Publications

Archives: Recommended Readings

Hope in Anxious Times
Amid daily headlines announcing economic meltdown, the impulse to cling tightly to what one has is powerful. It is perhaps a counterintuitive message for this particular moment in America, but one San Francisco area nun suggests that the best, most rewarding response we can have to uncertain times is a welcoming, open-hearted posture to foreigners in our communities who have survived far worse than a job layoff—and may have a great deal to teach us about the things in life that truly matter.
Documentary chronicles children’s difficult journey
Airing this month on HBO, Which Way Home shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States. The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico en route to the U.S. on a freight train they call “The Beast."
Report Paints Portrait of Immigrants
The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve public understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States, has published a report titled A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States.
Welcoming the Stranger
Immigration is one of the most complicated issues of our time. Voices on all sides argue strongly for action and change. Christians find themselves torn between the desire to uphold laws and the call to minister to the vulnerable.

In a new book, Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang, of World Relief, move beyond the rhetoric to offer a Christian response to immigration. They put a human face on the issue and tell stories of immigrants' experiences in and out of the system. Ultimately they point toward immigration reform that is compassionate, sensible and just, as they offer concrete ways for you and your church to welcome and minister to your immigrant neighbors.

Learn more about their book here.
Religion and Foreign Policy
In the May 18 issue of America, the National Catholic weekly magazine, JRS/USA board member and professor of international relations at The Catholic University of America Maryann Cusimano Love writes: "While the United States leads in promoting international religious liberty abroad, in some ways we still “don’t get it.” U.S. officials in diplomacy, development and defense are not trained in the religious dimensions of international affairs ... without a nuanced understanding of religious actors and dynamics, U.S. policies in those countries and elsewhere will be ineffective and self-defeating."
Refuge
John and Bessie Gonleh’s saga of faith and endurance extends over seventeen years. Fleeing from Liberia’s civil war, where John was imprisoned and miraculously survived his own execution, to camps in the Ivory Coast and Guinea, the Gonleh family went from a comfortable life in a suburb to living in the most primitive conditions. As penniless immigrants bound for America, God arranged for them to meet a total stranger in a Belgium airport who would financially provide for them, and write their story to encourage and strengthen the faith of other believers.
Jailed without Justice
Amnesty International has published a study on immigration detention in the United States. The study notes that In just over a decade, immigration detention has tripled. In 1996, immigration authorities had a daily detention capacity of less than 10,000. Today more than 30,000 immigrants are detained each day, and this number is likely to increase even further in 2009.

Download the fulll report in PDF form here.
Darfur from a Catholic Perspective
The Enough Project's Darfur Christian Action campaign announces the launch of a new free study guide designed to introduce Catholics to Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, by Enough Project Co-chair John Prendergast and actor/activist Don Cheadle.

Not on Our Watch Catholic Companion and Discussion Guide is designed to help Catholics understand the issues of Darfur from a Catholic perspective. With quotations from Biblical scriptures and from Catholic social teaching documents, the readings and related questions will help Catholics reflect deeply on what is happening, why it is happening, what has been done, and what still needs to be done to bring justice and peace to the people of Darfur. Each segment includes short prayers with which to begin and end each group or individual session of study and reflection.

Click here to learn more and download the study guide.

Film looks at family detention
A documentary film examines the detention of immigrant children in a former medium-security prison in Texas. A documentary chronicles the struggle for better conditions at the T. Don Hutto detention center, which is owned and operated by the private Corrections Corporation of America. After the Department of Homeland Security ended its “catch and release” approach in 2006, the prison filled with parents—mostly mothers—and their children. Read more here.
Persecuted at home, harassed seeking asylum
Members of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, a civil society network committed to advancing the rights of refugees in the Asia Pacific Region, urge better treatment for 'Boat People' in Asia. Over the past two years, the number of people leaving Bangladesh and Burma by boat for Southeast Asia has grown. They have fled in search of protection, safety and/or work. Most are Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from western Burma.

Over the past few weeks, several boats have been rescued off the coasts of Indonesia and the Andaman Islands of India. Survivors tell of having been detained in Thailand, beaten, and towed out to sea on boats without engines or sufficient food and water. Several hundred remain missing and are feared dead. The Rohingya have been rendered stateless in Burma and have experienced systematic discrimination, exclusion, and human rights violations in Burma for decades, prompting hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in neighboring countries, most notably Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand. Most are without legal status and are vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, detention and deportation.

Read the full report here.
The Question of Immigration in America
This first Fides Dossier on the Question of Immigration in the United States of America, opens with an overall view; an illustration of the socio-economic situation in the country which have encouraged immigration since the first settlements and an analysis of the policies employed over the years to regulate a vast movement of people, will precede the examination of a far more complex situation today, with the country facing enormous migratory challenges of the new millennium, lacking the necessary legislation, and in the grip of serious economic crisis and widespread social malcontent.

