President Elect Joe Biden promises to give refugees hope!

Good news and essential information!

(Religion News Service- RNS) — President-elect Joe Biden announced he will raise the number of refugees allowed into the United States to 125,000 in his first year in office, a major reversal from President Donald Trump’s steep cuts to the U.S. refugee program.

It’s not the first time Biden has made that pledge. He previously floated the number in a statement he made during the summer on World Refugee Day.

But it is the first time he has confirmed that number as president-elect.

And, notably, he made the announcement Thursday (Nov. 12) to a Catholic group that works with refugees.

“The United States has long stood as a beacon of hope for the downtrodden and the oppressed, a leader of resettling refugees in our humanitarian response,” Biden said in a prerecorded video set to air during the virtual event celebrating the 40th anniversary of Jesuit Refugee Service.

“I promise, as president, I will reclaim that proud legacy for our country. The Biden-Harris administration will restore America’s historic role in protecting the vulnerable and defending the rights of refugees everywhere and raising our annual refugee admission target to 125,000.”

In the brief video, shared beforehand with Religion News Service, Biden praised Jesuit Refugee Service as a “great organization” and framed the country’s historic commitment to refugee resettlement in theological terms.

“This organization was founded to serve the needs of some of the most vulnerable among us: refugees and displaced people. JRS - Jesuit Refugee Service, believes that, in the stranger, we actually meet our neighbor. And that every society is ultimately judged by how we treat those most in need,” he said.

Jesuit Refugee Service is an international Catholic organization committed to serving refugees and other forcibly displaced people. That work includes advocating for refugees, serving as chaplains to those in detention and supporting other projects and programming around the globe.

A number of prominent Catholic church leaders, government officials and celebrities also were scheduled to appear at the virtual event. Among them were Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large of America Magazine; comedian Jim Gaffigan; Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky; Filippo Grandi, United Nations high commissioner for refugees; and the Rev. Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits.

“That he chose to make this announcement with us tonight is an indication that President-elect Joe Biden is following his faith when it comes to American policy to protect and welcome refugees,” Jesuit Refugee Service Director of Advocacy and Operations Giulia McPherson said in a written statement.

“Not only is it exciting that the United States will once again welcome refugees at an historically high number, but it is also significant that we are hearing the President-elect speak in the language of social justice about the rights of refugees and our call as people of faith and as Americans to accompany them to safety.”

Faith-based organizations, like Jesuit Refugee Service, have long played an important role in refugee resettlement work in the U.S.

In fact, six of the nine agencies tasked with resettlement by the federal government are faith-based. They include Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and World Relief.

Most of those agencies have released statements pledging to work with Biden in the days since the presidential race was called in his favor.

“We urge President-elect Biden to uphold his campaign promise to pursue comprehensive immigration reform within his first 100 days in office and to reverse current immigration and refugee policies that put vulnerable individuals in danger, especially the travel ban and the historically-low refugee ceiling,” read a written statement from World Relief President Scott Arbeiter and CEO Tim Breene.

Weekend Edition - National Public Radio (NPR): President Donald Trump has set the refugee ceiling — the maximum number of refugees admitted to the U.S. each year — to a new historic low every year he has been in office.

Trump recently put that number at 15,000 for the current fiscal year, which started in October.

By comparison, former President Barack Obama set that number at 110,000 his last year in office. Faith-based organizations have rallied each year for Trump to return the number to its historic average: 95,000.

HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield said Biden has a record of standing with refugees, noting that as a senator, Biden had co-sponsored the Refugee Act of 1980, which codified the U.S. refugee resettlement program and asylum system.

“The election of Joseph Biden marks a return to (American) values, an acknowledgment that refugees and immigrants have always been a benefit, not a burden to our great country,” Hetfield said in a video message.

LIRS President Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said in a written statement that Biden’s election is a “new dawn” after a “dark chapter for our immigrant brothers and sisters.” She pointed to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border and his so-called travel ban, which limits travel to the U.S. from a number of mostly Muslim countries.

Biden promised during his campaign he would end the ban, also referred to as a “Muslim ban,” on the first day of his presidency.

And an ad run by the Biden campaign in late October also promised he would issue an executive order on day one creating a federal task force to reunite the 666 children who remain separated from their families after seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

National Public Radio, Weekend Edition with Scott Simon reported: President-elect Joe Biden pledged to reassert America's commitment to refugees after the Trump White House's slashing of the resettlement program, part of the current president's anti-immigration drive.

In 2016, President Barack Obama aimed to admit 110,000 refugees. President Trump lowered the cap on refugee admissions every year of his presidency.


For fiscal year 2021, Trump set the cap at 15,000, the lowest on record.

Biden promises to take a starkly different approach from his predecessor: to "set the annual global refugee admissions cap to 125,000, and seek to raise it over time."

For decades, the United States led the world in offering protection to people fleeing persecution in other countries. Now the Biden presidency will mark a return to the political consensus that the U.S. should continue to do so, refugee policy experts say.

But while the president has the authority to set refugee admissions numbers, it will take time to rebuild the nation's resettlement program after four years of the (evil!) Trump administration (Stephen Miller!) largely dismantling it, according to Becca Heller, executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Incendiary attack on brave journalists has consequences

Dangerous slander of journalists will lead to incendiary consequences. It always does. 
Here is proof:
Committee to Protect Journalists

Calling The Press The Enemy Of The People Is A Menacing Move  ~ essay by Scott Simon on NPR Weekend Edition

"Enemy of the people" (NPR) is an incendiary phrase. 

It's been uttered by some of history's most vicious thugs — Robespierre, Goebbels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao — to vilify their opponents; who were often murdered.

