Support Refugee Funding for FY 2011

The Following Talking Point is from the third and final Legislative ask that we did with the Ecumenical Advocacy Days.

Office of Refugee Resettlement – The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Department of Health and Human Services administers assistance for refugees, Cuban entrants, asylees, unaccompanied alien children, and victims of torture and trafficking who have been admitted to the United States. We recommend a total of $987.9 million for ORR in fiscal year (FY) 2011 for an admission of 80,000 refugees.

This proposed increase would accommodate the following:

• Housing Assistance: an additional $30 million to help refugees avoid homelessness
• Voluntary Matching Grant Program: additional funding to increase the number of refugees and other migrants eligible to participate in this welfare-alternative employment program from 27,000 to 57,000
• Intensive Case Management: $11 million to assist vulnerable refugees
• Assistance for Torture and Trafficking Victims: to assist victims of torture and human trafficking
• Unaccompanied Alien Children: to assist unaccompanied alien children in the United States

Migration and Refugee Assistance – The Migration and Refugee Account (MRA) account includes funds for overseas assistance to refugees and for refugee resettlement. We recommend a total of $2.31 billion for MRA in FY 2011, including $1.8 billion for overseas assistance and $415.2 million for refugee admissions.

• Overseas Assistance: helps vulnerable refugees—the majority of whom are women and children—in dire need of protection, shelter, clean water, heath care and education. This is the minimum needed to support existing assistance programs for the displaced in Chad/Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Ethiopia, Thailand, Kenya, Nepal, Iraq, the Andean region, and other areas.
• Refugee Admissions: provides safe haven to refugees who do not have an option of returning home and are not welcome in their country of asylum. The State Department’s reception and placement grant provides short-term assistance to refugees who have recently arrived in the United States, including money for rent, food, and other necessities.

International Disaster Assistance – We recommend $1.6 billion for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account to provide life-saving assistance in health, nutrition, water, sanitation and shelter to persons affected by conflict and natural disasters. This recommendation includes $600 million for emergency food assistance to assist approximately 100 million people estimated to need it to survive in FY 2011. IDA is the main source of U.S. funding for assistance to internally displaced persons – who currently number some 26 million worldwide – including in Haiti, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia. In the past, USAID has had to rely on mid-year emergency supplemental funds to respond to unanticipated emergencies without interrupting programs in other countries. Relying on emergency funding has serious human costs. We urge significantly increased funding for IDA in fiscal year 2011 to support humanitarian relief and recovery.

Relief for Haiti – We recommend an emergency supplemental of $3 billion for the people of Haiti. The massive 7.0 earthquake of January 12^th left nearly 800,000 persons without shelter and has affected over 3 million Haitians. The cost of rebuilding from the disaster could reach $14 billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.  The country has suffered serious devastation for the years, including the damage of four tropical storms and hurricanes in 2008, political instability, a continuing food crisis, and environmental degradation. Haitian-led assistance plans must go beyond emergency recovery funds, and facilitate new infrastructure, decentralization and long-term development.