The US administration launched Thursday a new program to receive refugees from all over the world, inviting ordinary Americans to directly sponsor the arrival of thousands of displaced people into their communities.
The administration targeted 125,000 refugees for the current fiscal year, including Ukrainians, Afghans, and refugees from Latin America and countries torn by war and political conflicts.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described the Welcome Corps program as "the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades."
The Welcome Corps will build on Americans' generosity of spirit by creating a durable program for Americans in communities across the country to privately sponsor refugees from around the world.
Under the program, any American can privately sponsor a refugee in the United States without obtaining approvals through associations, non-governmental organizations, and complex logistical operations.
In the first year of Welcome Corps, the Department of State will seek to mobilize 10,000 Americans to step forward as private sponsors and offer a welcoming hand to at least 5,000 refugees.
Groups of at least five individual American citizens or permanent resident adults will be able to apply to the Welcome Corps to sponsor the resettlement of refugees in the US privately.
There are no financial incentives for Americans participating in the program, but they must prove they have at least $2,275.
A senior State Department official said Thursday that the sponsors need to raise the initial amount of $2,275 per refugee to provide the initial support for the refugees during their first three months in the country, and that money does not go as direct cash support to the refugees.
He explained that the funds are used to provide security deposits for an apartment or buy winter clothing or furniture and provide the resources that the refugees need during those first three months.
"The goal is for the refugees to become self-reliant as quickly as possible," the official said.
He noted that "every refugee whom we are admitting into the US goes through a rigorous screening process of biographic and biometric screening, and there are very, very careful safeguards that we have in place."
Julieta Valls Noyes, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, said that the program requires groups of at least five people rather than one person who might be able to raise the minimum amount because the work to help the sponsored refugees is "a lot more than what the average American can do" alone.
"It's not about money. It's about commitment. It's about the community. It's about bringing people together and forming a group so that the refugees have more than one person that they can refer to and can work with," she said at a State Department briefing Thursday.
"It's a lot of work involved in sponsoring a refugee – finding schools, helping them find affordable housing, getting their kids signed up for school, helping them find jobs, showing them where the pharmacy is, what bus to take," Valls Noyes said.
"It's a lot more than what the average American can do. And so we think providing a group of five or more Americans is more likely to be successful."
She said the groups could be "from all walks of life, including community volunteers, faith and civic groups, veterans, diaspora communities, businesses, colleges, and universities."
The sponsors will be screened, vetted, and approved through the consortium of non-profits, which receives funding from the State Department.
The sponsors must provide a detailed "welcome plan" laying out how they plan to receive the refugees and connect them to housing, jobs, and schools.
Refugee admissions to the US have plummeted in recent years after former President Donald Trump slashed the refugee cap to historic lows.
Although the Biden administration has raised the cap to 125,000 for the past two fiscal years, the admissions last year and thus far this year have fallen far short.
Meanwhile, the president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, praised the Biden administration's "forward-thinking approach" but cautioned that "the ability to resettle refugees domestically has not been the fundamental challenge."
"The Biden administration must prioritize streamlining refugee admissions, which remain regrettably low this fiscal year," she said.
According to UN figures, the number of refugees and displaced persons in the world exceeded 100 million in mid-2022, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to more refugee flows to increase the displacement and asylum crisis from Afghanistan, Venezuela and Myanmar.
A surge in refugees over the past decade from war-ravaged Syria led to the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people in Europe and a political backlash.
Türkiye hosts the most significant number of refugees at 3.7 million, mainly from Syria, followed by Venezuela's neighbor Colombia and Germany, according to the UN refugee agency.
