HIAS is proud to announce that this month the U.S. granted asylum to Mansoor Osaloo, one of the founders of the Vahed Syndicate, a free trade union representing Tehran’s bus workers, who endured torture and the daily threat of being killed to fight for improved working conditions in Iran.
The Jewish community should speak out on this issue and call on the U.S. government to meet the needs of these children while maintaining our country’s commitment to refugees.
In this letter to the editor, Eric Schwartz argues that most of the kids arriving at our border have refugee claims. "If they were my children, I'd want those claims to be considered very carefully."
Jewish organizations such as the National Council of Jewish Women, HIAS and the Jewish Federations of North America issued a joint statement urging President Barack Obama to pursue “measures to ensure that all migrants in danger of persecution have access to a meaningful opportunity to seek asylum.”
Mark Hetfield notes that asylum claims are legally very complicated to determine for the kids from Central America because they are being persecuted not by a government but by forces their governments are unable to control.
Last week, Teresa Mitchell, an asylee who fled to the United States from Jamaica in 2012, gratefully accepted an Outstanding Achievement Award from FEGS, HIAS’s affiliate in New York City. Her mother, Annette MacDonnell, stood proudly at her side.
HIAS supports President Obama’s $3.7 billion Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Request for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14). The $1.83 billion increase for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) must be approved if we are to provide migrant children with appropriate care and ensure that the U.S. maintains our country’s commitments and obligations to asylum seekers and refugees.
Mark Hetfield counsels the Obama administration to undercut the smugglers by immediately announcing that it will accept applications, but only outside the United States, for humanitarian parole to reunite children with close relatives.
