When my tween-age children light our Advent wreath candles, we are all focused on counting the days until Christmas. We await Christ’s birth, and we anticipate his second coming. As Christians, we believe his return is certain. But for refugees, there is no certainty about the future, and often little hope.
When Pedro Arrupe, S.J., founded Jesuit Refugee Service in 1980, there were approximately 10 million forcibly displaced people in the world. Today, there are 120 million. These numbers have risen at a worrying pace.
Father Arrupe created J.R.S. in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Indochinese refugee crisis. At that time, the international community created the Orderly Departure Program, which permitted those who needed protection to seek refuge in other countries, including the United States. Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao people got in rickety boats to make their way on the open seas toward a new life; fortunately, many were resettled within a few years. But today, the average time a refugee waits in a camp to experience one of the three long-term solutions (local integration, resettlement or safe return to their country) is 17 years.
I joined Jesuit Refugee Service on May 1 of this year, and I soon became aware of new challenges that require our urgent attention. First, in June, the Biden administration made radical changes to the asylum system. The system does need major reform, including more asylum officers and immigration judges. But the actions of the Biden administration contravened U.S. and international laws. It instituted an approach that effectively shuts our doors to asylum seekers. Turning families away is harsh and wrong, just as it was wrong that Mary and Joseph were turned away from the inn and relegated to a manger.
Then, in July, we learned that humanitarian organizations could face significant reductions in U.S. government funding. These cuts threaten our work in some of the most troubled places in the world. For example, Sudan faces the largest displacement crisis worldwide, with about 17 million people either internally displaced or taking refuge in neighboring countries⸺and some waiting in camps for two decades now. Across the border in Chad, J.R.S. leads the education sector and provides child protection services. Funding cuts jeopardize our work in Ecuador, too, which for decades has been a destination for those forced to leave Colombia and Venezuela but is now seeing gang activity compromise its ability to safely host refugees.
And at the end of September came the attacks on Lebanon. Until then, J.R.S. Lebanon primarily served refugees from Syria, but with the new violence, our team moved into emergency response, helping Sri Lankan, Filipino and other migrants trapped by the lethal bombings, as well as internally displaced Lebanese.
With needs only growing, J.R.S. is called to strengthen our ability to love and serve others. In the United States, that means growing our Migrant Accompaniment Network so we can support those who have been granted asylum here and those waiting to make their asylum claims. These migrants need our protection, support and friendship. Again, I think of Mary and Joseph preparing for the birth of Jesus, waiting in anticipation and knocking on closed doors.
J.R.S. is known for going where others don’t and staying after others have left. Father Arrupe’s vision, which was rooted in accompaniment, localization and reconciliation, has been the guidestar. In his beautiful recent encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Pope Francis calls us in the same manner: May the Lord “continue to pour forth the streams of living water that can heal the hurt we have caused, strengthen our ability to love and serve others, and inspire us to journey together towards a just, solidary and fraternal world” (“He Loved Us” [“Dilexit Nos”], No.220).
Around the globe, Jesuit Refugee Service opens doors and gives welcome. Dan Corrou, S.J., our regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, says migrants in need are singing “Here I Am, Lord,” and comments, “The least we can do is stand with them.”
As I prepare for the season of Advent with my own family, I think of the refugees I have met and worked with here in the United States and around the globe and know our work cannot wait. We are called to open our hearts and our doors.
