U.S. aid for refugees faces big cut
Senate bill slashes funds as world crisis escalates
WASHINGTON — U.S. funding for refugees could be cut by hundreds of millions of dollars next year under the Senate’s proposed spending plan even as a global humanitarian crisis, spurred by the exodus of millions of people from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq and especially Syria, grows steadily worse.
The Senate’s fiscal 2016 foreign aid bill would reduce by 14 percent, or $415 million, the Migration and Refugee Assistance account, which currently is funded at just under $3.06 billion.
Renewed domestic attention has focused on the plight of Syrian refugees following the publication last week of pic-
tures of a drowned Syrian toddler washed ashore on a Turkish beach and wallto-wall media coverage of the efforts of tens of thousands of migrants, mostly Syrian refugees, to attempt the dangerous trek into and through Europe.
“What is happening in Europe right now is an emergency within an emergency,” said Kari Diener, deputy director of advocacy for Mercy Corps. “It’s saying the U.S. and other donor countries must pay attention to the crisis in Syria.”
The potential for Congress to significantly reduce appropriations to the refugee assistance account under the State-Foreign Operations spending bill is worrisome to aid advocates, particularly as the United States is relied upon to make up for shortfalls in international aid needs when other donor countries fall short.
The possible cut to the Migration and Refugee Assistance account, which provides necessities to refugees, is a result of the mandatory spending caps ordered by the Budget Control Act.
The House State-Foreign Operations spending bill would keep funding stable at fiscal 2015 levels while the Obama administration requested a decrease in funding of about $600 million.
“The big surprise for us was that the Senate was more than $400 million below (enacted levels),” said Ann Vaughan, director of policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps. “They even used some of this emergency funding and it still wasn’t enough.”
Given that more money for refugees could have been appropriated through emergency funds, it is a big question why the account was not leaned on more heavily to make up the entire $415 million difference, she said.
“The normal narrative is that the Senate is very strong on these accounts,” Vaughan said. “We generally lean on them to have these higher numbers” that are then reconciled with the lower numbers in the House bill.
In addition to enduring funding, the Senate bill used both Overseas Contingency Operations and emergency spending, neither of which is subject to mandatory spending caps, to reach $2.64 billion for the refugee account.
The legislation notes carryover balances totaling $415 million that could be used to make up the shortfall from enacted levels. However, aid advocates argue that carryover balances are traditionally used by the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development to meet the needs of unforeseen emergencies such as the back-toback earthquakes in Nepal earlier this year.
“We need a full budget, plus carryover,” Diener said. “Budgeting in this way creates a very bad precedent.”
In the short-term, the refugee assistance account will likely remain stable as a stopgap funding bill looks likely to be passed to prevent a government shutdown when the current fiscal cycle ends Sept. 30.