Mark Hetfield, at The Blogs

Jul 13, 2020, 3:56 PM

The right to asylum was recognized after the Holocaust. Is it over?

Illustrative: Demonstrators at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport protest US President Donald Trump’s executive order imposing a freeze on admitting refugees from certain countries into the United States, January 29, 2017. (Scott Olson/Getty Images via JTA)

Trump is using COVID-19 as cover to end America’s system of welcoming and protecting hundreds of thousands of refugees from all over the world

Aug 4, 2015, 9:25 PM

Massacre at Sinjar: Has the World Forgotten the Yazidi?

It has been a very bad year for the Yazidi, an ancient ethnic and religious group of over 500,000 people. And it has been a shameful year for the international community which has done little to assist them, more or...

About Me

Mark Hetfield, President and CEO of HIAS, the international refugee agency of the American Jewish community, is serving in his fifth position at the organization, for which he has worked in Rome, New York and Washington. For three years prior to rejoining HIAS in April of 2006, Mr. Hetfield was on the staff of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, where he was the Commission’s senior advisor on refugee issues. While there, he specialized in the intersection of religious freedom and refugee law, and directed a comprehensive study, authorized by Congress, on the treatment of asylum seekers in Expedited Removal, released in February 2005. In addition, Mr. Hetfield served for five years in the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington and at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti. He also practiced immigration law while associated with the Washington D.C. office of the law firm, Fulbright and Jaworski. Mr. Hetfield received his juris doctor as well as his Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS) from Georgetown University.