This week kicks off National Welcoming Week, during which communities honor the contributions of immigrants and refugees and highlight efforts to build stronger, more prosperous communities that seek to welcome everyone.

Today, the White House is hosting Welcoming Refugees: Honoring Refugee Integration and Refugee Voices. This special event will convene faith-based groups, refugee resettlement organizations, local governments, refugee leaders, and others to lift up innovative refugee integration initiatives and celebrate the outstanding contributions of refugees across the country.

I'll be there with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. You can follow along at whitehouse.gov/live from 2:30p.m. to 5:30p.m. EST and share your thoughts on social media using the hashtags #RefugeesWelcome and #WelcomingWeek.

Our county has a rich tradition of welcoming refugees. Over the past 40 years, our nation has resettled over 3.2 million refugees from countries that span the globe.

President Obama believes that we are stronger as a nation when we welcome immigrants and refugees into our communities and harness their skills.

This year, we are proud to announce that we have met our goal of welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees a month ahead of schedule, and we are well on our way to welcoming 85,000 refugees to our shores in 2016. And in 2017, we will seek to resettle 110,000 refugees, increasing the number of people we receive by almost 60 percent over a two-year period.

Thanks for being part of this vital conversation and for acting to make #RefugeesWelcome.

Sincerely,

Cecilia

Cecilia Muñoz
Director of the Domestic Policy Council
The White House
@Cecilia44

Stay connected