[Vision2020] World Relief Denies Request for Pullman Refugee Office

[Nicholas Gier]

Back to Square One.


December 15, 2015


*To: Community steering committee assigned with inquiring about opening a
new site for refugee resettlement in Pullman, WA*


*From: World Relief*


Thank you for your interest in partnering with World Relief Spokane to
propose Pullman, WA as a future refugee resettlement site.  World Relief
has considered your request and come to the following conclusions.

·         Pullman has no existing refugee community. Thus, all refugees
placed in your city would need to be cases with no U.S. tie. Such cases
comprise only 25-35% of the refugees entering the U.S., and are highly
sought by existing offices who need them to supplement their programs.

·         All new resettlement sites must be approved by the U.S. State
Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). Among
other criteria, PRM tends to prioritize new site opportunities in
metropolitan areas with an existing refugee community.

·         World Relief already has a field office in eastern Washington,
Spokane that is not yet at capacity.

·         World Relief has an organizational goal of launching 1-3 new
field offices each fiscal year. Across the nation, the number of new site
opportunities from interested communities already exceeds World Relief’s
capacity to expand.  Thus we are not accepting additional site requests at
this time.



Thank you again for your interest, but we will have to decline your offer
to open a World Relief office in Pullman, WA.  If your community is truly
interested in serving refugees, perhaps the best opportunity may be in
reaching out to refugees being served by World Relief in the Middle East or
Europe.  Please contact Mark Lamb, our Church Partnership Director for the
Northwest at mlamb at wr.org.



Sincerely,

World Relief
-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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