Grandi said he discussed with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun “how to increase opportunities” to now return home for an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees who fled to Lebanon for safety when an uprising in 2011 quickly turned into civil war.

“Many refugees have already made that choice,” he said on his X account. “But for returns to be sustainable, Syria needs more and faster international support.”

Grandi noted in a separate X post that it was “a sign of hope amid rising regional tensions” that the 2 million people have returned home.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/06/19/lebanon-syria-refugees-return-home/8021750356405/

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The decision, anticipated as early as April, would mark a dramatic shift from the reception Ukrainians experienced under former President Joe Biden‘s administration.

The White House directed Newsweek to a post on X by press secretary Karoline Leavitt denying the reports: “This is more fake news from Reuters based on anonymous sources who have no idea what they are talking about. The truth: no decision has been made at this time.”

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) via email for comment.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ukrainian-refugees-tps-revoked-2040655

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More than 1 million Ukrainians sought refuge in Germany after Moscow’s invasion in February 2022, and the number of refugees from other countries jumped by around 50% in 2022 compared with 2019, data from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) showed.

For years following the 2015-16 refugee influx, when more than a million refugees arrived in Germany fleeing war and prosecution in the Middle East, Berlin had provided the states with a monthly per capita flat rate based on the number of refugees and took care of accommodation and integration costs.

But with a drop in incoming refugees in recent years, the country’s 16 states pushed Berlin to earmark a fixed amount for refugees’ expenses regardless of their number, changing the financing policy in 2021.

The post Germany to halve federal aid for refugees next year – sources first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Ireland has long prided itself on greeting visitors with warmth, styling itself the land of “a hundred thousand welcomes”, but now there is a new slogan: #IrelandIsFull.

It appears on placards and on social media and is chanted at rallies alongside other exhortations such as #IrelandForTheIrish and #IrishLivesMatter.

They are the cry of an anti-immigrant backlash that has spread across Dublin and other towns in recent weeks, earning praise from far-right allies abroad.

“Unlike the English, who say very little, the Irish are speaking out – and protesting on the streets – about the huge number of young, male ‘asylum seekers’,” tweeted Nigel Farage.

Pickets and blockades of roads are often held outside refugee centres in working-class neighbourhoods but on Saturday activists marched in the heart of the capital.

“It’s not about racism. There is no room for them,” said Gavin Pepper, 37, as he and about 350 others denounced the increasing number of asylum seekers. “Why should migrants skip Irish people on the housing list? I won’t accept it.”

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/22/anti-immigration-protesters-march-dublin-ireland-refugees

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The gathering of the 27 national EU leaders was called after Austria and the Netherlands led a growing choir of complaints about increasing arrivals. The bloc’s border agency reported 330,000 irregular crossings last year, the highest since 2016.

EU states are bitterly split over sharing out the task of caring for refugees on their soil, and have for years focused on tightening their external borders to prevent people from arriving through unofficial – and often deadly – routes.

Countries including Poland, Hungary and Slovenia erected border fences to keep refugees and migrants away, though the EU executive European Commission, which manages the bloc’s shared budget, has so far refused to pay for such barriers, saying it would run against liberal democratic values and human rights.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/fences-protect-europe-hungary-s-orban-says-ahead-of-eu-migration-summit/ar-AA17djRS

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The post ‘Fences protect Europe’, Hungary’s Orban says ahead of EU migration summit first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Canada’s parliament has unanimously passed a motion to take in 10,000 Uyghur refugees who fled China, but are now facing pressure to return.

The vote on Wednesday builds on a February 2021 move by Canadian lawmakers to label Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in its north-western Xinjiang territory as genocide.

Rights groups believe at least 1 million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in internment camps in the region, where China is also accused of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour.

