Press Statement

Today, World Relief and 41 other leading faith organizations released a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo urging the administration to increase the number of refugees resettled in the U.S., particularly those who are fleeing persecution as religious minorities in their country of origin.

World Relief issued the following statement in response to the series of bombings that devastated churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter morning, killing 290 and wounding over 500 :

Over the last week, President Trump announced that his administration would cut aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador because they had failed to prevent migrants from journeying to the U.S. World Relief responds as the House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on the importance of U.S. aid to Central America.

Halfway through fiscal year 2019, World Relief estimates that the U.S. is on track to resettle incredibly low numbers of refugees, lower even than the historically low refugee ceiling set for the year.

World Relief announced its decision to close its office in Akron, OH. The unfortunate reality of the environment at this time makes it necessary to close the office. As the U.S. government decreases the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. and has also signaled an intent to reduce the longstanding public/private partnership with refugee resettlement agencies, World Relief unfortunately needs to reduce its footprint nationally in places like Akron where additional support for refugees already remains strong.

On Saturday, a gunman took the lives of eleven people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.