Policy Center

Through the creation of the RCUSA Policy Center, we are taking steps to bolster our collective ability to address systemic challenges and opportunities – and to refine service and advocacy responses – as we work toward our common objectives of securing protection, opportunity, voice, and dignity for forcibly displaced people.

The components of the RCUSA Policy Center include:

• An ongoing series of speakers and online discussions to provide RCUSA members the opportunity to engage directly with current and former Administration officials, Congressional offices, and leading experts on topics related to refugee resettlement and asylum services.
• A resource library, providing online access to reports, letters, policy briefs, guides, and other resources generated by the RCUSA coalition.
• Research projects carried out by RCUSA, in collaboration with member organizations, that focus on highlighting gaps and challenges in refugee protection and asylum services, and developing policy recommendations and practical interventions.

The Policy Center aims to complement the work of RCUSA’s committees and working groups, strengthen collaboration among RCUSA’s coalition members (and between RCUSA members and other stakeholders), and empower people with lived experience in forced displacement.

Background

This is a time of rapid change in the nature and scale of forced displacement, affecting the experiences of forcibly displaced people and those who serve them. Emerging and ongoing humanitarian crises are increasing the global need for humanitarian protection, while issues related to vulnerable migrants and forcibly displaced people have become ever more politicized in the United States and around the world. Alongside these and other topics of concern, climate change is likely to contribute to substantially more forced displacement in the years ahead. At the US southern border, as in many places around the world, there are troubling trends toward new restrictions on access to asylum.

The Policy Center provides RCUSA member organizations and other stakeholders with a forum for open discussion of the challenges associated with forced displacement and relevant US policy developments – including the ongoing rebuild of the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), successive large-scale programs of humanitarian parole, rapid growth in private and community sponsorship of refugees and parolees, greater prominence for refugee-led organizations and solutions grounded in lived experience, the challenges of securing housing for forcibly displaced people, and new labor and education pathways.

Values

At the RCUSA Policy Center we believe in diversity of thought, evidence-based research, and action-centered leadership. We believe that refugees, asylees, and other forcibly displaced people strengthen America and help build a brighter and more prosperous future for all communities nationwide.

Policy Center Resources