Tens of thousands have fled the region, and according to Canadian backbench MP Sameer Zuberi, who sponsored the motion, at least 1,600 have been detained in other countries at China’s behest or forcibly repatriated.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/canada-votes-to-take-in-10000-uyghur-refugees-amid-chinese-pressure-to-force-their-return

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[Disclaimer]

The post Canada votes to take in 10,000 Uyghur refugees amid Chinese pressure to force their return first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

San Antonio: The bodies of 46 dead migrants were discovered inside a tractor-trailer on Monday in San Antonio, Texas, city officials said, in one of the most deadly recent incidents of human smuggling along the US-Mexico border.

A San Antonio fire department official said they found “stacks of bodies” and no signs of water in the truck, which was found next to railroad tracks in a remote area on the city’s southern outskirts.

Sixteen other people found inside the trailer were transported to hospitals for heat stroke and exhaustion, including four minors, but no children were among the dead, the department said.

“The patients that we saw were hot to the touch, they were suffering from heat stroke, exhaustion,” San Antonio fire chief Charles Hood told a news conference. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer but there was no visible working A/C unit on that rig.”

Temperatures in San Antonio, which is about 160 miles (250 km) from the Mexican border, swelled to a high of 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 degrees Celsius) on Monday with high humidity.

The city’s police chief William McManus said a person who worked in a nearby building heard a cry for help and came out to investigate. The worker found the trailer doors partially opened and looked inside and found a number of dead bodies.

McManus said this was the largest incident of its kind in the city and said three people were in custody following the incident, though their involvement is not yet clear.

A spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that its Homeland Security Investigations division was investigating “an alleged human smuggling event” in coordination with local police.

The deaths once again highlight the challenge of controlling migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border, which have reached record highs.

The issue has proven difficult for US President Joe Biden, a Democrat who came into office in January 2021 pledging to reverse some of the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump. Republicans have criticized Biden’s border strategy ahead of the midterm Congressional elections in November.

Mexico’s foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard called the suffocation of the migrants in the truck the “tragedy in Texas” on Twitter and said consular officials would go to the hospitals where victims had been taken to help “however possible.”

A spokesman for the Honduran foreign ministry told Reuters the country’s consulates in Houston and Dallas would be investigating the incident. Ebrard said two Guatemalans were hospitalized and Guatemala’s foreign ministry said on Twitter that consular officials were going to the hospital “to verify if there are two Guatemalan minors there and what condition they are in.”

The I-35 highway near where the truck was found runs through San Antonio from the Mexican border and is a popular smuggling corridor because of the large volume of truck traffic, according to Jack Staton, a former senior official with ICE’s investigative unit who retired in December.

In July 2017, 10 migrants died after being transported in a tractor-trailer that was discovered by San Antonio police in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The driver, James Matthew Bradley, Jr., was sentenced the following year to life in prison for his role in the smuggling operation.

Staton said migrants have regularly been intercepted in the area since the 2017 incident. “It was only a matter of time before a tragedy like this was going to happen again,” he said.

(Reuters)

Source: https://thewire.in/world/texas-46-found-dead-in-truck-along-us-mexico-border-human-smuggling-angle-suspected

The post Texas: 46 Found Dead in Truck Along US-Mexico Border; Human Smuggling Angle Suspected first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Unfortunately, with legal, language, and recertification barriers cited as common constraints, these individuals often struggle to access the labor market.

In a report released last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees highlighted the importance of “employment and employability to successful integration” into the society of the host country.

For refugees, “successful economic adjustment remains one of the most pressing challenges,” the report said.

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That said, with President Joe Biden’s commitments to welcome an additional 75,000 Afghan and 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, the United States is in increasing need of programs to connect newcomers with stable, well-paying jobs.

Biden, along with other officials from the U.S. State Department, has pleaded with private citizens and organizations to support these resettlement efforts.

“We urge more governments to engage the private sector, NGOs, faith groups, universities, youth, and other parts of society in resettling refugees,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a video statement during a UNHCR event on Monday.

