Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here on behalf of the World Refugee Council, and to begin by simply saying I think we as a council strongly endorse the importance of the compact. We underline that it is a very critical piece of architecture to be able

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think there have always been displaced persons. We've made, however, some legal distinctions, so a refugee has to be somebody who crosses a border in search of protection against persecution. Internally displaced people are affected by exactly the same conditions—conflicts, s

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Unfortunately, the Security Council, which under the charter had the prime responsibility for maintaining peace and security, is becoming very dysfunctional because of the great power disputes and the exercise of the veto. As a result, a lot of conflict situations are simply bypa

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would always be great to have full unity around these issues, but to get unity of 193 governments is not so easy. As a result, I think what we've learned in the last decade or two is that we can mobilize reform and international action without having a full court press. We'v

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We provide a number of interesting sorts of things that have grown out of our existence. One example is that Eduardo Stein, the former vice president of Guatemala, was just appointed as the UN envoy for Venezuela. That was based upon an inquiry that we did into Venezuela and Colo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, we're not a service organization. I think there are a lot of those. What we are trying to do, however, is to take a step behind that, which is to begin looking at a way that we can develop the serious financing for those programs.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think it's an annual thing. It was a one-time funding of I think about $800,000. That was accompanied by about three or four times that from American foundations as well as from our own think tanks. It's been a composite contribution that comes from a number of sources.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think the council sees itself as a permanent organization. We were brought together for the specific purpose of trying to provide an independent source of ideas and proposals and recommendations around the compact process so that we can get down to serious work.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The third party agreement? Yes, I think right now that it's getting in the way of our being able to solve some of the problems at the borders. I'm going down on Monday—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Oh, sure. I mean, I think—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The United States is still accepting applications. It's much reduced. I think they've reduced by almost 80%—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, I—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think you have to go to its origins. It came out as part of the follow-up package to the 9/11 border arrangements. We wanted to provide a kind of co-operative management of the system. It's changed. I think the present administration has a very different view of what a refuge

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As a result, it makes it more difficult.