Latest news with #ElizabethCampbell
AsiaOne
5 days ago
- Politics
- AsiaOne
US State Department shifts $321 million from refugee aid to 'self-deportations', World News
WASHINGTON — The US State Department has moved US$250 million (S$321 million) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for voluntary deportations by migrants without legal status, a spokesperson said, an unprecedented repurposing of funds that have been used to aid refugees uprooted by war and natural disasters. The money has been transferred "to provide a free flight home and an exit bonus to encourage and assist illegal aliens to voluntarily depart the United States," the State Department spokesperson told Reuters. Historically, those funds have been used "to provide protection to vulnerable people" overseas and to resettle refugees in the US, said Elizabeth Campbell, a former deputy assistant secretary of state. The re-routing of the money comes as President Donald Trump pushes to reshape US government agencies to serve his "America First" agenda. The State Department's planned reorganisation explicitly states that the agency's refugee bureau now largely will focus on efforts to "return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status". The funds came from Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) overseen by the Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration. Its website says its mission is to "reduce illegal immigration", aid people "fleeing persecution, crisis or violence and seek durable solutions for forcibly displaced people". Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, citing the law authorizing the funding, said in a May 7 Federal Register notice that underwriting the repatriation of people without legal status will bolster the "foreign policy interests" of the US. He did not mention the $250 million transfer to DHS. The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump's administration is working to speed up deportations in a crackdown that the Republican president vowed during the 2024 campaign would expel millions of people illegally in the US It has encouraged migrants to leave voluntarily by threatening steep fines and deporting migrants to notorious prisons in Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador. But the volume of deportations since he took office in January appears to be less than those overseen by his predecessor Joe Biden in the February to May period of 2024, about 200,000 people versus 257,000. On May 9, Trump announced Project Homecoming, an initiative overseen by DHS that offers $1,000 stipends and travel assistance to migrants who "self-deport". DHS said in a May 19 news release that 64 people had "opted to self deport" to Honduras and Colombia on a charter flight under the programme. Some experts said that while legal, sending the money to DHS for deportation operations was an unprecedented use of MRA funds. The main purpose of the funds historically has been "to provide refugee and displacement assistance, refugee processing and resettlement to the US, and respond to urgent and emerging humanitarian crises — not to return those very people to the harm or persecution they fled," said Meredith Owen Edwards, senior director of Policy and Advocacy at the Refugee Council USA. [[nid:713796]]
NBC News
6 days ago
- Business
- NBC News
State Department shifts $250 million from refugee aid to ‘self-deportations'
The U.S. State Department has moved $250 million to the Department of Homeland Security for voluntary deportations by migrants without legal status, a spokesperson said, an unprecedented repurposing of funds that have been used to aid refugees uprooted by war and natural disasters. The money has been transferred 'to provide a free flight home and an exit bonus to encourage and assist illegal aliens to voluntarily depart the United States,' the State Department spokesperson told Reuters. Historically, those funds have been used 'to provide protection to vulnerable people' overseas and to resettle refugees in the U.S., said Elizabeth Campbell, a former deputy assistant secretary of state. The re-routing of the money comes as President Donald Trump pushes to reshape U.S. government agencies to serve his 'America First' agenda. The State Department's planned reorganization explicitly states that the agency's refugee bureau now largely will focus on efforts to 'return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status.' The funds came from Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) overseen by the Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration. Its website says its mission is to 'reduce illegal immigration,' aid people 'fleeing persecution, crisis or violence and seek durable solutions for forcibly displaced people.' Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, citing the law authorizing the funding, said in a May 7 Federal Register notice that underwriting the repatriation of people without legal status will bolster the 'foreign policy interests' of the U.S. He did not mention the $250 million transfer to DHS. The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump's administration is working to speed up deportations in a crackdown that the Republican president vowed during the 2024 campaign would expel millions of people illegally in the U.S. It has encouraged migrants to leave voluntarily by threatening steep fines and deporting migrants to notorious prisons in Guantanamo Bay and El Salvador. But the volume of deportations since he took office in January appears to be less than those overseen by his predecessor Joe Biden in the February-May period of 2024, about 200,000 people versus 257,000. On May 9, Trump announced Project Homecoming, an initiative overseen by DHS that offers $1,000 stipends and travel assistance to migrants who 'self-deport.' DHS said in a May 19 news release that 64 people had 'opted to self deport' to Honduras and Colombia on a charter flight under the program. Some experts said that while legal, sending the money to DHS for deportation operations was an unprecedented use of MRA funds. The main purpose of the funds historically has been 'to provide refugee and displacement assistance, refugee processing and resettlement to the U.S., and respond to urgent and emerging humanitarian crises — not to return those very people to the harm or persecution they fled,' said Meredith Owen Edwards, senior director of Policy and Advocacy at the Refugee Council USA.
