Syrian refugee Hanan Dacka (3rd from left), 12 years-old, confers with newly-made Brazilian friends (left to right) Anne Pinheiros de Souza, 12, Andressa Rabasco, 12, Julia Vanderlei, 12, and Maria Luiza de Sousa, 12, during classes at the Duque de Caxias Municipal School, in the Glicerio neighborhood of downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, on February 25, 2016. Hanan arrived in Sao Paulo with her mother, Yusra Bakri, in early 2015 and was recognized as a refugee by the Brazilian government on September of that year. After only 4 days in a new classroom, she has started to make new friends, all of which already used to study alongside immigrants and refugees. Glicério, the school's neighborhood in the center of Sao Paulo, is the region to where the majority of immigrants and asylum seekers go to live as soon as they arrive in the city. Many children of those newly-arrived go to Duque de Caxias for elementary studies.
© UNHCR/G. Morales

US Resettlement Agencies

These resettlement agencies provide services to refugees through their affiliate offices in cities across the U.S.  For a list of resettlement agencies in your area, please click here. This link will take you to the Refugee Processing Center (RPC) that contains an updated Affiliate Directory as well as Agency Affiliate maps. The RPC is operated by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), which uses an interactive computer system called the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS) in order to process and track the movement of refugees from various countries around the world to the U.S. for resettlement. Refugees are resettled across the country through affiliate offices of the nine national resettlement agencies (listed below) that resettle refugees on behalf of the U.S. Government. Resettlement agencies help newly arrived refugees settle into local communities and provide a wide range of services that promote self-sufficiency, such as employment and language skill classes. In addition to refugee integration, several of the agencies also provide comprehensive immigration services to assist refugees on their path to becoming permanent residents or U.S. citizens.

For additional information on the nine national resettlement agencies, please click on the links below.

Church World Service
www.churchworldservice.org

Ethiopian Community Development Council
www.ecdcinternational.org

Episcopal Migration Ministries
www.espiscopalchurch.org/emm

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
www.hias.org

International Rescue Committee
www.theirc.org

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
www.lirs.org

U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
www.refugees.org

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration and Refugee Services
www.usccb.org

World Relief
www.wr.org