WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is poised to announce a pilot program Thursday that would allow groups of private American citizens to financially sponsor the resettlement of refugees fleeing war and violence around the world, three people briefed on the announcement told CBS News.
The State Department initiative, to be called Welcome Corps, could pave the way for a seismic shift in U.S. refugee policy, as most refugees brought to the U.S. in recent decades have been resettled by nine nonprofits that receive federal funding .
Under the program, modeled after a long-standing system in Canada, U.S.-based groups of at least five people can be eligible to sponsor refugees if they raise $2,275 per refugee, pass background checks and submit a plan for how they will help newcomers, the sources said.
Approved private sponsors will play the role of traditional resettlement agencies, helping newly arrived refugees gain access to housing and other basic needs, such as food, medical services, education and public benefits, for which they are responsible.
The Biden administration initially said it would launch the program before the end of 2022. But in a statement in late December, the State Department said the schedule had been pushed back. During the first phase of the program, State Department officials will match sponsors with refugees abroad who have already been cleared to come to the U.S.
“We will later introduce an identification component through the pilot program through which private sponsors will be able to identify refugees abroad to be referred to (the U.S. refugee program) and apply to support their resettlement as private sponsors,” said The State Department in its December statement.
An aerial view shows al-Fawwar refugee camp southwest of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on April 8, 2021. HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images
The Welcome Corps initiative would be the latest effort by the Biden administration to expand legal immigration channels for refugees and migrants with family members and others in the U.S. willing to sponsor them financially.
In late 2021, the State Department authorized “sponsorship circles” of at least five private individuals to sponsor some of the tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees resettled in the U.S. after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
Then, in early 2022, officials launched a program that allows Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of their homeland to come to the U.S. under humanitarian parole authorities if they have U.S.-based sponsors. More than 100,000 Ukrainians have come to the U.S. under the policy, federal statistics show.
Officials have since expanded that approach, allowing US-based individuals to sponsor the entry of citizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela as part of efforts to deter migrants from those countries from crossing the southern border illegally. Like Ukrainians, migrants from these countries will be allowed to live and work legally in the US temporarily through the parole authority.
Unlike those arriving under parole authority, refugees who will arrive under the sponsorship initiative to be announced Thursday will be eligible for permanent legal status and eventually U.S. citizenship, as as they will be processed through the traditional refugee program.
Formally established in 1980, the US refugee program has granted asylum to more than 3 million refugees identified as having fled armed conflict, ethnic persecution, and other forms of violence. Refugees go through interviews, security checks and medical examinations as part of a years-long process before coming to the US
While President Biden has pledged to rebuild the U.S. refugee system, which has been crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic and drastic Trump-era cuts, his administration is struggling to return refugee admissions to pre-pandemic levels and meet its lofty resettlement goals.
In fiscal year 2022, the US accepted 25,465 refugees, using only 20% of the 125,000 refugee places allocated by Mr. Biden. In the first three months of the 2023 fiscal year, when Mr. Biden again set a goal of accepting up to 125,000 refugees, the United States resettled fewer than 7,000 refugees, State Department figures show.
Internally displaced people (IDPs) walk on a road in Bushagara district, north of the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, January 13, 2023. GUERCHOM NDEBO/AFP via Getty Images
While the pandemic has temporarily halted refugee admissions and delayed refugee interviews, the program has been drastically scaled back under policy directives issued by President Trump, who has argued that refugees are an economic, national security and cultural threat to the US
The Trump administration has dramatically reduced refugee admissions, allocating an all-time low of 15,000 spots in fiscal year 2021. It has also limited the categories of those who can be resettled and sought to give states and cities the right to veto refugee resettlement. The restrictions and record low ceilings have forced organizations that resettle refugees to cut staff and close offices across the country.
As the Biden administration struggled to rebuild the U.S. refugee system, the number of people displaced by violence around the world surpassed 100 million, more than at any other time in history, according to the United Nations.
Chris O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, one of the main US resettlement groups, praised the private sponsorship program for relying on a “progressive approach to harnessing the generosity of the American spirit.” But she urged the Biden administration to also prioritize speeding up refugee processing and increasing admissions.
“At a time of unprecedented global displacement, there are too many vulnerable children and families who depend on our nation’s humanitarian leadership to fully restore itself,” Vignarajah said.
More Camilo Montoya-Galves
Camilo Montoya-Galves is the immigration reporter for CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.
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