Cranford Mayor Brian Andrews has signed onto a national effort asking President Joe Biden to bolster the country’s refugee resettlement program.
Andrews, a former State Department official who helped evacuate a vulnerable family from Afghanistan, is the first New Jersey mayor to sign onto the effort. The Welcoming Refugees campaign calls on Biden to invest into the United States’ refugee resettlement program as the number of refugees leaving Afghanistan and Ukraine continues to rise.
“Our current system is not working. We’ve seen it can be extremely difficult for refugees to navigate the official U.S. system, including Afghans who aided U.S. forces only to find themselves unable to enter our country after,” Andrews said. “We also know our local governments would benefit from greater federal resources to help refugees restart their lives.”
Seven members of city councils in New Jersey also signed the letter, according to the group’s website.
The UN Refugee Agency estimated that 2.4 million refugees will need to resettle this year.
About 800 refugees arrived in New Jersey from October 2023 through July 2024, according to data from the State Department. Refugees from Afghanistan, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Syria accounted for more than half of that number.