Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
A Christian family who fled violence in Mosul, Iraq. (CNS photo/Jamal Nasrallah, EPA)

Speakers addressing the Helsinki Commission, a Congressional advisory group that monitors global human rights conditions, on Sept. 22 called upon the United States to step up efforts to provide financial support to nongovernmental organizations that serve thousands of displaced people in northern Iraq. William Canny, executive director of Migration and Refugee Services at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, implored a comprehensive approach, including robust aid to private organizations and host governments. Such action could result in the safe return of the displaced communities, including Christians, to their traditional homelands when the conflict ends, he said. Canny also welcomed the resettlement of 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States. He expressed concern, however, that only an extremely small percentage of those resettled—about 0.53 percent—were Christians. He urged the U.S. government to create a new “Priority 2” classification in the U.S. refugee admissions program’s priority system for religious and ethnic minority victims of genocide so they can be relocated more quickly.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Pope Leo said that if the teen “had come all the way to Rome, then (the pope) could come all the way to the hospital to see him.”
A Reflection for Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Molly Cahill
Molly CahillAugust 04, 2025
As emergency workers searched for survivors and tried to recuperate the bodies of the dead, Pope Leo XIV offered his prayers for people impacted by the latest shipwreck of a migrant boat off the coast of Yemen.
Catholic News ServiceAugust 04, 2025
The Archdiocese of Miami celebrated the first Mass for detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administration’s controversial immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades.