Ali Noorani [00:00:18] Welcome back and happy New Year. We are kicking off 2021 with a series on the incoming Biden administration’s path forward on immigration. And this week, we’re getting started by looking at our nation’s refugee resettlement program.
Mark Hetfield [00:00:31] We really need to look more at how do we better meet the needs of these refugees, how do we make sure that we are fully utilizing the skills that they bring to this country, so that they can succeed and so this country can benefit from their resettlement.
Ali Noorani [00:00:45] From the National Immigration Forum, I’m Ali Noorani, and this is Only in America. Since the attack on the U.S. Capitol a week ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about why immigrants and refugees so want to come to the United States of America. Most of the time we make the case that it is for better economic opportunities or for a safer life. And yes, that is true. But as our nation is staggered through this transition period, as authoritarian forces here try to hold on to power, as authoritarians around the world act with even greater impunity, I believe that there’s another reason immigrants and refugees come to the United States. It’s for our democracy. Because it’s our democracy and our belief in a peaceful transition of power that allows for the freedom and opportunity to pursue one’s dreams, for one, to reach their fullest potential. This is not available to so many people around the world. What we saw last week is that very clearly our democracy was under attack. But as I look back, and I look forward, I have faith that we’ll survive. Our democracy will survive because of the generations of Americans who have fought and died for our nation, the millions of Americans who exercise their rights in our democratic society, and the millions of immigrants and refugees who have strengthened our democracy. Now we have a new Congress, and soon we will welcome a new president. We’re not a perfect country. We’re not a perfect people. But at our best, we share a deep belief in the idea that all people have and should be treated with dignity. So I believe it will be the resilience of Americans, whether they’ve been here for generations or four weeks, that will make a better future.
Underwriting [00:03:01] Support for the National Immigration Forum comes from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement and strengthening international peace and security and from Humanity United. When humanity is united, we can bring a powerful force for human dignity.
Ali Noorani [00:03:25] Of the hundreds of immigration actions the Trump administration has taken over the last four years, the historically low refugee admissions cap amid the largest global refugee crisis in history is really one of the most jarring. Has the Biden administration looks to take control and begins to rebuild the refugee admissions program, how do we make sure we have a better program? It’s not just about undoing the damage of the last four years. It’s about improving a system that was outdated even before Trump took office. As my guest today points out, a refugee program was designed decades ago when the global refugee crisis looked completely different. Mark Hatfield is the president and CEO of HIAS, founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Today, HIAS is one of the nine primarily faith based organizations partnering with the federal government to help resettle refugees. HIAS is also engaged in refugee advocacy at the local, national and international level. Mark and I spoke about the obstacles refugees face on the road to resettlement, the policy decisions facing the Bush administration and what he thinks a modernized refugee program could look like.
Ali Noorani [00:04:33] Hey, Mark, thank you so much for joining us today. I really, really appreciate it and really grateful for the work of HIAS and all the work that you’ve done there for so many years. So thank you for joining us.
Mark Hetfield [00:04:44] Thanks, Ali. It’s great to be here.
Ali Noorani [00:04:45] So before we jump into the issues, tell me a little about yourself. I have no idea how you ended up not just at HIAS, but also into this field of refugee resettlement.
Mark Hetfield [00:04:56] So I was actually a Soviet studies major in college, which is not as obsolete as I once thought it was-
Ali Noorani [00:05:04] It could be a growth industry. It’s a great plan b.
Mark Hetfield [00:05:07] Yes, the Soviet Union is definitely coming back. And but one of my first jobs out of college was with HIAS. I was a case worker in Rome working with Soviet Jews who were fleeing the Soviet Union and coming to the United States, New Zealand, Canada or Australia. And I was a case worker and that got me hooked on the immigration and refugee field. And since that time, I’ve actually tried to leave HIAS three times. I’ve quit three times, but I’ve always come back. And so now I’m president and CEO 31 years after having started there.
Ali Noorani [00:05:44] That is quite the the recruitment and retention strategy for HIAS there. So what I wanted to talk to you about is one of the big issues the Biden administration will face is how to rebuild the refugee resettlement system. So if you could lay out for me, what should that system look like? Let’s let’s start there and then we can start to unpack it.
