On Wednesday, Trump delivered a speech in Duluth, Minnesota, claiming his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, “will turn Minnesota into a refugee camp … overwhelming public resources, overcrowding schools and inundating your hospitals.” He also claimed Biden wants to increase refugee resettlement by 700%.
Biden said in a statement released on World Refugee Day in June that he would increase the refugee ceiling to 125,000, which would be about a 700% increase.
The number Biden has proposed is not much higher than the 110,000 it was during former President Barack Obama’s last term in office, when Biden was vice president.
HIAS, founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, is one of the organizations that asked the Trump administration to return the number of refugee admissions to a historic average of at least 95,000.
World Relief encouraged evangelical Christians to ask the same of their elected officials, and LIRS sent a letter to Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, accompanied by the signatures of nearly 250 clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
“The administration may have turned its back on refugees, but we at HIAS won’t. HIAS, the American Jewish community, and our local resettlement partners across the country have welcomed immigrants and refugees for well over a century,” said Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS.
“HIAS and our community of supporters and partners remain more committed than ever to welcoming the stranger.”
The work of helping refugees find a home in America is largely done by faith-based organizations. Of the nine groups authorized by the U.S. government to resettle refugees, six claim a religious affiliation: HIAS, World Relief, Church World Service, LIRS, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Episcopal Migration Ministries.
This article originally appeared on ReligionNews.com.
