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Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

Advocacy
Making Our Voices Heard: Resettlement Directors Team with Ambassadors, Church and Community Leaders, Colleagues and Businesses to Advocate for Refugee Resettlement
By Denise Laugtug, LIRS Director for Ambassadors Circle

"We did a cable TV spot on the refugee crisis and got a lot of response."
"We're e-mailing everyone we know."
"We stamped and mailed several hundred letters."
"Our local newspaper reporter did a great job on the article about the refugee situation."

These are just some of the ways LIRS affiliates are advocating for the thousands of refugees who are stranded and unable to find refuge from persecution through the U.S. refugee resettlement program.

Although security concerns over the processing of refugees after September 11 have been largely met, government officials have dragged their feet. The steady, more predictable stream of refugees into a community has been reduced to an occasional drop or two over recent months.

How do citizens of America make it known to their officials that refugee resettlement is a cherished foundational principle of our way of life? How do we make it clear that we don't want this humanitarian effort taken from us because of the work of a few criminals? How strongly can we repeat that if it is in our power to help 70,000 human beings, and we don't, the meaning of America is threatened?

This situation called for organized action and voices. LIRS partners in refugee resettlement, both through the Refugee Council USA and in local communities, rose to the occasion. This is a sampling of what they have done:

• LIRS local resettlement affiliates and members of the Ambassadors Circle have generated many letters and postcards to Congress, the president and the Department of State.
  
  
• Events were held in the Washington, D.C., area and in South Dakota to draw attention to refugees who are not getting a chance at safety.
  
  
• Colleges in Iowa and Florida were engaged in letter-writing campaigns
  
  
• Church sponsors and volunteers from all over heard sermons and wrote letters.
  
  
• Reporters in Arizona, New Jersey, Iowa, California, Nebraska, Florida and many other sites read the releases and responded with stories in print and on television.
  
  
• New local alliances were formed in Minnesota to speak up in a unified voice.
  
  
• Citizenship classes in California heard the plea to exercise their new freedoms and express their concerns for refugees left languishing.
  
  
• A cable television program aired the concern for the refugee crisis and community members responded.
  
  
• Other colleague agency staff and boards of directors joined their beleaguered resettlement programs in support for letter-writing campaigns, congressional visits and financial assistance.
  
  
• Vietnamese newspapers in California picked up the story.
  
  
• Business owners and employers wrote letters to Congress in support of the resettlement program.
  
  
• Liberians in New Jersey, Somalians in Minnesota, Vietnamese in California, Burmese in Wisconsin, and many other mutual aid associations and ethnic groups are organizing their own letter-writing campaigns.

It takes courage to be an advocate, and LIRS is proud to partner with such fine regional coordinators, their staff members, volunteers, donors, ambassadors, employers, former refugees, colleagues and community collaborators in raising our voices with strength and solidarity.

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