9 votes

US citizens can now sponsor refugees directly. Here’s how to apply.

1 comment

  1. skybrian
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    Good article and it sounds like a good program. There may be an opportunity for charitable donations, helping sponsors raise money even if you're not prepared to be a sponsor yourself. This is...

    Good article and it sounds like a good program. There may be an opportunity for charitable donations, helping sponsors raise money even if you're not prepared to be a sponsor yourself.

    This is somewhat of a weird argument, though:

    [B]y directly sponsoring refugees, citizens can offer them more social support than the government could alone, in part because they’re focused on one specific refugee or refugee family, rather than splitting their focus among thousands, as is inevitably the case with government agencies.

    Makes sense to me.

    This is the government’s job. That’s why the advocacy groups that pushed for the Welcome Corps program insisted that any refugees who come to the US via private sponsorship should be in addition to the number of traditional, government-assisted resettlement cases.

    That's a little strange. They just got through saying that sponsors can do a better job than the government could alone? I don't know how many volunteers they will be able to find, but it seems like the more the better, and if every refugee had sponsors helping them, wouldn't that be a great thing?

    Being in addition to existing programs sounds like a good way to increase immigration overall, though; it avoids being subject to immigration caps.

    3 votes