BBC News
03-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Residents near Grenfell estate to get compensation
Residents living in the shadow of Grenfell Tower are to get £400 compensation from the local council for each household because of delays to a scheme to refurbish their years ago the government and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea promised to build a "model 21st-century estate" at the Lancaster West Estate after the fatal fire at the project remains unfinished and with an £85m hole in its a meeting of the estate's tenants in Parliament on Monday evening, residents said they had been "living on a building site for the last seven years". Abbas Dadou is a resident on the estate. He said the compensation offered was "nowhere near enough for what the residents are going through"."We had a 2.5% rent increase, so it doesn't even balance out the rent increase and service charges. The process has been painful and really long, and residents are suffering through living in a building site."We and many residents are worried that many of the blocks will be left without any refurbishment, and the promise of the 21st-century model estate is highly unlikely."Councillor Elizabeth Campbell, the Conservative leader of Kensington and Chelsea, said the authority would work with government to try to secure the £85m needed to finish the refurbishment of the estate. She told BBC London: "In the aftermath of Grenfell for the legacy of the future, for the future of the whole area, we promised together with the government that we would deliver a 21st-century estate... We made that commitment with the government that we would both finance at 50-50 and we're waiting for the government to really deliver that promise."We have a duty to the people on the Lancaster West Estate to do what we promised... you can understand why so many of them are so angry."She added that the council intended to pay the £400 in compensation "in recognition of that". Joe Powell, Labour MP for Kensington and Bayswater, said there were "legitimate questions" because some of the people who live near Grenfell Tower, "most notably in the Lancaster West Estate, had been living on a building site since even before the fire"."I totally understand why they are frustrated about the pace of the major works and I think the key message from tonight is they want the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and this central government, Labour government to come together and find a solution," he Powell said there was "an £85m gap in the budget to complete the refurbishment of the entire estate, which was promised to the residents directly after the fire".He added: "I would far rather the government and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea come together and figure out how to close that gap rather than to give people false hope." The building safety minister, Alex Norris, who was at the meeting, would not be drawn on whether the government would find all of the money. It will be eight years since the Grenfell fire tragedy on 14 June and it will be the last anniversary before work starts in the autumn to take down the tower.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative announces dedication ceremonies
The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative has reached a significant milestone in its mission to document the region's Underground Railroad history, with an additional eight verified sites now officially listed on the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Supported by an Appalachian Regional Commission POWER Grant awarded to the Lawrence Economic Development Corp., this nine-county, tri-state project spans the tristate region of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. When completed, the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tour will consist of 27 verified Network to Freedom sites. The initiative aims to preserve historically significant locations and promote economic development through cultural tourism in the Appalachian region. The Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative will host two dedication ceremonies during the month of June to unveil the historical markers indicating sites added to the NPS Network to Freedom. The Campbell House, home to John and Elizabeth Campbell, served as a station for Underground Railroad operations in Lawrence County, Ohio. The Campbells worked with other local abolitionists to assist freedom seekers in the area. This dedication event will be held on June 4, 2025, at 10 a.m. and will take place at The Campbell House, 305 N. 5th Street in Ironton. Also, taking place on June 4 at 11:30 a.m., will be the dedication of the Ironton African Methodist Church. The African Methodist Church of Ironton, Ohio, known today as Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was founded by Retta and Gabe N. Johnson. The couple helped freedom seekers escape through the Hanging Rock Iron District, a region encompassing the tri-state area of Ohio, Kentucky and what was formerly part of the state of Virginia and is now part of West Virginia. This even will be held at the Ironton African Methodist Church, located at 514 S. 8th Street in Ironton. Two locations in Portsmouth will be dedicated in on Sunday, June 8. Pleasant Green Baptist Church, Portsmouth's oldest active Black Baptist congregation, was founded by formerly enslaved individuals and allies and has deep connections to Underground Railroad history in Appalachian Ohio. Allen Chapel AME Church, a historic African American church with roots tracing back to the pre-Civil War era, Allen Chapel played a pivotal role in