International Refugee Assistance Project

Today, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), and the Niskanen Center published a joint paper offering recommendations to the Departments of State (DOS) and Health and Human Services (HHS) as they design an expanded community sponsorship system that includes a new private sponsorship program for refugees.  President Biden’s Executive Order 14013, issued February 4, 2021, directed the Secretaries […]

Greenbelt, MD, January 8, 2021 – Today, a U.S. court of appeals affirmed a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit HIAS v. Trump, which blocked an executive order that—for the first time in the history of the U.S. refugee resettlement program—would have allowed state and local officials to prevent refugees from being resettled in their jurisdictions. The […]

July 9, 2020 – Today, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security proposed a new regulation that would further gut the asylum system in the United States. IRAP strongly condemns the proposed regulation for using the current COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to deny protection in the United States to those fleeing persecution and […]

Seattle, WA, February 10, 2020 – Today, the government entered into a major settlement with plaintiffs in Jewish Family Service v. Trump, which challenged the Trump administration’s refugee ban issued on October 24, 2017. The executive order had imposed new restrictions on refugees, including suspending admission of refugees from 11 countries and family members of refugees who are […]

New York, NY, September 30, 2019 – Today, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation to compel the release of documents related to how last week’s Executive Order on Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement was crafted by the Trump Administration. The order would give state and local governments the authority to block refugee resettlement […]

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, March 5, 2019 – On March 1, a Northern California federal court ordered the U.S. government to resume processing applications of approximately 2,700 children and others in the Central American Minors (CAM) Parole program. The court’s decision granted in substantial part the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction in S.A. v. Trump. The […]

NEW YORK, NY, Nov. 2, 2018 – Yesterday, President Trump announced plans to sign an executive order that may include banning asylum seekers from being able to claim asylum in the United States if they do not cross the U.S. border at an official port of entry, even though some asylum seekers have been turned […]

NEW YORK, NY, Sept. 17, 2018 – Today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Presidential Determination for refugee admissions for the upcoming fiscal year. The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) at the Urban Justice Center strongly condemns his proposal, which further reduces last year’s resettlement quota – already a historical low – to merely 30,000. The President has […]

SAN JOSE, CA, July 11, 2018 – Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with plaintiffs in Doe v. Nielsen, which challenges the mass denials of Iranian religious minority refugees who abandoned their homes in Iran and traveled to Vienna at the invitation of the U.S. government to complete processing […]

New York, NY, June 26, 2018 – Today, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the landmark case, Trump v. Hawaii, which challenges the President’s Muslim ban as unlawful and discriminatory. In their decision, five of the nine Judges sided with the government that the President was within his rights to ban people from certain nations […]

Seattle, WA, March 29, 2018 – Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion by the government to dismiss the appeal and vacate the injunction in JFS v. Trump, which challenges the Trump administration’s October 24 ban on refugees that suspended the admission of refugees from 11 countries and stopped the follow-to-join process for […]

NEW YORK, NY Jan. 30, 2018 – On Monday, the Trump Administration announced additional security enhancements as a result of its 90-day review of the security screenings applied to nationals from eleven countries deemed “higher risk”, most of them majority Muslim. The review period, which had been ordered in a memo as part of the […]

NEW YORK, NY, July 14, 2017 – Last night, a federal judge in Hawaii ruled that the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Supreme Court order, which partially allowed the travel and refugee ban to go into effect, was too limited. The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) at the Urban Justice Center praises Judge Watson’s ruling, which significantly expands […]