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The International Rescue Committee (IRC), like social service organizations across the U.S., has had to rapidly adapt to an unprecedented model of service delivery at a time when America’s most vulnerable families are being profoundly impacted by the dual impact of a public health crisis and an economic shut down.
Amidst travel restrictions and other government responses to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of March 17, 2020, temporarily suspended refugee resettlement departures—the actual travel of a refugee from their initial country of asylum to the country where they will be resettled. In addition to travel disruptions, the UNHCR cited concerns that refugees would be placed at a higher risk of contracting and transmitting the virus if they continued to travel as reasons behind their decision.