Bishop Wenski - Statements

Statement of Most Reverend Thomas Wenski, Bishop of Orlando; Chairman, USCCB Committee on Migration on the FY 2004 Refugee Admissions Program

October 21, 2003

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, I renew my concern about the current crisis in the U.S. refugee program. The announcement today that the U.S. government would allow for the admissions of 50,000 refugees in FY 2004, with 20,000 as an unfunded reserve, again falls short of historical admission levels reflecting the best humanitarian traditions of the American people.
Over the past two years, the United States has accepted a little more than 55,000 refugees, an unacceptably low number in a world of 13 million refugees. The Administration must make more concerted efforts to identify refugees around the world in need of resettlement protection, particularly vulnerable refugees such as unaccompanied minors, women-at-risk and populations which have been mired in refugee camps for years. I call upon the Administration to redouble its efforts in this area and to seek ways to more expeditiously process these groups.
While the precipitous decline in refugee admissions in part has been due to new security requirements resulting from the tragic terrorist attacks of two years ago, these new procedures are well established and must not be permitted to constitute a permanent barrier to a robust U.S. resettlement program. Nor should legitimate concern for security be used as a smoke screen to disguise the impact of other barriers to refugee admissions, such as the lack of an adequate system for the efficient identification of groups and of access for those groups to interview and processing.
The U.S. Catholic bishops call upon U.S. government officials to work closely with the non-governmental community in the United States and abroad to utilize fully the 70,000 admissions ceiling this year. With good will, good management, and sufficient resources, it is possible to meet this goal and to expand admissions in years to come.