Donald Trump’s announcement on Monday that he was suspending the country’s refugee resettlement program effective Jan. 27 — and then on Wednesday that people who had previously been approved to travel to the U.S. now had plans Have been canceled – has surprised American advocacy groups, but hardly surprised.
Since the election, many organizations have been working around the clock to try to resettle thousands of refugees as quickly as possible before the new administration.
“The refugee program fulfills America’s deep ethical leadership to ensure that the most vulnerable refugees are safely resettled. The administration’s decision has put refugees at risk, ” said Eskander Negash, president and CEO of the American Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
Such news had been dreaded for months.
“The conversation became more serious after the election. Organizations were calling each other immediately,” said Dan Hanher, field office director for Global Refuge, an agency in Fargo, North Dakota.
“Please check your ability, see what you can do, and let us know if you can. [take on more cases]’, Hanaher said. Global Refuge has hastily resettled 55 people in the past few weeks who were vetted and approved for travel and arrived in the U.S. under the wire ahead of Trump 2.0.
Exodus Refugee Immigration, an advocacy organization in Indianapolis, has put itself on a fast track to speed up the resettlement of refugees approved for entry to the U.S. in the past two months before Trump’s inauguration. He was working hard.
“We probably said we could take 250 or 300. [just] 700 compared to a few months we will do. [typically] has been accepted throughout the year,” said Cole Varga, CEO of Exodus Refugee. As of last Friday, the group had welcomed 226 visitors to its Indianapolis office since November, and its Bloomington office had taken in some additional refugees.
An estimated 10,000 refugees had already been approved for entry, with travel arrangements already in place to come to the U.S. when Trump announced the suspension of the refugee resettlement program on Monday. signed an executive order, CNN reported. Wednesday morning, citing data and unnamed officials and other sources
Their countries of origin are not publicly available but many came from Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Venezuela and parts of Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo.
All previously scheduled travel by refugees to the United States is being canceled, and no new travel bookings will be made. [Resettlement support centers involved in refugee applications overseas] No additional refugee cases should be requested to travel at this time,” according to a State Department memo obtained by CNN.
According to the Trump administration, the secretaries of state and the secretary of homeland security can “jointly determine” the admission of refugees on a case-by-case basis, but only as long as they determine that it is ” “is in the national interest” and the case does not pose a security threat.
Lawyers don’t expect these acceptances to happen often. In three months, the Secretary of Homeland Security will submit a report on whether restarting the program is in the nation’s best interest. But the final say will depend on the President.
In Massachusetts, Rabbi James Green, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, a social services organization in Springfield, said the group has resettled more than 100 refugees since Election Day.
“Our belief is that welcoming the stranger is not just part of our vision, but what it means to be in American society,” he said.
Green said his staff of more than 100 people is working around the clock. He raised one of his last families before the new administration last Friday.
“Bringing families into a new community means providing them with a temporary place to live, such as a hotel or apartment, and assistance with basic needs such as food and trauma services,” she said. .
Green said the dark memory of Trump’s redevelopment and waste of funds in his first administration is fresh for many staffers.
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His organization welcomed 947 refugees in 2016, Barack Obama’s last year in the White House before Trump 1.0. By 2020, Varga estimates that this had dropped to 150.
Hanher said his organization saw “more of a challenge than a good revenue stream” under Trump.
Varga recalled about 300 U.S. refugee aid organizations that shrunk to about 200.
In 2020, only 11,814 immigrants were admitted to the U.S., compared to 84,994 in 2016, according to State Department data.
Refugees often spend decades in camps abroad. If they attempt the U.S. application and resettlement process with the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, there are years of rigorous background and medical examinations abroad.
Refugees are scrutinized more than anyone else. [else] coming into the country,” Varga said. He and Hannaher said the country with the highest population in their region is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
As of December, 517,405 refugees were waiting in camps in the country, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency.
Each refugee is allocated $3,000 by the federal government, through a resettlement agency, to pay for caseworkers, housing and other immediate needs over a three-month period.
Earlier Monday, the State Department told the Guardian in a statement: “The US refugee admissions program continues to operate under the presidential determination of 125,000 refugee admissions for fiscal year 2025.” The fiscal year of the federal government runs from October to October. More than 27,300 refugees were resettled. between the 1 October and 31 December 2024, the first quarter of the fiscal year. The January number was not available yet and now everything has suddenly changed, freshers are now suspended.
Greene said he keeps a poem called Home by the British Somali poet Warsonshire on his desk, which reminds him of what refugee families have gone through to get to America.
“No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” “The journey has been long and difficult.”
