Alaskans, Louisianans, and West Virginians, all states losing their ability to resettle refugees—with certainty. Just like any business, resettlement agencies require some level of certainty to build budgets, hire and fire, and keep their doors open.
We need a Refugee Program that operates predictably—rather than responds to the boom and bust cycle of refugee arrivals that accompanies presidential elections.
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