Luncheon on the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

The WFLS hosted a discussion with two of the Administration’s top experts on the international resettlement of refugees into the United States.  Every year the United States admits over 70,000 refugees from around the world for permanent resettlement in the United States.  The program is one of the U.S. Government’s most important humanitarian programs and has helped well over 2 million people find safety in the United States in the last 30 years.  Terry Rusch of the U.S. Department of State and Barbara Strack of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were the Society’s featured speakers for a lunchtime discussion of this extraordinary program.  The discussion included information on how refugees are selected for movement to the United States out of millions of displaced people worldwide, explored the legal standards that people seeking refugee status in the United States need to meet, provided an overview of the interviewing process, and discussed the impact that 9/11 had on the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.