Download the dossier here.
HOLY SEE CALLS FOR REFUGEE-FRIENDLY POLICIES
Zenit reports the Holy See is urging greater international solidarity faced to the dramatic situation endured by so many refugees.

During an address to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the U.N. offices in Geneva, denounced the death of 1,500 people last year as they attempted to enter Europe.

The archbishop added that the worrying situation is not exclusive to Europe, pointing to “similar tendencies in various developed countries, or countries in development, around the world.”
Read the Zenit story here. Posted March 9, 2009.
U.S. Humanitarian, Refugee and Asylum Policy
The members of Refugee Council USA look forward to working with the Administration of President Barack Obama and members of the new Congress in formulating policies that will effectively address the most pressing needs of some of the world’s most vulnerable populations: refugees, asylum seekers and others who lack the basic human security that all people deserve. Each brief paper attached includes specific recommendations as well as background information. Common themes of the recommendations include strengthening fundamental American values, developing efficient and accountable systems, and strengthening our partnerships. RCUSA is a coalition of twenty-four U.S. nongovernmental organizations focused on refugee protection. RCUSA provides advocacy on issues affecting the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons, victims of trafficking and victims of torture in the U.S. and across the world. Read the report here.
City of Immigrants Fills Jail Cells With Its Own
The New York Times reports on a small Rhode Island town with a big detention center. The story "offers a rare look into the fastest-growing, least-examined type of incarceration in America, an industry that detains half a million people a year, up from a few thousand just 15 years ago. The system operates without the rules that protect criminal suspects, and has grown up with little oversight, often in the backyards of communities desperate for any source of money and work."
Read the whole story here.
Statement on Internally Displaced Persons
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA has co-signed a statement regarding internally displaced persons, which was drafted by a group of NGOs and other concerned institutions, and shared with the President-elect Obama Humanitarian Transition Team. JRS/USA and the other signees urge the new administration to implement a more dynamic approach to the worldwide problem of internally displaced people.

There are an estimated 26 million people internally displaced by conflict who are in need of international attention. The global response has been weak, characterized by incomplete access to the displaced, lack of clarity as to mandates and responsibilities, and funding that falls well short of what is required. In consequence, hundreds of thousands of people suffer unnecessarily.

The full statement is available here.
"Millions Uprooted: Saving Refugees and the Displaced"
by António Guterres
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees argues that the twenty-first century will be characterized by the mass movement of people being pushed and pulled within and beyond their borders by conflict, calamity, or opportunity. At few times in history have so many people been on the move. The extent of human mobility today is blurring the traditional distinctions between refugees, internally displaced people, and international immigrants. Yet attempts by the international community to devise policies to preempt, govern, or direct these movements in a rational manner have been erratic."
"Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal: Anticipating the Impact of Resettlement"
by Susan Banki.
The author presents a preliminary forecast of the impacts to remaining populations of the mass resettlement of Bhutanese refugees currently residing in Nepal. In summary, the forecast is mixed for the remaining population, with some aspects of life expected to improve while other elements may worsen.
Failed Responsibility: Iraqi Refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon
In a July 10, 2008 report, the International Crisis Group states that "Iraq's refugee crisis—with some two and a half million outside the country and the same number internally displaced—ranks as the world's second in terms of numbers, preceded only by Afghanistan and ahead of Sudan. While the security situation in Iraq show progress, the refugee crisis will endure for some time and could worsen if that progress proves fleeting."
UNHCR 2007 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons
While the number of refugees and IDPs falling under UNHCR’s responsibility was estimated at 25.1 million, available information suggests that a total of 67 million people had been forcibly displaced at the end of 2007. This includes 16 million refugees and 51 million internally displaced worldwide, some 26 million were displaced as a result of armed conflict and another 25 million displaced by natural disasters.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The State of the World’s Refugees 2006: Human Displacement in the New Millennium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Available online at
http://www.unhcr.org/static/publ/sowr2006/toceng.htm
No Safety No Escape: Children and the Escalating Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka. A report of the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict that documents how many children in Sri Lanka live in a state of constant fear and insecurity. Every day the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), the Government armed forces, and paramilitary groups commit heinous crimes against children.
A 'Surge' for Refugees" by M. Abramowitz, G. Rupp, John Whitehead and J. Wolfensohn in the New York Times. After meeting with Iraqi refugees and with leaders in both Syria and Jordan, the authors came to the inescapable conclusion that the Iraqi refugee crisis could endure for years and that much more help is needed now.
Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2007
Report of Norwegian Refugee Council. In 2007, the estimated number of people displaced within their countries by armed conflicts and violence passed the 26 million mark, the highest global total since the early 1990s.
"Genocide by Attrition in Sudan" by Eric Reeves in the Washington Post (April 6, 2008). Without significant improvement in security on the ground--for civilians and the humanitarians upon whom they increasingly depend--deaths in the coming months in Darfur will reach a staggering total.