HIAS is expanding its footprint in Central America with a brand new office in San Jose, Costa Rica dedicated to providing legal support and services to vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers.
Over 200 Kindertransport survivors and descendants sent a letter to President Trump, urging him to keep America’s doors open to today’s refugees. “In the aftermath of World War II, the price for keeping America’s doors closed to refugees due to fear was made starkly clear. We are among the very few who were welcomed by a country and its citizens and therefore survived,” they write.
We cannot remain silent as Muslim refugees are turned away just for being Muslim, just as we could not stand idly by when the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Europe during the 1930s and 40s. The Torah requires us to intervene. To stop these things from being done by our government and in our name.
“Often refugees are defined by what they have lost, which is a lot," HIAS VP Melanie Nezer said in a recent Tedx talk on the global refugee crisis. "Their homes, their jobs, their communities, their friends and, in many cases, family members. But they also have a lot of things. They have hope. They have education. They have skills. And they have a great desire to live in peace.”
“After I lost my vision, there was nothing for me to do in Iraq. There, they don’t believe that a person with a disability is capable of doing anything,” Qusay said. “I can’t tolerate that. I can’t envision myself just sitting at home. My dreams are bigger than that.”
Winter weather couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm and commitment of the many thousands of people who showed up for the National Day of Jewish Action for Refugees on Sunday, February 12.
Equipped with protest signs, umbrellas and a tradition of welcoming the stranger, upwards of 1,000 rally goers stood for nearly two hours in Battery Park at the Southern tip of Manhattan Island.
In more than 135 years serving refugees, HIAS has routinely represented asylum seekers in court against the U.S. government. Never before, however, has HIAS itself sued the U.S. government, let alone the President of the United States. Until today.
Kapoor, a renowned British-Indian sculptor of Jewish descent, said he will dedicate his $1 million award to expanding the Jewish community’s engagement on the global refugee crisis.
Late Sunday night, HIAS filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in the case of Washington v. Trump, currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “The Executive Order has fractured many refugee families whose safety and desire for unification were already fragile,” notes the brief.
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