Refugee Refugees Program

Words: 378
Pages: 2

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) promotes peace and security in refugee-hosting countries. In September, shortly after my arrival at post, President Obama increased the 2016 target for resettling refugees to the United States by 21 percent. I have dedicated my first eight months in this position to helping meet this target while upholding strict processing requirements for departing refugees.

Resettling refugees one-by-one is labor intensive. To save time and U.S. Government funds, I enlisted the Department of State (DOS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to promote group resettlement, processing en masse those refugees who have fled the same conflict around the same time. This measure