They include a $1 million initiative by actor George Clooney and his Lebanese wife, Amal, to educate Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
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“Any refugee reading the conclusions of Monday’s summit is bound to say ‘what is going to change?’ said David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee aid organization”. It should be noted that education visas, training visas, and work visas for refugees do not count under the U.S’ cap for refugee resettlements.
“I am most outraged by rich governments’ stubborn resistance to welcome refugees”, she said.
The 85,000 figure included 10,000 Syrian refugees, a figure advocacy groups had criticized as inadequate given the wealth of the US and the fact that other countries, such as Canada and Germany, were welcoming far greater numbers of fleeing Syrians.
With a record 21.3 million refugees globally, the 193- member General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration on refugees and migrants, which prescribes to develop two global agreements on the settlement of migration problem and the fair sharing of responsibility regarding refugee acceptance by 2018. The U.S. will begin to accept the 110,000 new refugees in fiscal year 2017, which starts on October 1.
World leaders are meeting in NY where the United Nations General Assembly is holding the first-ever summit on “Addressing large movements of refugees and migrants”. “Refugees can achieve great things if given the opportunity”.
“What I don’t accept from what we’ve seen at this conference is that we can just have a blind faith that the declaration automatically leads to two global compacts, which automatically leads to operational change through comprehensive response plans”, Betts told IRIN.
“The world is now facing a serious refugee crisis – so many people are in need of protection, and so many countries are affected by the situation”, said Minister McCallum.
If you were an obscenely rich philanthropist, how would you give a proverbial middle finger to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump – who has proposed a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering America and “a big, fat, attractive wall” along the Mexican border?
Obama had issued a call to action to government agencies, other world leaders and private companies to join together to make a difference in the lives of refugees.
Soros, who chairs the Open Society Institute, made the announcement on Tuesday, following the first United Nations summit on migrants and refugees and ahead of a meeting chaired by US President Barack Obama to spur pledges to help the world’s 65.3 million displaced people.
Fifty-one social media, financial services and other companies are committing to provide refugees with access to education, employment and financial services.
The Obama-supported effort to make the United Nations part of what should be a USA domestic immigration policy decision mirrors what is happening at the regional level in Europe.
“The bitter truth is this Summit was called because we have been largely failing”, he said.
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“They can’t be properly vetted”, Trump said.