Mark Hetfield [00:06:05] Yeah, and it’s interesting, because this is something I used to talk about during the Obama administration all the time. I would complain incessantly that this is a system that was designed in 1980, and it needs a revamping. But the system was under so much attack for the last four years that we’ve been defending the system as it is. But again, it’s like when you buy a car, at some point you have to stop repairing the car and get a new car. The U.S. refugee admissions program is a 1980 vehicle, and it definitely needs to be redesigned and made more efficient, made to operate in the operating environment of the 21st century. And we are so far from doing that. I mean, if there is anything we really need to build back better, it’s the US refugee admissions program because it’s not 1980 anymore.
Ali Noorani [00:06:53] So what does that look like? What does the, you know, 2021, one version of the US refugee admission program look like?
Mark Hetfield [00:07:00] Well, for one thing, we’re now resettling much more diverse groups of people. In 1980, the refugee program was dominated by refugees from Southeast Asia and Russian speaking Soviet Jews and Pentecostal Christians. That has changed. It’s now an extremely diverse program, with refugees coming from around one hundred countries who are assessed based on vulnerability. The numbers, the needs are even larger than they were back then. We have the largest global refugee crisis in history. And so the 1980 cookie cutter approach to refugee resettlement just doesn’t cut it anymore. So we really need to look more at how do we better meet the needs of these refugees? How do we make sure that we are fully utilizing the skills that they bring to this country so that they can succeed and so this country can benefit from their resettlement? And for those refugees who don’t bring skills, how can we make sure that they do as well as they possibly can, or in a position where they and their families can not just survive, but flourish and really contribute to our society? The refugee admissions program, it’s kind of a tough love sink or swim program. The most intensive assistance is really just given for the first 90 days after arrival. And all focus is getting the refugees employed as quickly as possible. And we do a pretty good job of that. But a longer term perspective, trying to make sure that there is a strategy for each refugee to really succeed and be able to fully contribute as a member of society, as as a member of their family, as a taxpayer, is something that we need to start paying a lot more attention to. But that’s just on the receiving end. In terms of processing refugees, first of all, the system has been totally decimated with the refugee admissions ceiling lowered from one hundred and ten thousand in the last year of the Obama administration to 15,000 this year, the lowest number in the 40 year history of the program. So we need to build up a pipeline so that we can actually make sure the refugee program helps contribute to solutions for refugees in a significant way. With seventy nine point five million displaced persons in the world right now, resettling fifteen thousand refugees a year just is not going to make a contribution to addressing the global refugee crisis. Back in 1980, when the program started, we resettled two hundred and seven thousand one hundred and twelve refugees in a single year. And when you’re resettling that kind of number, you can really help solve the global refugee crisis and help lesser developed countries who carry the overwhelming burden of refugee protection by sheer accident of thier geography, like really help them address the strains that kind of of an influx of refugees puts on their economy and on their own security issues. So it’s all about global responsibility, sharing and the US playing a global leadership role and making sure that refugees don’t remain lingering in camps or in dangerous urban environments for extended periods of time, but are able to find a solution, whether that solution is resettlement or integration in their country of first asylum or returning home in safety and in dignity. So this is just, you know, we have to work on a comprehensive approach to refugees. And resettlement is one important component of that approach.
Ali Noorani [00:10:28] So, you know, every time I see these numbers and you just mention this of kind of the less developed countries and just the massive numbers of displaced people who are within their borders like Pakistan and others, just the stress that’s placed on them. But give me a sense of how HIAS is doing the work in the states in terms of the receiving end, and what does that work look like? And what are you most worried about as a Biden administration starts to hopefully rebuild the system in terms of HIAS’s capacity to resettle refugees?
Mark Hetfield [00:11:02] Sure. And I would say that over the last five years, there has been a terrific resurgence of interest in refugee resettlement in the United States and among the Jewish community in particular, which is HIAS’s constituency. And this has been tremendously helpful. It was really helpful when the Obama administration finally ramped up the refugee program in 2016 and the beginning of 2017 because we had so many volunteers and donors who really wanted to engage in welcoming refugees to this country. And that was a significant shift. My biggest problem when I first took this job seven years ago was apathy, frankly, apathy in the Jewish community toward refugees and apathy in our larger society toward refugees. But when the body of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee boy, washed up on the shores of Turkey, he humanized the global refugee crisis. And just it really was a call to action for our entire country and for the Jewish community as well. So we have about 600 congregations around the country, Jewish congregations who have signed up as part of our welcome campaign or otherwise engaged with us and are anxious to start resettling refugees and welcoming them to our country. And so we’re really looking forward to activating that network, which supports our own network of Jewish family service agencies that resettle refugees around the country, as well as in places where HIAS does not have an affiliate, the affiliates of the other eight national refugee resettlement agencies. So we have a lot of grassroots support right now that we did not have six years ago. And we’re looking forward to sustaining that support through the Biden administration and the rebuilding of the US refugee program.
