28-04-2025
How Catholic Community Services will keep Utah refugee resettlement program alive
Earlier this month, Catholic Community Services of Utah announced plans to end its longstanding refugee resettlement program after the Trump administration cut off its annual $2.5 million in federal funding.
But on Monday the relief organization found a way to operate independently thanks to private donors and community partners who provided $1.5 million to help continue the work on a smaller scale over the next four years. CCS Utah is seeking an additional $1 million in donations to keep the program going through 2029 and beyond.
'We're grateful our community is stepping up and helping us,' said Aden Batar, the charitable organization's director of Migration and Refugee Services.
The donations allow CCS Utah, which helps incoming refugees adapt to life in America, to maintain its commitment to refugee families in Utah while adapting to a changing national landscape. He said there are currently more than 300 families that it will provide services for over the next four years.
Refugees can still come and 'their needs will be taken care of without any worries. We'll make sure that refugees are successfully integrated into our community. We'll also make sure they become self-sufficient,' Batar said.
With federal funding suspended, including money that was allocated but was withdrawn, CCS Utah spent about $1 million the government no longer has clear plans to reimburse. The program incurs about $75,000 in monthly housing-related costs alone.
CCS Utah had already let go 25 employees and those who remained have increased case loads but few resources available to help the refugees resettle. Its other programs, including Immigration Services, Refugee Foster Care, and Basic Needs in Salt Lake City and Ogden, remain active and fully staffed.
If federal support is reinstated, CCS hopes to restore the program to its previous capacity. At the same time, it would maintain aspects of the new community-supported model to create a sustainable public-private partnership, said Kearstin Fernandez, CCS communications director.
President Donald Trump paused refugee arrivals to the United States for three months on Jan. 20th, the day he took office. The 90 days came and went on April 20, but people working in the field of refugee resettlement still don't know what to expect as the ban remains indefinitely suspended.
A federal appeals court ruled in March that the Trump administration can stop approving new refugees for entry into the U.S. but must allow in more than 10,000 people who were conditionally accepted before the president suspended the nation's refugee admissions system.
The abrupt pause left Utah families expecting to be reunited with relatives this year heartbroken, including Farhiyo Ahmed and Ali Aden, and their four young soon-to-be-five children.
The Somali family was expecting Ahmed's parents and her brother to arrive in Los Angeles on Jan. 16 but the devastating Southern California wildfires canceled their flight. Four days later, Trump issued the refugee ban executive order. They sold or gave away everything they owned, including their goats, in anticipation of coming to America. They bought winter clothes that they can't wear in the heat of Kenya.
'I miss all the happiness,' Ahmed told the Deseret News in February.
They weren't the only refugee family in Utah that had their hopes for reuniting with their loved ones dashed because of Trump's order. Others Catholic Community Services was expecting to resettle were put on indefinite hold as well.
Between Oct. 1, 2024 and Jan. 22, 2025, 300 refugees were welcomed by the agency to Utah, part of the 125,000 approved nationally to come to the U.S in fiscal 2025. Last year, 700 refugees were resettled in Utah with help from CCS.
CCS Utah doesn't know if it will see new arrivals this year or if the federal government will restore its funding. Fernandez said the Utah program is not enrolling new clients because of the pause. 'Should refugee admissions resume, we hope to resettle additional clients,' she said.
Catholic Community Services also represents unaccompanied minors — youths without parents, a close relative who can care for them or someone here with a provable claim to custody. There are about 126 unaccompanied minors who are already in Utah, but whose cases are not yet completed and CCS Utah has the contract to represent them in immigration court. Without funding, those children's immigration court representation status is in limbo.
