By Miriam Jordan @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 28

[....] HIAS is one of nine agencies with contracts from the State Department to help refugees acclimate to the United States. It has aided immigrants with diverse talents from all corners of the world, including the co-founders of Google and WhatsApp.

[....] The refugees who receive those kinds of services from the nine resettlement agencies, including the International Rescue Committee and several faith-based groups like HIAS, have all been through extensive vetting by the federal government and have been given clearance to enter and reside in the country. Even so, Mr. Bowers’s writings on social media were bitterly hostile to refugees and to the agency that helped them [....]

Since it began in 1881 in a storefront on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, HIAS has assisted millions of people displaced by conflict or persecution, often on account of their religious or political beliefs, to rebuild their lives. Its clients have often been Jews — its first mission was to aid those fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe — but the agency has also helped resettle many other kinds of refugees, including thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians after Communist victories in Southeast Asia in the 1970s.

“We used to welcome refugees because they were Jewish,” Mr. Hetfield said. “Today HIAS welcomes refugees because we are Jewish.” [....]