The op-ed below, by Beth Oppenheim, CEO of HIAS, Richard Santos, president and CEO of Church World Service, and Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, originally ran on October 30, 2025, in Religion News Service. To view the original piece on religionews.com, click here.
(RNS) — Over 45 years ago, our organizations — Church World Service, HIAS and World Relief — joined with the United States government, other aid agencies and communities across the country to build what became a model of humanitarian leadership, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Through Democratic and Republican administrations, this unique public-private partnership has welcomed millions of refugees, saved countless lives, transformed the stories of generations of families, strengthened American communities and played an important role in U.S. foreign policy.
But today, much has changed. The Trump administration announced a plan on refugee resettlement for fiscal 2026 that sets a record-low admissions target of just 7,500 and reserves those slots primarily for white South Africans. We are seeing our shared creation of hope and welcome devolve into one defined by exclusion.
The administration will radically overhaul who is admitted through the USRAP in ways that betray both the program’s basic humanitarian principles and the vulnerable refugees it was founded to serve. The administration’s blueprint would essentially render the resettlement program unrecognizable by prioritizing spots for applicants such as Afrikaners, while all but abandoning the vulnerable populations our country has long pledged to protect — including persecuted religious minorities, those displaced by the destruction of war and Afghans targeted by the Taliban for aiding Americans.
To continue reading, please see the full op-ed on Religion News Service here.