Ali Noorani [00:12:48] So one of the things that has always kind of bounced between the the receiving side of this and then where folks are coming from. But I was wondering if you could kind of walk us through the process that an individual goes through. So let’s use the example of a Syrian refugee in Turkey who is, in essence, going through the resettlement process. What steps are they taking? But then also, I think importantly, from our perspective, in terms of advocates, which agencies are in charge of which particular step?
Mark Hetfield [00:13:18] Well, I could take up the entire podcast talking about the refugee resettlement program is such an obstacle course in this, again, is one of the things that needs to be looked at and streamlined, but since you asked. First of all, you need to flee, right? The refugee needs to flee his or her country, and then once they get to a place like, say, they flee, as you said, from Syria to Turkey, they need to register with the UN and or with the government, with the host government. Generally speaking, the U.N. then does an assessment, determines whether or not that person is a refugee. Then after that assessment, there’s a separate assessment about whether or not that person needs to be resettled, and only one percent of of the world’s refugees are actually eligible or actually are resettled. This isn’t because they don’t need resettlement. It’s because there are just so few resettlement places in the world and so many refugees. So if the UNHCR decides that that refugee meets the criteria for resettlement and that’s based on protection issues in the country of first asylum or no foreseeable opportunity to return home and no opportunity to integrate in that country of first asylum, then the UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, writes up an extensive referral and refers it to a resettlement country, the largest of which has traditionally been the United States. Although we were surpassed by Canada during the Trump administration in terms of the number of refugees resettled. And then the process basically has to start all over again as the resettlement country, in this case, the United States considers that applicant for resettlement. So that applicant is then sent to a resettlement support center, if he or she is referred to the United States. The resettlement support center prepares the application, which is an incredible amount of paperwork and sets up medical appointments, sets up the interview with Homeland Security, documents the applicant’s persecution story to demonstrate that he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion. And then once that person gets through all those interviews, he finally sees a homeland security officer who then interviews the applicant to determine whether or not he or she actually meets the refugee definition. And notwithstanding that determination had already been made by the U.N. refugee agency, it has made again de novo by the homeland security officer. And then once the homeland security officer makes that determination, and actually, while much of this process is going on, there is security vetting going on. And so the applicants life is basically scrubbed and scrutinized by a number of unknown US law enforcement and intelligence agencies to make sure that person is not a threat to the United States government. These checks keep going and going kind of in a circular way until the applicant actually is given clearance to get on a plane and come to the United States. And again, those arrangements are made by the resettlement support center. So, as you can imagine, this process, even though these are people who are in dire need of assistance in many cases and in dire need of getting out of a dangerous situation, takes many, many months. In the Obama administration, we used to say it would take 18 to 24 months to get through this. But in reality, a lot of people can’t get through it at all because it takes so long and because there are so many opportunities for you to fall within the cracks. So it’s a very difficult gantlet of a process to get through before you can actually get on a plane to come to the United States. And again, that’s something that really needs to be looked at.
Ali Noorani [00:17:01] And that’s all before somebody, in essence, connects with HIAS and begins the actual resettlement process?
Mark Hetfield [00:17:08] Right, what happens on the US end is once that person is approved by Homeland Security, the list of names is sent to Washington and is shared with the nine national resettlement agencies, including HIAS. And we decide where that applicant is best placed once he arrives in the United States or she arrives in the United States. And then we help that person get started on their new life here for that, at least for that initial period of about 90 days and sometimes for a little longer than that, but almost never for more than that initial year. So if the refugees who are resettled do get some assistance, but it’s very time limited and we have to remember that refugees by definition, come here with nothing.
Ali Noorani [00:17:52] And President Biden can reset the refugee ceiling, the refugee resettlement number on day one.
Mark Hetfield [00:18:00] He has to do that in consultation with Congress, the resettlement number’s set each year in consultation with Congress. But truth be told, it’s more informing Congress than getting their consent. So he would have to inform Congress in the consultation process that he does intend to revise the refugee no upward. He has said he’s going to increase the refugee admissions number to one hundred and twenty five thousand, which again is it sounds high, but it is nowhere near as high as some years in the past when the US has resettled refugees and it’s relatively small compared to the enormity of the global refugee crisis and the burden that other countries of first asylum are facing right now in terms of the number of refugees coming inside of there, inside of their borders. There is a precedent for this. Back in 1999 during the Kosovo refugee crisis, the Clinton administration had to revise the refugee ceiling upwards so that we could respond appropriately to the number of Kosovars that needed humanitarian evacuation, which was done through the US refugee admissions program. So we know this can be done more than once during the course of the year and the number can be revised upwards.