supporting freedom seekers in Portsmouth. As a central institution within the local Black community, the church's members, including John J. Minor and his wife, Martha Minor, Joseph Love, John Q. Weaver and his wife, Mary Weaver demonstrated resilience and agency, actively participating in the Underground Railroad and leaving a legacy of courage and hope that continues to inspire future generations. This dedication event will take place on June 8th at 4 p.m., at 1421 Waller St. in Portsmouth. Dr. Andrew Feight, Director of Research and Outreach for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative, expressed the importance of this work, stating, "It is exciting to see this federal investment in the historical assets we have in the tristate region. Our research is recovering important lost chapters of local history that will transform our understanding of the past and help draw interest and visitors to the region. This is a history for which we all can be proud as Americans and it's an honor and a humbling experience for me to play my part in the endeavor." Marty Conley, LEDC/Tourism Director of Lawrence County, Ohio, added, 'We're honored that the Appalachian Heritage Freedom Tourism Initiative has helped make it possible for the National Park Service to recognize these Underground Railroad sites. This is a meaningful step in preserving these stories, and we look forward to safeguarding even more local history for future generations.' 'Pleasant Green Baptist Church symbolizes the importance of the history of the African American church as it relates to what it means to help people be set free,' explained Rev. Antonio Neeley, the Pastor of Pleasant Green Baptist Church, who has also served as an Outreach Specialist on the project. 'The church assisted freedom seekers in gaining their freedom, which is important to both American and world history. I am proud to be connected to these great leaders of Portsmouth as an African American male, a pastor, a Christian, and a citizen of the city of Portsmouth.' Karen Nance, Outreach Specialist for Cabell County, West Virginia reminds us why the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Tourism Initiative is important for the region: 'The biggest thing we need when we tell the stories of slaves is that we need to remember that they were people. They had talent, ambition, work ethic…all the things that make human beings human beings. We know all these things about the enslavers - the architecture they lived in, the clothes they wore — and we need to know more about the enslaved. We're telling heroic stories of people who were seeking their freedom.'
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Aid workers warn ‘people are dying and they're going to continue dying' as funding cuts hit
Cuts to food assistance by the US, Britain and others are already leading to more people starving to death around the world, experts have warned. As the United Nations and other agencies try to understand just how badly President Donald Trump's announced 83% cut in funding to USAid will affect the world's most vulnerable people, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has said its aid provision in Somalia is being reduced, after last month's estimate that 4.4 million people in the east African nation will be pushed into malnutrition from April because of drought, global inflation and conflict. This follows the WFP halving food rations for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and a similar cut in rations for refugees in Kenya, which sparked protests last week. Elizabeth Campbell, director of ODI Global Washington, a thinktank focused on inequality, said the cuts 'will mean high malnutrition rates, starvation and death'. 'The United States was by far the biggest global humanitarian donor, especially to the food sector, outstripping almost all other donors combined,' she said. 'There is no other donor or group of donors who can fill that void, certainly not in the short term.' Aid workers also fear that successful malnutrition and cash-assistance programmes may be sacrificed to focus more on food packages as a result of the sudden funding shortages and pressure from the US government, which sees political benefits in buying up surplus domestic produce for food aid. The world had 281.1 million people facing high levels of severe food insecurity in 2023, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) most recent report, but the 'stop work' orders issued by the US government in January have probably pushed millions more into hunger. As well as the cuts increasing malnutrition, aid workers are concerned that they will also affect the ability to treat them because of the closure of health clinics. According to the FAO, there are 36 million acutely malnourished people, including 10 million with severe malnutrition. The situation has been compounded by cuts to the UK aid budget from 0.58% of the UK's gross national income to 0.3% – a cut of about £6bn – to pay for increased defence spending. There are also concerns other donor countries may follow suit as they step up spending on arms, including Germany – the second-biggest overseas aid donor – where the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has pledged a significant increase in defence spending. Rein Paulsen, FAO's emergencies director, said food aid was now being directed to only a limited number of the most extreme immediate cases. 'About 200 million people in severe need – who are just one small shock or stress away from being in extreme need – are left behind,' he said. 