Orange County supervisors have approved the creation of a new Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to help arrivals access necessary services in a timely manner. 

The new office was proposed by Board Vice Chairman Andrew Do and Supervisor Doug Chaffee. It would act as a one-stop-shop for immigrants and refugees, coordinating and centralizing services which are currently dispersed across multiple departments.

The new office will take time to set up. Chaffee has offered $500,000 in discretionary funding from his office to get it started. 

Orange County is home to some 930,000 foreign-born residents and has one of the largest Vietnamese refugee populations in the United States. In 2021, the county saw an influx of around 500 Afghan refugees who fled the Taliban after the U.S. withdrew from the country.

Read more at Voice of OC and the Orange County Register.