Tag: Caribbean

U.S. Adopts Confusing New Program for Resettling Certain Foreigners

On January 19, the Biden Administration announced an additional program for the resettlement of certain foreigners, i.e., “refugees,” in the U.S. that directly will involve U.S. citizens, acting through the State Department’s U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). This new program seeks to resettle refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean with the assistance of Americans “ranging from members of faith and civic groups, veterans, diaspora communities, businesses, colleges and universities, and more.” [1]

This new program already has its own website—Welcome Corps–which says that  more than 200 diverse organizations are signaling their support and that Americans will “work in groups of at least five  to welcome newcomers by securing and preparing initial housing, greeting refugee newcomers at the airport, enrolling children in school, and helping adults to find employment.” Most importantly, the individuals in these citizen groups will “offer a sense of welcome, belonging, and inclusion for families.”

The “Welcome Corps” website also describes its training program for “providing core private sponsoring services (e.g., housing, benefits and services access, cultural adjustment, etc.) and an overview of how to help facilitate the long-term integration of refugees, . . . the logistics of forming a Private Sponsor Group, fundraising, developing a Welcome Plan, and resiliency-building.” This training must be completed by at least one member of the Private Sponsor Group.”

Who Will Be Welcomed by the Welcome Corps? [2]

The initial Corps materials repeatedly use the word “refugee” to identify the foreigners it will be seeking to help relocate in the U.S. Those same materials also refer to  Latin Americans, Caribbeans, Afghans and Ukrainians as people they want to welcome to the U.S. Those are certainly laudatory goals.

But not all of those groups have been determined to meet the legal requirements for  “refugee” status under international and U.S. law as shown by the following:

  • International Law. On April 22, 1954, the international Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees went into force and became a binding treaty after its ratification or accession by the sixth state. Then after its amendment by the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees that went into effect on October 4, 1967, the international definition of “refugee” was the following: Any person who “owing to well- founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who,not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

(Excluded from that international definition of “refugee” was “any person . . . [who] (a) . has committed a crime against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity . . . ; (b) . . .          has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee; [and] (c) . . . has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the [U.N.].”)

  • U.S. Law. The U.S. did not ratify the previously mentioned Protocol (and by incorporation the previously mentioned Convention) until November 1, 1968, and 12 years later the U.S. finally adopted the implementing federal legislation (the Refugee Act of 1980), which defines “refugee” as follows: “any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” That federal statute also provided, “The term ‘refugee’ does not include any person who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

It must also be noted that this last Session of Congress failed to enact the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would have provided some temporary legal protection for Afghan evacuees who have not been determined to be “refugees.”[3]

Conclusion

It is utterly dumbfounding that the Departments of State and Homeland Security could erroneously use the important legal concept of “refugee” in this  matter of foreign policy.

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111 State Dep’t, Launch of the Welcome Corps—Private Sponsorship of Refugees (Jan. 19,2023); State Dep’t, U.S.  Refugee Admissions Program, (Jan. 19, 2023);  Welcome Corps Website, State Dep’t, U.S.  Refugee Admissions Program, (Jan. 19,2023); 200+ Organizations Signal Support for the Welcome Corps, New Service, Opportunities for Private Refugee Sponsorship; The Welcome Corps Essentials Training, Jordan, Biden Administration Invites Ordinary Americans to Help Settle Refugees, N.Y. Times (Jan. 19, 2023); Santana, (AP), Welcome Corps provides a new way for Americans to sponsor refugees, Ch. Sci. Monitor (Jan. 19, 2023).

[2] Refugee and Asylum Law: The Modern Era, dwkcommentaries.com (July 9, 2011); Refugee and Asylum Law: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, dwkcommentaries.com (July 10, 2011); Weissbrodt, Ni Aolain, Fitzpatrick & Newman, International Human Rights: Law, Policy, and Process at 1040-42 (4th ed. 2009).

[3] Need To Prod Congress to Enact the Afghan Adjustment Act, dwkcommentaries.com (Dec. 17, 2022); Apparent Failure To Enact Bipartisan Immigration Bills, dwkcommentaries.com (Dec. 18, 2022); Congress Fails to Adopt Important Immigration Bills, dwkcommentaries.com (Dec. 28, 2022).

 

 

 

 

Naturalized U.S. Citizens: Important Contributors to U.S. Culture and Economy

U.S. citizens are those individuals who were born in the U.S. as well as those born elsewhere to a parent who is a U.S. citizen. In addition, there are those who choose to become naturalized U.S. citizens by filing an Application for Naturalization, Form N-400, with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and meeting the following requirements of U.S. law:

  • Be at least 18 years of age;
  • Be a lawful permanent resident (green card holder);
  • Have resided in the United States as a lawful permanent resident for at least five years;
  • Have been physically present in the United States for at least 30 months;
  • Be a person of good moral character;
  • Be able to speak, read, write and understand the English language;
  • Have knowledge of U.S. government and history; and
  • Be willing and able to take the Oath of Allegiance. [1]

The average annual number of individuals who became U.S. citizens increased from less than 120,000 during the 1950s and 1960s to 210,000 during the 1980s, and 500,000 during the 1990s. In the 21st century the annual average has increased to nearly 690,000 as shown by the following statistics:

Fiscal Year Total New Naturalized U.S. Citizens Fiscal Year Total New Naturalized U.S. Citizens
2000     888,788 2008 1,050,399[2]
2001     613,161 2009     741,982
2002     589,727 2010     619,075
2003     456,063 2011     690,705
2004     536,176 2012     762,742
2005     600,366 2013     777,416
2006     702,663 2014     654,949
2007     659,233 TOTAL 10,343.445

Until the 1970s, the majority of persons naturalizing were born in European countries. In the 1970s the regional origin of new citizens shifted from Europe to Asia due to increased legal immigration from Asian countries, the arrival of Indochinese refugees, and the historically higher naturalization rate of Asian immigrants. This summary from the U.S. Government, however, fails to aggregate the people from South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean into a Latin American group. For the latest available fiscal year (2013), the new citizens came from the following regions of the world:

Region of origin Number Percentage
Latin America    339,229    43.5%
Asia    275,700    35.3%
Europe     80,333    10.3%
Africa     71,872      9.2%
Other    12,795      1.6%
TOTAL 779,929 100.0%

In FY 2013, the top countries of origin for naturalization were in the following order: Mexico, India, the Philippines, Dominican Republic, China and Cuba.

In FY 2013, 75 percent of all individuals naturalizing resided in 10 states (in descending order): California, New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, Massachusetts, Georgia and Pennsylvania. That same fiscal year the leading metropolitan areas of residence were New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA (17.5 percent); Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA (9 percent); and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL (8.6 percent).

Conclusion

These new citizens provide an infusion of new perspectives on culture and on the U.S. itself. We are blessed to have them join us. Many other industrialized countries like Japan do not have this openness to newcomers and, therefore, struggle with aging and declining populations and resulting diminished influence in the world.

Although the public information for becoming a naturalized citizen on the website of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is the basis for this post, is very useful, anyone thinking of doing so should consider consulting with an U.S. attorney with experience in this area of the law.

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[2] There also are other provisions for naturalization for members of the U.S. military and for children under the age of 18.

[2] The unusually large number of new naturalized citizens in FY 2008 was due primarily to applications received in advance of a fee increase in calendar 2008 and to a special effort to encourage eligible individuals to submit applications for citizenship.