Media CenterCRS Responds to Historically Low Refugee Cap

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Nikki Gamer
Catholic Relief Services
[email protected]
(443) 955- 7125
 

Aid agency of the U.S. Catholic Church echoes USCCB’s stance on new refugee admittance limit
 

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, Oct. 2, 2020 – Catholic Relief Services (CRS) stands with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in urging the administration to reconsider its decision to cap the number of refugees that will be permitted to enter the United States next year at 15,000 people. The administration’s announcement Wednesday to set the refugee ceiling at 15,000 for Fiscal Year 2021 would be the lowest in U.S. history.

“We are disappointed by the administration's historically low proposal for refugee admissions. We work with refugees in Northern Uganda and Bangladesh, where families have had to make life or death decisions to leave their homes. They desperately seek safety and prosperity, and freedom from persecution and violence. America was founded upon these very ideals. We appreciate the U.S. government’s generous provision of overseas humanitarian assistance, but shrinking refugee admissions will not make our nation or world safer. This indifference exposes marginalized people fleeing violence to further danger, heightened by the coronavirus pandemic. The United States has always been a leader in providing humanitarian assistance and welcoming refugees. We must continue in that tradition.”

CRS and partners have provided emergency relief and support for more than 2 million refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers and migrants across the world over the past 10 years, from the Rohingya in Bangladesh to the South Sudanese in Uganda to Syrian refugees all over the Middle East.

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Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. The agency alleviates suffering and provides assistance to people in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding. For more information, visit www.crs.org or www.crsespanol.org and follow Catholic Relief Services on social media in English at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube; and in Spanish at: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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