“Refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children with the same hopes and ambitions as us – except that a twist of fate has bound their lives to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.”
Khaled Hosseini
The refugee crisis:
A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. The International Rescue Committee (IRC.org) estimates that, as of 2024, 120 million people (up from 80 million in 2020) have been displaced from their home. Many are internally displaced (still in their country), but over 43 million (up from 26 million) are refugees. This is the greatest number of refugees since World War II.
The large increase in refugees has been driven by succeeding crises: the Syrian war, the Afghan war and subsequent evacuation (of 100,00 to the U.S. alone) and the Ukrainian crisis (which added 5 million refugees). Meanwhile, refugees have fled from several conflict areas in Africa; millions have been waiting years while the world focuses on the headline-grabbing conflicts.
Each year, only a small fraction, around one percent of refugees, are resettled in welcoming countries.
Refugees coming to the U.S.:
Welcoming persecuted people from other countries is America’s most noble tradition, and the U.S. has traditionally been a leader.
To welcome refugees while also protecting homeland security, the U.S. Government has an extensive vetting process of multiple security checks and interviews, which can take a year or, more often, two years. (The U.S. departments of State and Homeland Security manage this vetting process. It’s a different department, Health and Human Services, which processes asylum seekers, who are people who enter the U.S. first and then ask permission to stay.)
The U.S. typically welcomes around 85,000 – 100,000 refugees a year and some Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders. (SIVs are people who have assisted the US as translators or interpreters or in other roles in, for example, Iraq or Afghanistan, and have as a result been put in harm’s way. They remain in their country until they received their approval to come to the U.S.) However, in the 2017-2021 Administration, the ceiling of maximum refugees was significantly lowered, and there were also deep cuts in the staff needed to process the requests, so few were settled.
The next administration returned to the U.S.’s historic levels and created public/private partnerships to engage more local communities in welcoming and supporting refugees. However, a January 2025 Executive Order paused all refugee admissions via all programs and froze funding already pledged for recently-arrived refugees. Later, the US Refugee Admissions Program was slashed and redirected towards white South Africans. IRIS and SIRS are not participating in the current refugee program.
Refugees, SIVs and Humanitarian Parolees in Connecticut:
Connecticut has a strong tradition of welcoming the stranger, including refugees, Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders, and Afghan and Ukrainian humanitarian parolees. IRIS–Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services used its own employees to resettle many of these, but also placed many families with local groups (like SIRS), which formed Community Co-sponsor or Sponsor Circle groups, which IRIS trained, coached and supervised. IRIS is currently focused on providing immigration legal support and helping immigrants already here with English-language learning and employment up-skilling.
To raise money to support refugee resettlement in Connecticut, IRIS holds an annual Run for Refugees in New Haven. To support IRIS, SIRS also holds a local Run/Walk for Refugees to raise awareness and to raise money for IRIS. This photo show SIRS volunteers and friends, along with two SIRS-assisted families, in our February 2024 Walk in Stamford. February 2025 marked SIRS’s 4th Run/Walk at Stamford’s Cove Island Park; this walk — in snow and frigid temperatures — drew a smaller, hardy bunch and attracted many donations to support IRIS.
For updates on the refugee situation – worldwide, in the U.S. and in Connecticut – revisit this web page and plan to attend SIRS’s next event.
