The anticipated shortfall in U.S. State Department funds to private U.S. refugee organizations this year will not seriously affect HIAS, the international Jewish resettlement organization, its leader said Wednesday.
“If we are going to be affected, it will be later in the year,” said Karl Zukerman, executive vice president of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. “But if there is not a change, there will not be enough money for the government to bring in all the people it would like to bring in.”
The shortfall is due to the unanticipated increases in the flow of refugees from East to West, including Jews and Armenians from the Soviet Union. HIAS can weather the shortfall in part, said Zukerman, because it anticipated the increase this past year in Soviet Jewish emigration.
HIAS was one of a number of private organizations advised by State Department officials at a meeting here last week not to expect more money to cover rising costs.
The State Department has contracts with 18 organizations that provide assistance to refugees seeking homes in the United States and other Western countries.
A spokesman for the coordinator of refugee affairs at the State Department said Wednesday that the increasing number of refugees and rising costs due to the lower exchange rate of the dollar mean the current allocation for refugees “may be insufficient without changes.”
$346 MILLION ALLOCATED
Current resettlement funds represent approximately one-third of the $346 million allocated for refugee assistance this year.
The U.S. Congress intended the funds to cover the costs for a maximum of 68,500 people seeking homes in the West, but did not anticipate the increases in the exodus from Eastern European countries.
The spokesperson said the refugee affairs office had not yet determined the size of the shortfall.
Hit especially hard by the shortfall will be organizations, such as Church World Service, that provide care for Armenians leaving the Soviet Union. Soviet Armenian emigration has increased 12-fold over original estimates for 1988 to almost 1,000 per month.
According to Zukerman, the increases in the number of Soviet Jews and other refugees handled by HIAS were also dramatic. In 1987, HIAS aided in the resettlement of 6,000 Soviet Jews and 2,500 Iranian Jews, up from 650 and 800, respectively, the year before.
In 1988, HIAS expects to spend $8 million on refugee services, up from $5 million in 1986.
HIAS receives half of its budget from the State Department. The other half is provided by allocations from Jewish community federations, memberships and bequests.
Said Zukerman: “We’re okay for 1987 as far as the U.S. government is concerned, but fiscal ’88 is the story.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
