A group of Congolese refugees gathered in Washington, DC, on Monday to demand deeper US intervention in central Africas conflicts, even as federal data show that tens of thousands from the region have already been resettled in the United States in recent years.
According to The Post Millennial, Congolese Tutsi demonstrators marched near the White House to denounce the governments of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Activists accused both regimes of orchestrating anti-Tutsi violence and urged US officials to adopt a far more aggressive posture.
One protester carried a placard declaring, Stop the erasure. Justice for BanyaMulenge & Tutsi. Others repeatedly chanted, We need justice!
The demonstration quickly drew attention online, including from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who weighed in on X. Obama and Biden flew around 120,00[0] refugees by airplane from the Congo and resettled them across the United States as part of the US Refugee Admissions Program created by President Jimmy Carter, Miller wrote, highlighting the scale of prior admissions.
Miller pointed back to 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed legislation establishing a formal pathway for refugees to obtain citizenship. That law also opened access to an array of taxpayer-funded public benefits, including healthcare, housing assistance, food aid, and education.
Data compiled by Morse Research indicate that 123,496 Congolese refugees have been resettled in the US between fiscal years 2012 and 2026. Of those, 5,626 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring Congo were placed in North Carolina alone, all under the US Refugee Admissions Program with total obligations surpassing $690 million.
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