Episcopal Migration Ministries supported the resettlement of a family of five from Colombia in May 2023 through the agency’s first remote placement community partner, Murray Ecumenical Partners, in far western Kentucky. Photo: Episcopal Migration Ministries
[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians across the United States can now serve The Episcopal Church’s biblical mission of welcoming the stranger by forming teams to help resettle refugees in their communities – a call that has grown increasingly urgent, given the uncertain outcome of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Episcopal Migration Ministries, or EMM, is one of 10 agencies with contracts to facilitate refugee resettlement on behalf of the U.S. State Department, and each year, it welcomes thousands of refugees through its 13 affiliates nationwide. For the past two years, it also has been authorized to assist arriving individuals and families through congregations and other groups that volunteer to serve as remote placement community partners.
Several Episcopal congregations already are serving as community partners. St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, welcomed a family from Nicaragua on July 22 after assisting a family from Venezuela last fall. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas, welcomed a Nicaraguan individual in May and is scheduled to receive an Afghan on July 31. Four more congregations across the country either have begun helping refugees get settled in their new homes or are preparing to receive some of the newest arrivals.
More community partners are greatly needed this year, EMM leaders say.
“It is hard work, but it is good work, and it is the work that we’re called to,” Allison Duvall, EMM’s senior manager for church relations and engagement, told Episcopal News Service. She said it also is work that could be upended if former President Donald Trump is reelected and begins a second term on Jan. 20.
The Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies had decimated resettlement agencies’ previous capacity to welcome new arrivals by the end of his term in January 2021. Each president sets the maximum number of refugees allowed into the United States for the year, and under Trump, that ceiling was reduced to 15,000, the lowest level in the four-decade history of the resettlement program.
When President Joe Biden took office, he raised the annual maximum to 125,000 refugees, but EMM and the other resettlement agencies, while eager to ramp up their operations again, have not yet been able to restore their capacity to much more than half the new ceiling.
That is where Episcopal congregations can help now, by serving as remote placement community partners.
“We believe in the mission of this work. We want to welcome as many [refugees] as are approved to come,” Duvall said. “And we have the experience of living through the previous administration, so we know the [refugee resettlement] cliff we could fall off and the refugees whose lives would be in danger,” if Trump is reelected and slashes refugee resettlement again.
Global resettlement needs have only increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, estimates there are more than 31 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more have been displaced within their home countries.
The Episcopal Church first began assisting refugees in the 1930s and 1940s through the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief, supporting people from Europe fleeing the Nazis. Since the Unites States created the current refugee resettlement program in 1980, EMM has resettled more than 100,000 refugees, providing a range of services for these families upon their arrival in the United States, including English language and cultural orientation classes, employment services, school enrollment and initial assistance with housing and transportation.
EMM has resettled more than 5,100 refugees so far in the current federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Most of its support for refugees during their first 90 days in the United States is facilitated by the 13 social service agencies that serve as EMM’s affiliates.
One difference for EMM’s remote placement community partners is volume: Congregations that apply and are accepted by the State Department can help one individual or family at a time during those crucial first three months. More and more partners eventually could add up to many more refugees resettled.
“By becoming an EMM community partner and assuming the responsibility of resettling refugee families and offering initial support upon their arrival, you can make an immediate and tangible impact,” the Rev. Charles Robertson, the presiding bishop’s canon for ministry beyond The Episcopal Church, said this month in an EMM action alert. “Your assistance will not only provide crucial aid to those in need but also pave the way for ongoing support and integration within our communities.”
Those interested in assisting are expected to form a local team of at least five adults – preferably seven to 12 core members – with a range of skills. Teams must commit to following EMM’s and the State Department’s resettlement guidelines and will receive training from EMM staff before the refugees’ arrival.
The community partners receive federal funding of $1,100 per refugee to cover administrative costs and an additional $1,325 in direct assistance for each refugee, to help cover some of the cost of food, rent, utilities, furniture, transportation and other basic needs for those first 90 days.
Each team is notified in advance when a refugee or family has been cleared to travel to the United States, and team members are expected to welcome the new arrivals at the airport, then take them to their new home, orient them to the space and serve them a culturally appropriate first meal.
Team members, arranging for interpretation services if needed, also help the refugees with a range of initial tasks, such as scheduling a health screening, applying for short-term government assistance, seeking employment and registering children for school. The initial support ends after three months, but community partners are encouraged to continue extending a spirit of welcome as their new neighbors adjust to the community.
Last week, about two dozen people signed up for a series of online webinars that EMM organized to share information about the community partner program and to recruit more dioceses and congregations to participate. Additional information is available on EMM’s website and by emailing emm@episcopalchurch.org.
Duvall said during one of the webinars that EMM is ready to expand its reach this fall by signing up new community partners. “We’re hopeful,” she said, “that through these recruitment calls that we’re hosting this week, we might build a critical mass of new community partners who can form their own network and kind of learn from and give support for one another.”
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.