U.N. Ambassador meets on behalf of—and with—refugees during JUF visit

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Representative to the United Nations, visited Chicago in August–with a stop at JUF to engage in discussions around refugee resettlement.

A longtime champion of refugees who spent half of her 35 years in the Foreign Service advocating on their behalf, the ambassador met–in a JUF-hosted meeting–with leaders of 11 Illinois refugee resettlement agencies. The discussion, which Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot attended, centered on the Biden Administration’s efforts to rebuild and expand refugee resettlement infrastructure after it had crumbled during the previous administration.

JUF President Lonnie Nasatir welcomed the guests; the discussion that followed was moderated by Marc Adelman, Associate Vice President of Refugee Resettlement Services for JUF. Also joining the meeting: Illinois Deputy Governor Sol Flores, Karolina Zaczak, Senior Caseworker at Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s office, and Lilian Jiménez, Illinois Department of Human Services’ Associate Director of the Office of Welcoming Centers for Refugees and Immigrant Services.

Following the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield met separately in an off-the-record dialogue with refugees from Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Syria, and Ukraine.

Thomas-Greenfield told the agency heads that she chose to visit Chicago because of the city’s long track record for welcoming the stranger. “Chicago has opened its heart and its homes to refugees from around the world who are now using their considerable talents to give back to their new community,” she said.

Lightfoot told the group they are “doing God’s work,” and stressed Chicago’s obligation to “set a table” for refugees from Afghanistan, Ukraine, or wherever else in the world there are refugees who need safe harbor. “We are always going to not just ‘say’ the values of welcoming them in, but ‘walk’ the values every single day,” she said.

In 1975, after the fall of Saigon, JUF–along with a group of resettlement agencies–helped launch the first statewide refugee program in Illinois. And for more than 40 years, JUF’s Refugee Resettlement Services department has played a pivotal role in welcoming over 130,000 refugees from many faiths and countries to Illinois. JUF serves as the administrator of the Illinois Refugee Social Services Consortium, made up of 10 partner agencies and funded by the federal government through the state of Illinois.

More recently, since the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan a year ago, Illinois has resettled more than 2,500 refugees from Afghanistan, and expects to welcome over 10,000 Ukrainian refugees. Nationally, the Biden Administration will likely admit approximately 65,000 refugees-not including those fleeing Afghanistan and Ukraine–to the U.S. in the year ahead.

“I know that what you do matters and that it does change lives every single day,” Thomas-Greenfield said, addressing the agency leaders. “One thing I always said when I was working on refugee issues was when I went to bed at the end of the day, I knew I had done something good.”