Through our network of local resettlement partners, HIAS welcomes resettled refugees and helps them build their lives in communities across the United States.
Leaders of the Jewish community and guests gathered to celebrate the coming together of HIAS and JCORE (the Jewish Council for Racial Equality) to form a new entity which will lead the Jewish response on issues of asylum, refugees, and racial equality in the United Kingdom.
The number of HIAS Welcome Circles in the United States has just reached 100. And there are more to come.
HIAS Welcome Circles are part of the private sponsorship model that allows for groups of individuals to independently raise funds and directly provide essential assistance to refugees.
A sewing machine that once belonged to a family HIAS resettled in Venezuela in the 1950s is now, by coincidence, being used by present-day HIAS clients in the country.
In the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, St. Louisans from three faith communities came together to welcome a family of evacuees and help them get settled in the United States.
The Biden administration’s new Welcome Corps initiative represents a breakthrough in advancing private refugee sponsorship in the United States — but is by no means the first program of its kind in North America. The American initiative, according to HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield, in fact drew inspiration from a similar program in Canada.
HIAS, the international Jewish humanitarian organization that provides critical services to forcibly displaced people, is organizing the fifth annual Refugee Shabbat to take place February 3-4, 2023. The initiative encourages Jewish congregations, community organizations, and individuals across the United States and around the world to dedicate a Shabbat experience to raising awareness about the global displacement crisis, and to reaffirm support for refugees and asylum seekers and take action at a time when the right to seek asylum is being severely abridged in the U.S. and around the world.
In an appearance on “CNN Newsroom” on Friday morning, HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield praised the Welcome Corps, a new Biden administration initiative that allows Americans to privately sponsor refugees from around the world. The initiative resembles what HIAS has been doing through its own Welcome Circles, starting with Afghan evacuees in 2021.
Welcome Corps, the first U.S. government program supporting private refugee sponsorship in nearly 40 years, will allow Americans to privately sponsor refugees from around the world.