(JTA) — Three weeks after taking office, Joe Biden announced that he would quadruple the number of refugees allowed into the United States. For HIAS, it seemed like an answered prayer, as the Jewish refugee aid agency had endured a rough four years under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. HIAS, which once focused on resettling refugees,…
Alain Mentha, co-chair of the New Jersey Jewish Coalition for Refugees, watched with dismay last week as the board of Hudson County voted to extend a contract to hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at the local jail. The board consists entirely of Democrats, many of whom had pledged to stop working with ICE during…
In a Veterans Day message, Lt. Col Alexander Vindman and his twin brother, Lt. Col Yevgeny Vindman, told their story on behalf of all refugees, military and civilian. In the video for HIAS, the 139-year-old Jewish nonprofit that aids refugees from around the world, the brothers, who were smeared as disloyal by the Trump administration,…
An organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for Jews of color has opened a COVID-19 emergency relief fund, citing the ways in which racism amplifies the impact of the coronavirus on people of color. A project of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, the fund will provide grants of between $250 and $2,500 to…
Arguments over last week’s vote to delay the election of the new chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations have continued to develop on social media, with more Jewish organizations who weren’t part of the process joining the fray. The Presidents Conference, which lobbies on behalf of 51 Jewish organizations, voted…
In another era, the nomination of Dianne Lob as incoming chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations would have likely gone smoothly and unopposed, viewed as a standard changing of the guard in the world of Jewish organizations. But as the pitched battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies rages, Lob…
In November 2016, just days after the election, Lili Shidlovski and her partner, Dennis Owen, sat across their kitchen table from a Guatemalan family. The man, who had been in the U.S. for a few years, spoke only a few words of English. His wife and 9-year-old son, who had just been released from a…
In Terre Haute, Indiana, a man named Marvin Gabrion has been in prison awaiting death for 17 years, seven months and 11 days. He committed his crimes in 1996 and 1997, then was tried, convicted of murder and sentenced in 2002. Gabrion is currently the longest-serving inmate on federal death row, and though he terrorized…
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