Ali Noorani [00:19:13] So let’s say President Biden, he decides to meet this commitment to raise the number to one twenty five. What changes then need to be made to kind of reestablish that pipeline of people coming through the system? I guess, he revises that number upward, but that unlocks an entirely different set of challenges.
Mark Hetfield [00:19:33] Yes, and that is basically the decision of the State Department of the Biden administration. With so many refugees in the world, they’re going to have to decide which ones should be prioritized for resettlement to the United States. And this is really a policy decision, like the refugee resettlement program is not like the asylum program in the sense that if you’re applying for asylum, basically, no matter what your nationality is, no matter what your situation is, if you’re in the United States or at the border of the United States, you have the right to apply for asylum. There’s no right to apply for resettlement. You have to fall within criteria and priorities that are set by the State Department, essentially. So the decision has to be made about which case loads to prioritize or how UNHCR should prioritize the refugees that they refer to us, or whether the United States government wants to set humanitarian mission categories for specific groups that don’t need to go through UNHCR. So those are policy decisions that the Biden administration is going to have to make pretty early. The problem is or one problem is the security vetting process. This extreme vetting was actually initiated by the Bush administration, George W. Bush administration after September 11th to fortify and secure our country. And then it was built on significantly by the Obama administration, which added multiple new layers to the security vetting process. Those layers were further added on to by the Trump administration. So what you have now is a vetting process that takes place entirely in a black box. It’s an entirely opaque process. Nobody, outside of the government really knows what vetting is being done. We just know that it takes an awful long time, and it has a very high number of false positives and that a lot of refugees fall through the cracks during this process. And that creates an awful lot of damage that is an impediment to rebuilding the refugee program and really needs to be looked at by somebody who has the authority and the mission to balance our national security needs with our humanitarian mission of finding solutions for refugees. And I do want to commend the National Immigration Forum for the paper that was recently released: “Robust Refugee Programs Aid National Security” by Elizabeth Nouman. I think it outlines these issues very clearly.
Ali Noorani [00:22:06] Thank you. Thank you. But you’re kind of getting into that that balance of security concerns, but also humanitarian concerns. One thing I’ve been kind of thinking about, just kind of given the moment and the world tp the diplomatic benefit of a robust refugee resettlement program, it sends an important signal to the world that the US is going to stand up for democracy and those who are looking for a safe, secure, a democratic place to live, the US will welcome them. And I feel like some of that is has been lost in this conversation of is it security or is a humanitarian. But it’s in some ways it’s much bigger than that.
Mark Hetfield [00:22:42] Absolutely. I mean, it’s a really important foreign policy tool and it’s a really important way to help find solutions for refugees, not just the ones that we resettle, but by resettling refugees from a country of first asylum you’re helping that country of first asylum with the refugees who remain there. I mean, you’re helping to show them that the United States has skin in the game, that we’re willing to share responsibility with them. But it has to be done strategically and we have to take a significant enough number of refugees to demonstrate the seriousness of the commitment to actually have an impact for that country of first asylum. I mean, one of the inherent problems with the refugee convention, which, of course, we love the Refugee Convention, it’s made HIAS’s job much easier since since 1951, since refugees finally have a right to flee and and seek and enjoy asylum under the refugee convention, something which didn’t exist during during the Holocaust or prior to that. The problem with the Refugee Convention is, while it requires individual states, individual governments to protect refugees, it doesn’t require the international community to pitch in to help those governments. And so there’s no mandated responsibility sharing. There’s no obligation to share responsibility that’s entirely voluntary by individual governments. And the United States has traditionally played an important role in sharing responsibility, but not over the last four years.
Ali Noorani [00:24:11] And over the last four years, has the US commitment to UNHCR kind of a financial commitment as a donor and a supporter of UNHCR work, how is that changed?
Mark Hetfield [00:24:21] Yeah, it’s a really good question. The fact is, this is one area where we really have to thank Congress. Because in the budgets that the Trump administration would present, they would have slashed humanitarian assistance by 30 percent. But in reality, Congress didn’t let that happen. So the funding that’s going to the U.N. refugee agency, I would say it hasn’t increased as much as it should have, but it hasn’t fallen either. It’s remained pretty strong during this administration.
