Photo: DSOC
WASHINGTON – A CWS vice president has affirmed the agency’s commitment to refugee processing and resettlement before a U.S. Senate committee.
“I have seen refugee camps with third-generation children running about the camp ground, and that while it is on no one’s legislative agenda today, we need to understand and commit ourselves to the time in the next 20 years when no person is in a refugee camp or in an unprotected urban environment for more than six months,” James Landis, CWS’s vice president of program operations, said in testimony. “We challenge ourselves and you to making this commitment.”
Landis was one of 16 national faith leaders who met with members of the U.S. Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee to share their organizations’ advocacy priorities for 2014.
Landis emphasized the importance of the United States doing more to assist refugees living in the most desperate of situations. He also talked about the successes of U.S. relief and development assistance in saving lives and bringing hope, and noted that CWS is involved with both refugee processing and resettlement.