CWS network resettles 6,428 refugees in Fiscal Year 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009

Global humanitarian agency Church World Service resettled 6,428 refugees to the United States in FY 2009, a more than 30 percent increase over FY 2008.

In FY 2009, Church World Service opened new resettlement offices in Greensboro and Durham, North Carolina.  At the Durham grand opening celebration, Ghazi, an Iraqi refugee who arrived in May, rejoices at winning one of four raffle prizes, a $100 gift card. Photo by Joanna Schiestl

Global humanitarian agency Church World Service resettled 6,428 refugees to the United States in FY 2009, a more than 30 percent increase over FY 2008.

This is about 8.6 percent of total U.S. arrivals of 74,652 during the fiscal year (October 1, 2008 - September 30, 2009), with FY 2010 arrivals forecast to be just as high, marking a return at last to pre-9/11 levels.

“CWS is heartened to see the U.S. refugee program regaining strength,” said CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Director Erol Kekic, “and our colleagues at participating denominations and local resettlement affiliate agencies are eager to welcome as many if not more refugees in FY 2010 as we did in FY 2009, despite the challenges of a struggling economy.

“The U.S. Refugee Program is a rescue operation.  Persecuted, war-battered people are in urgent need of protection,” he said.  “Their very lives are at stake.  We cannot tell them to wait a few years until things get better for us economically.”

Neither can refugees wait until the U.S. refugee program completes much-needed reforms that refugees’ advocates hope will restore a rightful balance to this important public-private partnership. 

“We hope to see significant improvements in FY 2011, including at least a doubling of the present one-time per capita government grant of $450 per refugee and a commensurate increase for case management services,” Kekic said.  “Meanwhile, throughout FY 2010, we will be challenging CWS’s member churches to go the extra mile to support refugees.” 

CWS is one of nine voluntary agencies plus one state agency that welcome refugees who have been approved by the U.S. government for resettlement, helping the newcomers make the transition to American life and self-sufficiency in communities nationwide.

U.S. Refugee Program admissions last topped 70,000 in FY 2000, were just under 70,000 in FY 2001, then plummeted to 27,000 in FY 2002 in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

Similarly, Church World Service resettled 6,768 refugees in FY 1999, 6,455 in FY 2000, and 5,406 in FY 2001, but then its allocation plunged to 2,241 in FY 2002. 

Admissions have recovered slowly but more or less surely since then, with last year’s total reaching 60,191 (of whom CWS resettled 4,890). 

Some 13.6 million people around the world are uprooted from their countries because of persecution and armed conflict.  Some will be able to return home eventually or integrate permanently in their countries of first asylum.
“But for some, third-country resettlement is the only possible durable solution,” Kekic said.  “Consider the ethnic Nepali refugees from Bhutan, for example.  Tens of thousands of them were forced out by Bhutan’s Druk majority.  They fled to Nepal, which has confined them to camps for 20 years. 

“Then there are the hundreds of thousands of Darfuri refugees who live in 12 crowded refugee camps in Eastern Chad,” Kekic continued.  “The land has been depleted of water, firewood, grazing and farm land, forcing the refugees to depend on international aid.  Violence spills over the border from Sudan, and there is ongoing fighting involving rebels from both Sudan and Chad.”

CWS’s community-based program engages refugee resettlement professionals and thousands of volunteers to help newcomers make the transition to American life and early self-sufficiency. 

Many refugee families resettled by CWS are cosponsored by local congregations who, as welcoming communities, assist the new arrivals with such needs as job searches, renting and furnishing apartments, school enrollment and accessing social services.

The largest numbers of refugees resettled by Church World Service in FY 2009 were Karen, Chin and Karenni from Burma (1,579), Iraqis (1,304), and ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan (1,173).  CWS also resettled 857 refugees from Iran, 348 from Somalia, 276 from Cuba, 169 from Eritrea, 133 from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 100 from Vietnam, along with smaller numbers from 30 other countries.

The affiliates receiving the most refugees for resettlement under Church World Service auspices in FY 2009 were those in Los Angeles, California (825); Phoenix, Arizona (447); Atlanta, Georgia (440); Columbus, Ohio (302); Houston, Texas (269); Grand Rapids, Michigan (262); Lancaster, Pennsylvania (238); Syracuse, New York (235); Richmond, Virginia (230); Indianapolis, Indiana (232); Rochester, New York (227); Denver, Colorado (220), and Chicago, Illinois (201).

In addition to assisting 175 refugees of five nationalities through the U.S. refugee program, the CWS Miami Office provided cultural and community orientation to 10,806 Cuban newcomers to Florida in FY 2009.  It also helped 17 Cuban clients join family members in other states, and facilitated the resettlement of 227 Cuban "free case" clients by CWS affiliates in other states.

In FY 2009, CWS also assisted 138 Iraqis and 48 Afghans with Special Immigrant Visas to resettle to the United States.  CWS has helped nearly 480,000 refugees begin new lives in the United States since the agency was founded in 1946.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net

  Browse news release archive