The Ongoing Syrian Refugee Crisis

Written Testimony of Most Reverend Eusebio Elizondo, M.Sp.
Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle, WA
Chairman, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration

For a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and human rights "The Ongoing Syrian Refugee Crisis"

2:30 pm, Tuesday 7 January 2014
Room 216 Hart Senate Office Building  

I am Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Seattle, WA, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration. I provide this written statement today on behalf of the Committee on Migration to give the Catholic Church’s perspective about the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis.

I would like to thank Chairman Richard Durbin (D-­‐IL), Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-­‐TX), and subcommittee members for the opportunity to comment on the crisis. A USCCB delegation travelled to the region in October 2012 and completed a report titled, “Mission to the Middle East: Report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Syrian Refugees” (Catholic Syria Report 2012). While our mission to the region was over a year ago, many of the humanitarian challenges of the conflict—and the suffering of its victims-­‐-­‐have persisted and increased, without a corresponding humanitarian response from the international community.

Mr. Chairman, I ask that the report of that trip be included in the hearing record. In this current statement, I will integrate and update our observations and recommendations from that report.

Catholics and all Christians are reminded this time of year when celebrating the birth of Jesus, that one of Jesus’ first experiences as an infant was to flee for his life from King Herod with his family to Egypt. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were refugees in the Middle East and faced some of the same fear, uncertainty, and dislocation as the millions of Syrians imperiled by this crisis face today. The situation is especially urgent given the unprecedented size, complexity, and rate of growth of the displaced population. There were 550,000 Syrian refugees in the region when we visited in October 2012. After little more than a year, the number of Syrian refugees has grown to 2.3 million, including 1.1 million children, 75% of whom are less than 12 years old.

Mr. Chairman, in my testimony today the U.S. Catholic bishops recommend that Congress:

• Work with other governments to obtain a ceasefire in Syria, initiate serious negotiations, increase impartial humanitarian assistance, and give safe passage of that assistance, especially for internally displaced people (IDPs), and encourage efforts to build an inclusive society in Syria that protects the rights of all its citizens, including Christians and other minorities.

• Encourage host countries in the region to maintain border and migration enforcement policies and practices that enable people to safely flee from Syria and find humane protection and care without improper rejection at the border, deportation, or arbitrary detention in poor conditions.

• Provide more U.S. support and encourage more international support for refugees in the region, especially children, for their basic necessities of life, immediate protection, primary and secondary education, and systems that lay the groundwork for all durable solutions; and provide host countries additional housing, food, water, sanitation, health, education, and transportation infrastructure to allow them to host such large numbers of refugees.

• Meaningfully increase U.S. resettlement through an emergency order to at least 15,000 Syrians for FY2014 and urge all other resettlement nations to increase resettlement of the most vulnerable refugees to 15,000, including unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs), women with children, minority groups, those with serious health concerns, the elderly and those in immediate danger, thereby protecting them and sharing the host countries’ burden. 

• Increase U.S. resettlement and urge other nations to increase resettlement of other vulnerable refugees in the region to protect them and share the burden with host countries.

• Urge the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Department of State (DOS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), to expeditiously remove unjust impediments to U.S. resettlement by implementing discretionary authority to grant exemptions from overly broad terrorism related inadmissibility grounds (TRIG) of U.S. immigration law.

For the full report and accompanying footnotes click on the pdf below.

Bishop-Elizondo-Testimony-on-Syria.pdf (237.5 KB)