U.S. Refugee Resettlement: State Capacity Assessment

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As leaders in refugee resettlement and related work, Welcoming Initiative for Newcomers (WIN) and its partners World Education Services (WES) and The Shapiro Foundation (TSF) seek to engage states and other stakeholders to get their input on how to prepare for a potential state-centric refugee resettlement framework that reflects community capacity including alignment with state workforce needs. The three partners will gather input and then share the feedback with states and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) that is funding this assessment project.

In January 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14163, "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program," which included direction to examine how to involve states and local jurisdictions more in refugee resettlement. 

Beginning in early 2025, the lead partners separately convened several State Refugee Coordinators to discuss a more workforce and state-centric framework and also gathered perspectives from other stakeholder groups. Expanding on our work, through September, WIN, WES, and The Shapiro Foundation (lead partners) will convene State Refugee Coordinators from state-administered and replacement designee states to understand variation in states’ capacity, interest, and readiness to engage in a potential new resettlement framework. WIN will serve as the lead drawing on in-kind expertise from WES and TSF to research what is needed to potentially implement a revised framework. 

The effort will document current conditions and constraints to resettlement, catalog resources that states identify as necessary to assume any expanded role, surface where readiness may be limited or uneven, and identify states–if any–that may be appropriate for voluntary pilots. Findings will inform a set of implementation considerations and options for ORR to consider.

The lead partners will serve as a convenor to learn, bridge communication, and understand states’ needs in the context of the broader refugee resettlement ecosystem. The collaboration draws on each organization’s unique expertise, assets, and work with the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Building on the humanitarian premise of the USRAP, the goal of the program is to assess and support states through this possible transition.