Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is a non-profit organization that welcomes and supports

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s and migrants entering the United States. It is one of nine refugee resettlement agencies working with the

Office of Refugee Resettlement The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is a program of the Administration for Children and Families, an office within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, created with the passing of the United States Refugee Act of 1980 ( ...

and one of only two that serves unaccompanied refugee minors. LIRS also advocates for just policies and practices relating to

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

and detention. As an organization, LIRS originates from the response of American Lutherans in 1939 to the needs of Europeans displaced because of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, but the roots of the organization reach back to the 1860s when the New York Ministerium and the

Pennsylvania Ministerium The Pennsylvania Ministerium was the first Lutheran church body in North America. With the encouragement of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), the Ministerium was founded at a Church Conference of Lutheran clergy on August 26, 1748. Th ...

joined together to help and protect Lutheran immigrants in the US. Since then the organization's scope has expanded to include any refugees entering the US, support for

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and m ...

s and migrants, and services to unaccompanied children (UACs). LIRS continues to be a

faith-based organization A faith-based organization is an organization whose values are based on faith and/or beliefs, which has a mission based on social values of the particular faith, and which most often draws its activists (leaders, staff, volunteers) from a particula ...

and celebrates strong collaborative relationships with the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. , it has approxim ...

and the

Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ( lv, Latviešu evangeliski luteriska Baznica Amerika; LELBA) is a Lutheran denomination, formed in 1957 as a federation, and reorganized in 1975 as a formal denomination. In 1978 Lauma Lagzdins ...

. The current president and CEO is Krish O'Mara Vignarajah (2019–present).

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* {{Authority control Lutheran organizations Organizations established in 1939 Non-profit organizations based in Maryland Organizations based in Baltimore Refugee aid organizations in the United States Migration-related organizations based in the United States 1939 establishments in the United States