World Refugee Day (Philadelphia, June 22, 2025)

A few members of the CRI Immigration Committee went to Philadelphia’s Love Park for World Refugee Day 2025. We picked up a few facts while there that we thought were worth sharing.

• The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has been suspended since January 20th 2025 due to an Executive Order
  
• An ongoing lawsuit, Pacito v. Trump has been challenging the ending of the Resettlement Program, specifically the 12,000 refugees that were approved for resettlement prior to January 20, 2025. As of now the courts have only given permission to 160 of the 12,000 refugees who already had approval to be resettled.
  
• Nearly 16% of Philadelphia’s population and one in five Philadelphia households, have at least one member who was born abroad
  
• 20% of employed Philadelphia residents are immigrants
  
• In 2022, immigrants accounted for 36% of the the city’s 41,000 self-employed owners of unincorporated businesses
  
• After years of a surging population and tax base, the Philadelphia region faces catastrophic economic ramifications if we lose immigrants.

Check out some of the groups that sponsored this event (HIAS Pennsylvania and Nationalities Service Center)

For more on this event, check out this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer