Jersey City Refugee Nonprofit Is Hopeful After Biden Raises Cap

JERSEY CITY, NJ — On Monday, President Joe Biden announced the formal increase in the number of refugees allowed in the U.S. — refugee admissions are now capped at 62,500, up from the Trump administrations cap of 15,000 refugees.

For local nonprofits like Welcome Home Jersey City, the increase is long-awaited good news.

"On the one hand this is great news, on the other hand from a practical point of view, we recognize that the resettlement program has been largely decimated," said Alain Mentha, Executive Director of Welcome Home Jersey City.

Welcome Home Jersey City is not a resettlement agency, but it often works alongside resettlement agencies, asylum and immigration lawyers and other organizations to offer longer-term support to refugees and asylees in the area getting used to their new home in Jersey City. Mentha said he hopes the new raised cap will bring more refugees to the area and in-turn, an official collaboration between the resettlement agencies in New Jersey and organizations like Welcome Home.

Resettlement agencies in the U.S. are short-staffed as well as the agencies overseas that vet potential refugees to come to the U.S., according to Mentha.

"I think a lot more needs to be done," Mentha said, "But it's definitely an important step."

New Jersey has two resettlement agencies: Interfaith Rise in Highland Park and International Rescue Committee or IRC in Elizabeth. Welcome Home has a relationship with IRC, but Mentha hopes to formalize the relationship into a resettlement program called community sponsorship. What community sponsorship does is allow local nonprofits, volunteers and organizations the agency to help official resettlement agencies designated by the federal government, house and support newly arrived refugees, right in the home city of the organization.

"Where IRC has usually done this work themselves and found homes for newly arrived refugees in Elizabeth, we can provide the resources in Jersey City — we have lots of volunteers on the ground in Jersey City," Mentha said.

Conversations about community sponsorship and a potential official partnership are underway, Mentha said.

Over the last few months, Mentha said most agencies have not seen a big number of refugees coming in, but not because the refugees aren't there — more likely it is because of the shallow caps implemented by the Trump administration and COVID-19 related travel restrictions. All that is expected to change in the coming months.

Since Welcome Home mainly focuses on supporting refugees who have already been resettled, Mentha expects the work moving forward to also focus on helping those resettled refugees reunite with family that may be arriving thanks to the increased cap.

"I remember early on in the pandemic getting frantic calls from folks who were hoping that they would be reunified and experiencing dismay," Mentha said, "I know that there are Eritrean families here in Jersey City that are hoping that their families will be able to come here and join them."

For now, Mentha and his team at Welcome Home are hopeful that the increased cap will bring those families and other refugees to the U.S. and that organizations like Welcome Home can be part of a larger network of support for refugees, new and resettled.

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