UPDATE: Niskanen Center is also a subcontractor on a $1.25 MILLION federally funded project to help redesign refugee resettlement across America.
And HHS is now recruiting states to pilot the new system.
The Trump administration began funding the Welcoming Initiative for Newcomers through HHS with $1 million in February 2026, followed by another $256,748 in August.
Niskanen’s own September report discloses:
“The Niskanen Center is a subcontractor of WIN.”
It describes the assessment project as “financed 100% with federal funds.”
The project’s stated deliverables include a “nationwide readiness map” showing states’ readiness to adopt the new framework, alongside a roadmap for implementation. WIN identifies World Education Services and the Shapiro Foundation as lead partners.
The underlying state questionnaire asks officials where they could accommodate ADDITIONAL refugees.
The options include major metropolitan areas, secondary cities, smaller urban areas and “Rural areas.”
Then it asks:
“Please list specific regions, metros, or communities where capacity may exist.”
Officials are also asked to estimate how many refugees their states could support annually—with an option for 2,500-plus—and whether the new system would increase that capacity. These are planning estimates, not placement commitments.
The local-provider survey goes further.
It asks organizations to rate how much “Community receptivity” and “Local political context” limit their ability to receive additional refugees.
Those appear alongside housing affordability, wages, staffing and access to public benefits.
The same questionnaire asks whether expanded benefits, higher funding per person and longer service periods would improve refugee outcomes.
Now there is a federal application deadline.
HHS’s September 28 letter tells interested governors or their designees to submit pilot proposals by NOVEMBER 2.
States must explain:
• How they would select refugee-placement locations.
• How they would distribute cases among local providers.
• The anticipated number and geographic distribution of placement locations.
• Their projected capacity and consultation with local municipalities.
HHS also lists “public opinion/landscape” among the factors states should consider.
Under the pilot, participating states would take responsibility for placement and service delivery while ORR retains federal authority. Some components are expected to begin in January–March 2027, with others starting later that fiscal year.
EXC: A Washington think tank whose immigration program receives Soros funding has identified hundreds of American counties as destinations for migrants. 96.5% of selected counties are majority White .
Residents would have no say.
Its November 2025 immigration blueprint urges policymakers to “enable local governments and private entities to sponsor immigrants directly.” It also proposes state visa programs and “incentivizing new arrivals to stay in specific states and regions.”
Two weeks later, Niskanen published its Migration Match Index, assessing American communities for their capacity to accommodate more immigration.
The report describes places with “aging, stagnant, or insufficient native labor supply.” It weighs factors including job openings, rental vacancies, affordability, unemployment, and age.
The authors explicitly discuss using updated data to plan resettlement following “an influx of asylum seekers at the border.” They also contemplate applications to a future refugee-admissions system.
Niskanen’s own funding disclosure lists $300,000 from Open Society Foundation for immigration work, covering the period when both documents were published. Other donors include the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Pritzker Family Foundation.
The organization already has a record of helping turn private sponsorship into policy.
Its 2025 annual report says it “helped conceive and implement” Welcome Corps, the private refugee-sponsorship program established under Biden.