President’s Corner: Farewell to Ellen Sauerbrey

Today I went to a farewell ceremony for Ellen Sauerbrey, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues praised her for her passion and dedication to refugee protection.

Mrs. Sauerbrey held the post for two years and during that time worked hard to increase admissions during a period of additional security screening and new laws that complicated refugee resettlement in the United States. A major accomplishment was increasing the number of refugees resettled in the U.S. to 48,000 in fiscal year 2007, which ended last Sept. 30, from 41,000 the year before.

To do this, Mrs. Sauerbrey had to overcome an obstacle in new anti-terrorist laws--the USA Patriot Act and the REAL ID Act-- called material support. The provision denies resettlement opportunities to people who had provided assistance to “foreign terrorist organizations.” This means that people who had supported groups opposing the brutal dictatorship in Burma, for example, could not come to the U.S. as refugees, even though the U.S. government also opposes the Burmese military regime. Mrs. Sauerbrey helped to negotiate waivers for Burmese and Laotians from the material support provisions. She also played a key role opening resettlement opportunities for many of the nearly 100,000 Bhutanese refugees who have been in camps in Nepal since the early 1990s.

The biggest refugee challenge she faced during her tenure was the rapid increase in Iraqi refugees. There are currently 2.5 million Iraqi refugees, mainly in Syria and Jordan. Mrs. Sauerbrey worked to put a resettlement process in place, but the U.S. was only able to resettle 1,608 Iraqis last year, far fewer than its own goal of 7,000. It wants to resettle 12,000 in the current fiscal year, but resettlement continues to fall well below the target. In the first three months of the current fiscal year, the U.S. resettled only 1,057 Iraqis.

Resettlement is only one response to displacement. The first response is generally to aid refugees in their sanctuary countries. The U.S., working through the UN or bilaterally, sharply increased aid to Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan. Among other things, Mrs. Sauerbrey focused on improving educational opportunities for Iraqi refugee children.

When President Bush nominated Ellen Sauerbrey to serve as the chief of State’s refugee bureau, Refugees International opposed her nomination on the grounds that she had no experience with refugees. Reproductive health groups also opposed her, claiming that she was against family planning programs, a charge that Mrs. Sauerbrey denied. In the face of this opposition, she never received the required Senate approval for her job. President Bush gave her an interim appointment, which allowed her to serve until the end of the last Congress.

Refugees International and other refugee groups developed a close working relationship with Mrs. Sauerbrey, although we didn’t always see eye to eye on all issues. She overcame our initial concerns about her lack of experience. Many population groups, however, remained opposed to her, and the Senate failed to take up her nomination a second time, causing her to leave office.

I will personally miss her and her commitment to refugee protection. It was clear from her departure ceremony that her colleagues will miss her as well. They gave her many tributes, including an album of photos of her extensive travels to refugee camps, but the best tribute they can give her is a stepped up effort to increase the resettlement of Iraqi and other refugees.

--Ken Bacon