Ali Noorani [00:24:49] Which kind of leads to my next question of what is the role of Congress moving forward in terms of rebuilding the refugee resettlement program?
Mark Hetfield [00:24:57] To fund it. I mean, the bottom line is it’s an appropriations function. When Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, they gave a great deal of authority to the president to run the refugee program. So the president does have a lot of discretion. So a lot of these fixes could actually be made by the president. The Refugee Act of 1980 still provides an adequate framework for the refugee program to operate in, so I would say legislation is not necessary to overhaul the refugee program, but it does require executive will. And you had asked earlier about the agencies that are involved, and this is where there’s a real challenge because it’s hard for the program to be reformed because there are so many chefs in this kitchen.
Ali Noorani [00:25:40] Yeah, no kidding.
Mark Hetfield [00:25:41] There’s the State Department, there’s Homeland Security, there’s Health and Human Services. There’s, of course, the White House and the NSC. And those are the traditional players. But during this era of extreme vetting, the 21st century, a myriad of intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been brought in as well. And so they have a very strong voice in the program and who is and is not admitted. And so there really needs to be somebody in authority who understands the strategic importance of the refugee program, as well as the security issues to try to herd these agencies to have a program that functions in a in a cohesive way. But we’re very far from that point right now.
Ali Noorani [00:26:26] Yeah, it feels like it’s a program that, like I said, just has a lot of cooks and a lot of chefs in that kitchen. Now, from the HIAS perspective, you know, when you’re looking at the first hundred days of the Biden administration, what are your priorities for the organization?
Mark Hetfield [00:26:40] The number one priority, I mean, they have to set a new refugee ceiling, but that will be aspirational because the system is so broken, it will take some months to get that built up again. Not to mention the challenges of operating under covid can’t be overstated, but they should take advantage of this ramp up period to really overhaul the system, to streamline it, to make it, to modernize it, to make sure it’s vetting refugees effectively, but with an emphasis that effective vetting does not mean vetting that takes a long time. Effective vetting doesn’t mean vetting out refugees who have false positives or allowing refugees to fall between the cracks during the vetting process, never to emerge from those cracks. And that’s the process that we have right now. So there needs to be a total overhaul to the way vetting happens, because right now it is so dysfunctional and so difficult to navigate that it’s just impossible to have a serious refugee program when every refugee has to go through this obstacle course with a blindfold on, because they don’t really understand, because nobody is told what they have to do to get through the vetting process and how they can overcome problems that are identified during the vetting process. So that really needs to be priority number one. There’s a lot of things we can do better in terms of integration, in terms of, again, as I mentioned, making sure the refugees live up to their potential. But if we can’t get refugees here because they can’t get through this expensive and lengthy and painful obstacle course, we’re not going to have an opportunity to even address those problems. So that really needs to be the first priority.
Ali Noorani [00:28:20] And then where can people go to get more information about the work that they’re doing, Mark?
Mark Hetfield [00:28:24] That’s easy. Our website has a lot of information, HIAS.org, and a lot of information about how you can engage in refugee resettlement in your community, and then, of course, the coalition to which we belong, Refugee Council USA: rcusa.org also has a lot of information linking to HIAS, as well as the other aid agencies that are also national refugee resettlement agencies.
Ali Noorani [00:28:50] Great, and then my last question for you is actually the hardest one. The name of the podcast is Only in America. And my question to folks is just to finish this sentence: Only in America…
Mark Hetfield [00:29:01] Only in America do we fully understand that refugees are a benefit and not a burden to our society. This is America’s secret.
Ali Noorani [00:29:09] Hey, Mark, thank you so, so much. And really, again, very grateful for what you do and what all your hear your teammates to over at HIAS. So thank you.
Mark Hetfield [00:29:17] And we are for your work, too, Ali. Thank you.
Ali Noorani [00:29:29] Mark Hatfield is the president and CEO of HIAS. You can learn more about HIAS and their work at our website, ImmigrationForum.org/podcast. And please, if you like what you hear, subscribe to Only in America wherever you’re listening to this episode. Stay tuned for next week’s episode, where we’ll be discussing how the Biden administration can balance national security with compassionate immigration policy. Only in America is produced and edited by Joanna Taylor and Becka Wall. Our artwork and graphics are designed by Karla Leyja. I’m Ali Noorani. I will talk to you next week.