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From the President’s Desk An Exciting Time, Rife with Opportunity In recent weeks, when people have asked me how things are going at LIRS, I find myself more buoyant and my responses more hopeful than they have been in months. LIRS has faced two extraordinarily heavy challenges this past year—the “material support” bars to entry for refugees and asylum seekers, and the debate over comprehensive immigration reform. We have not yet overcome these obstacles, but it appears that there may be breakthroughs ahead that will present some tremendous opportunities for increased service with and for uprooted people. The material support issue led to significant reductions in the number of refugees admitted to the United States for resettlement, as well as insecurity for refugees, asylees and asylum seekers already in the United States. The impact has been serious—on the refugees themselves, on their loved ones already in the United States and on the LIRS affiliate network’s ability to have a sufficient caseload to sustain its ability to offer resettlement services. The immigration reform debate confronted us with a harsh enforcement-only bill passed by the House of Representatives and the specter that portions of LIRS’s work might be criminalized. America’s immigration system is badly broken and desperately needs to be fixed. In the meantime, families are divided and living in fear, workers and employers cannot contract with each other honestly and openly, and our nation is less secure. Now there is hope that these issues may be resolved. I am cautiously optimistic that there will be a legislative fix to the material support issue, perhaps even this spring. If there is, and if Congress appropriates adequate funds and the State Department overcomes certain administrative barriers, U.S. refugee resettlement could expand dramatically, perhaps rising next year even to the 90,000 annual level that the Bush administration had aspired to attain by 2005. This would provide new hope and new life to Burmese, Bhutanese and Iraqi refugees as well as many other victims of persecution. I am also cautiously optimistic that positive comprehensive immigration reform will be enacted by Congress in 2007. President Bush called for reform again in this year’s State of the Union address, and Congress is struggling to craft a bipartisan bill. If comprehensive reform is adopted, LIRS and our partners will have the opportunity to assist in the legalization of many of the more than 10 million undocumented persons in the United States and to help unify families who are now separated. I am also encouraged by prospects in a third major area: children’s services. The dramatic growth in LIRS’s programs for children is a prime example of the interrelationship between service and advocacy. LIRS is giving leadership to UNHCR regarding how to identify the best interests of unaccompanied and separated minors in refugee camps, to make sure that these vulnerable children are not forgotten. As these efforts develop UNHCR and various national governments will increasingly turn to agencies like LIRS to actually implement the best-interest determinations and actually care for the children in ways they should have been cared for all along. Domestically, LIRS continues to give sterling leadership in exposing the improper treatment of children and families in immigration detention, and to offer practical, workable alternatives that address enforcement concerns, respect child and family well-being and save taxpayers’ money. This has been and continues to be an extraordinarily challenging time for LIRS, for our partners and especially for the people we serve. Yet it is also an exciting time, rife with opportunity.
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