WASHINGTON (AP) — Every day, Americans will be able to help refugees adjust to life in the U.S. in a program launched by the State Department as a way to give citizens a role in resettling the thousands of refugees who arrive each year.
The State Department plans to announce the program, called Welcome Corps, on Thursday. The agency aims to place 10,000 Americans who can help 5,000 refugees in the first year of the program.
“By capitalizing on the goodwill of American communities, Welcome Corps will expand our country’s capacity to provide a warm welcome to greater numbers of refugees,” the release said.
The State Department has traditionally worked with nonprofit organizations that specialize in refugee issues to help people from around the world when they first arrive in the country and face a dramatically different way of life. Under the program announced Thursday, five or more Americans would be able to form a group and fill that role as well.
They will apply to privately sponsor refugees for resettlement in America and be responsible for raising their own money to help refugees during their first 90 days in the country. Help will include everything from finding housing to enrolling children in school.
A consortium of non-profit organizations with expertise in refugee resettlement will help oversee the vetting and certification of individuals and groups seeking to be private sponsors. They will also offer training so that private sponsors understand what it takes to help refugees adjust to life in America. The consortium will be responsible for monitoring the programme.
The new initiative will roll out in two phases, according to the State Department. Under the first phase, private sponsors will be matched with refugees already approved for resettlement under the US Refugee Assistance Program. This will start in the first half of 2023.
In the second phase of the program, private sponsors will be able to identify refugees abroad they would like to help, and then refer those people to the Refugee Assistance Program and help them once they arrive in the US
The Welcome Corps program comes on the heels of a similar, smaller effort in which Americans have been able to sponsor Afghans or Ukrainians fleeing their country. This program launched in October 2021 and has helped just over 800 people coming to America through a network of 230 certified sponsors.
President Joe Biden pledged in a 2021 executive order to restore the US as a global sanctuary and called for private sponsorship of refugees. The previous administration, under President Donald Trump, largely rolled back the refugee program.
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