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“The more we can make our communities partners in these efforts, the more fully we can integrate refugees into the fabric of all our nations,” he added.

The U.S. refugee admissions ceiling was raised to 125,000 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, double the number from the year before, according to the U.S. State Department. In response, the government has launched innovative solutions such as Refugee Cash Assistance, Refugee Medical Assistance, and the Community Sponsorship Hub to support the influx.

The Tent Partnership for Refugees, a non-profit organization, which focuses on mobilizing the global business community to include refugees, has created a unique approach to the job-training challenge.

Building on an effort launched in 2021 that focused specifically on Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, leaders at the Tent Partnership have spent months rallying a group of 103 companies to commit to reducing barriers for refugees looking for jobs and helping them integrate into the U.S. economy.

Headlined by major companies like Delta, Pfizer, and Marriott, the Coalition for Refugees in the U.S. has agreed to provide mentorship and training opportunities to all refugees in the country, regardless of their place of origin.

Gideon Maltz, executive director of the Tent Partnership, called the program “unprecedented and extremely significant,” telling Newsweek he sees it as a welcome shift from previous efforts to support refugees.

“At the height of the Syria crisis in 2015, we saw a lot of companies do token, in-the-moment things to help,” he said. “They might have sent an in-kind donation or wrote a check, but they never really engaged or invested in the issue.”

Maltz said that the Coalition focuses on creating genuine, long-term engagement from the private sector. To accomplish that goal, Tent leaders seek to connect with the spirit of charity and generosity of participating companies, and also emphasize the economic benefits that comes from employing refugees.

Tent recently released a survey conducted with the NYU Stern School of Business that found that 63% of U.S. consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that are involved in helping refugees, a number that exceeds the percentage that back brands selling environmentally friendly or fair-trade products.

And with 11.4 million job openings in the U.S., Maltz also noted that hiring refugees is already helping states across the nation.

“In states with labor shortages, we have seen governors of both political parties increasing the admissions of refugees in the last year, partly because they need to,” he said.

“To get to a place where there’s broad public support for America to bring in more refugees,” he said, “we have to highlight and emphasize the amazing contribution that refugees make to the American economy.”

Maltz is looking beyond the short-term refugee crisis to a brighter future for them, and for their new country.

“We have been focused on creating programs that companies benefit from and see the value in so that in a year or two, when Afghanistan and Ukraine are not in the news, companies will still be engaged because it makes sense with their business,” he said.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/more-100-major-us-companies-commit-hire-train-more-refugees-1718148

The post More than 100 Major U.S. Companies Commit to Hire and Train More Refugees first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post US-Mexico border crossings reach record high first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Migration reached a peak in 2015, when more than a million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. That number declined to 123,300 in 2021. However, the U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,200 died or went missing at sea last year, an increase of nearly 1,000 over recorded fatalities in 2018.

In addition to the rising death toll at sea, UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo says even greater numbers may have died or gone missing along land routes through the Sahara Desert and remote border areas.

She says deaths and abuses most commonly occur in and through the countries of origin and transit, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Libya.

“UNHCR has continuously been warning of the horrific experiences and dangers faced by refugees and migrants who resort to these journeys,” said Mantoo. “Many among them are individuals who are fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution. The data visualization focuses specifically on the route from the East and Horn of Africa to the Central Mediterranean Sea.”

Mantoo says refugees and migrants have few options but to rely on smugglers. She says they are exposed to a high risk of abuse from smugglers, whether they take the land route across the Sahara Desert or cross the sea from Libya and Tunisia toward Italy or Malta.

“In many cases, those who survive the journey through the Sahara and attempt the sea crossings are often abandoned by their smugglers, while some of those leaving Libya are intercepted and returned to the country, where they are subsequently detained,” said Mantoo. “Each year, thousands perish or go missing at sea without a trace.”

The UNHCR is urging greater action to prevent deaths, provide alternatives to the dangerous journ

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/6613275.html

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