Donald Trump must know that history by now when he calls the press "the enemy of the people." As he must also know the anti-Semitic and racist history of the America First slogan, by which the president describes many of his policies.

But Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, pointedly declined the chance this week to say, as Ivanka Tump did, "I do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people."

We should be careful about calling President Trump's attacks on the press unprecedented. Abraham Lincoln shut down newspapers during the Civil War. President Wilson signed the Espionage Act that made it illegal to print, "any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States," which would put many Americans behind bars today for a tweet.

Richard Nixon had journalists on his enemies list. President Obama's Justice Department used Wilson's old Espionage Act to prosecute government whistleblowers.

But in this age of trolling, public profanity, and angry, frothing crowds who harass reporters at rallies and sputter coarse slogans, there is something menacing about a president of the United States who cheers on mobs and brands a free press, "the enemy of the people."

I am not starry-eyed about the news business — and it is a business. A lot of us got into journalism with a high-minded ambition to inform the American public. But I think a lot of us make it a living because it's gratifying and fun to try to find and tell stories, see history in the face, ask sharp, critical questions of people in power, and tell the stories of people who feel overlooked.

A free press is the fresh air you need to keep a democracy breathing.

But journalism, as this (MaineWriter edit: Trumpzi) president, who became a media celebrity because of the New York tabloids should know, can be a contact sport. Civility and professionalism are welcome. But reporting is the profession of All The President's Men, not Mary Poppins. Its purpose is to find flaws, raise doubts, discover secrets and air differences.

If the president had called reporters nosy, cranky, contentious, or smart-alecky, many reporters would have laughed and agreed. 

But calling them — us — enemies of the people is the kind of curse made by tyrants.

Survivor speaks- Las Vegas mass shooting

"But there's still in the back of my mind: Did he really work alone, did he carry all that stuff up to his (hotel) room by himself?"~ Melissa Barham on NPR Weekend Edition

Thank you Scott Simon Weekend Edition Saturday on National Public Radio!

She escaped the Las Vegas shooter's bullets, but her mental scars remain: On the night of October 1, 2017, an evil infected gunman named Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of concert goers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 546 injured. Between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m. There were 23 firearms, a large quantity of ammunition, and numerous high-capacity magazines capable of holding up to 100 rounds apiece found in the murderer's hotel suite.

Melissa Barham is a survivor.

Melissa Barham, April Treadway, Jake Barham, Emily Barham~ photo by Melissa Barham

The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history claimed the lives of 58 people, injured 546, and profoundly affected thousands more.

Melissa Barham was at the Jason Aldean concert on Oct. 1 when the shooter began his fusillade. She was sitting with her son and his girlfriend. Barham's daughter sat not far away, near the stage.

She told NPR's Scott Simon on December 16, 2017, Weekend Edition, it was only after she spotted a bloody woman being lifted to safety that it became clear the audience was under fire. In the scramble for the exits, Barham sought desperately to be reunited with her daughter; she counts herself lucky to have found her just before leaving the concert area. And more lucky that she and her loved ones escaped physical injury.

Barham says she can't shake that day. Being part of a national nightmare makes her feel other stories of national despair all the more keenly. And she has struggled with the lack of a clear explanation why the shooter did what he did, leaving her to be tempted by what she characterizes as conspiracy theories.

Since the attack on October 1, 2017, she said, "I'm sad. I'm depressed. I feel like I've aged. I'll look at my reflection in the mirror when I get out the of the shower — or you know how you catch a glimpse of yourself when you're out and about — and it's like, I'm startled at what I look like."

"And then I feel like, two days after that there's something else big that broke — like whether it's the fires, or the Weinstein sexual scandals, or the shooting in Texas — it's just like it's a continual thing of these events that are just rocking people's lives. And I used to just be a viewer, and I used to just go from one event to another."

"And now I'm stuck in one of those events because I could list all the things that we've done as a family — like soccer practices, and I haven't missed a day of work, and booster meetings, and we've gone to our dentist appointments and our doctor's appointments — but I still feel like it's Day One."

"What bothers me more than the motive, or lack of motive, is lack of information. Whenever we get a little tidbit of something we just jump on because we just have a desire to know."

"Like, the first week after it happened I was obsessed with like my escape route. I was just looking at Google images, pictures of the event — like, where did I go?"

"And then my next thing was: I want to know where the shooter went, where he came from. I want to see him walking into the hotel, walking out of the hotel."

"And they haven't released any of that."

"I just want to know that he worked alone, that it was all him."

"Because there's a lack of official information coming out, that area has just been filled up with conspiracy theories. And with time I've come to say, 'OK, it's just one person who was fully loaded with ammunition'."

"But there's still in the back of my mind: Did he really work alone, did he carry all that stuff up to his room by himself?"

Five years after Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting:

Barham said, "Yesterday (the anniversary) was so hard on me, thinking about those beautiful, beautiful children. And I'm a teacher, and thinking about the educators that were killed. It is such a sad day in our history."

"And then seeing that it happened at our (Las Vegas) concert. And then seeing what happened in Texas a couple weeks later. It's just not stopping and it just affects so many people."

"And what did we really change? Did we help anyone with mental illness? Did we change anything about gun control or school safety?"

"It's just a really sad brotherhood or sisterhood, but you feel connected because you understand what they went through. And some of them just have such a long road to go."

One way she copes:  "I wake up every morning and I journal. I pick one of the victims and I write down their name and their age and where they're from and then just details about them. And I just think about them. And this time of year, the holidays, make it really hard." ~ Melissa Barham

Addendum by MaineWriter- Yet, nothing has been done to prevent gun violence in spite of numerous mass shooting incidents.