'The support being provided is focused on the very short term, aimed at keeping people alive for the coming weeks or months.' One aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their organisation was already seeing the effects of the 'life-killing' cuts, with beneficiaries in Somalia forced into debt to buy food and a halt to a nutrition programme for breastfeeding mothers and children. Meg Sattler, of Ground Truth Solutions, which surveys recipients of aid, said malnourished children in Somalia were now dying as a result. She said her organisation had documented aid deliveries stopping in Darfur – the worst-hit region of Sudan's civil war – and families having the cash payments they relied on stopped. 'The reality is people are dying and they're going to continue dying,' said Sattler. There is significant uncertainty about how the aid sector will respond to cuts by the US, Britain and most other European countries, and also concern that cash assistance and longer-term nutritional support could be sacrificed for a greater focus on in-kind assistance. Over the past 20 years there has been a growing move away from direct delivery of aid – such as sacks of grain being imported and distributed by an international organisation – to giving people small cash payments to allow them to make decisions for themselves and their families. The approach has proved highly successful and also keeps a better balance for economies as people can buy their food locally, supporting traders and markets, instead of having to walk, often for many miles, to collect heavy sacks of imported rations from distribution centres. Cash payments now make up more than a third of WFP's food assistance, amounting to $2.8bn in 2023. This year the UN appealed for $47bn (£36bn) for humanitarian needs, with food security accounting for a third of those requirements. In its call to support five regional refugee response programmes for 2024 – for Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, South Sudan and Syria – the UN said it would be targeting at least 20 million refugees. Paulsen said 85% of the UN's humanitarian aid went on in-kind food and cash payments. He said that even in crisis zones, emergency agriculture could help prevent hunger more efficiently than direct food aid, with FAO assistance helping to produce $2.7bn worth of food in 2022 for a cost of $470m, and gave people more predictable and nutritious sources of food. Paulsen said such projects with farmers meant that 50 million people would not need emergency aid. But there are fears that the US will now revert to the outdated policies of aid delivery, especially in shipping grain. The US already buys up surplus produce from its farmers and distributes it as aid. In 2022, USAid spent $2.6bn procuring 1.8m tonnes of goods from US producers – including sorghum, maize, beans, rice and vegetable oil. Campbell said the political motivation was likely to win out over what had proved to deliver the best results. 'They have to have a market and a place to put their excess wheat and the way they have been doing it is that the US government was buying it and giving it away for free. 'I think to the extent that US humanitarian food-assistance support continues, it is highly likely that it will be in kind,' she said. Alexandra Rutishauser-Perera, head of nutrition for Action Against Hunger, said the aid sector was again in 'emergency mode' to feed people in crisis, after setbacks from Covid, a series of conflicts and the climate crisis. Aid agencies would increasingly need to rely on fundraising from the public and from private donors to provide the more comprehensive programmes on malnutrition and food security, she said. While the shift towards cash assistance was seen as progress, many in the global south wanted to see international agencies go much further, empowering governments and local organisations, which are too often not consulted on their own communities. Dr Rattan Lal, an Indian-born scientist who was awarded the 2020 World Food prize for his work on soil fertility, said there should be no shortages of food anywhere in the world, but that people needed to be given the ability to produce their own. 'Famine is really a human-made tragedy,' he said. 'Food insecurity and malnutrition is not because we are not producing enough. It is a problem of poverty, access, war, political strife and other social-economic issues.' He said sub-Saharan Africa, where food insecurity was high, had the land and conditions to become self-sufficient but investment was needed to help agriculture thrive. 'We need action to ensure everyone can produce locally. What has happened in US politics now will happen again and again, and the solution is be self-sufficient,' he said. Degan Ali, the Somalian-born co-founder of the Network for Empowered Aid Response (Near), of civil society organisations from developing countries, said other than in situations where government rule had broken down, emergency aid should be organised locally. She said that international aid groups had grown and taken on the role of governments, disempowering instead of assisting them, including in Somalia. 'You haven't created any food self-sufficiency, any systems where people don't need you any more. You haven't helped people go back to their farms, rebuild their farms, get out of these camps and go back to farming,' she said. 'Part of reinventing the new system is to say we're done with the old aid model, where we balloon international organisations and the UN agencies. The system is so broken because there's no incentive to scale down. There's no incentive to say: 'I don't need the money, go give it to the government, give it to local organisations.''
