Latest news with #RefugeeAdmissionProgram
Miami Herald
20-04-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Houston YMCA Cutting Staff After Trump Funding Blow
The YMCA of Greater Houston announced last week it will cut 2.7 percent of its workforce across 160 locations in Texas due to federal funding cuts, The Houston Chronicle reported Friday. This comes as Harris County's Alief Family YMCA, which primarily served refugees through its New American Initiative, will close on May 30 following President Donald Trump administration's cuts to refugee program funding. Newsweek has reached out to the White House and Alief Family YMCA via email on Sunday for comment. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by billionaire Elon Musk, has drawn praise and consternation for cutting federal budgets and monies since Trump took office again in January. As of April 16, DOGE estimates it has saved approximately $155 billion for the nation, combining different components including asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions. Trump, meanwhile, signed an executive order hours after taking office that halted the nation's Refugee Admission Program. The order, titled "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP)," went into effect on January 27, suspending the program for 90 days. The suspension allows U.S. officials to determine "whether resumption of entry of refugees into the United States under the USRAP would be in the interests of the United States." The Houston Chronicle reported that due to Trump's executive order Houston-area organizations that support refugees, like the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, cut 120 workers in February. According to local reports, the YMCA has been an important and beloved community resource, particularly for refugee services and youth programs in Houston that rely on federal grants. This reduction in services comes at a time when many refugee communities in Texas are already facing increased uncertainty about their status and support systems. Houston has historically been one of the nation's largest refugee resettlement areas, with a robust support services infrastructure that is now facing significant restructuring. The Alief area is particularly affected as it has been home to diverse immigrant communities for decades. The YMCA facility there has provided essential services including language classes, employment assistance, youth programs, and health initiatives tailored to refugee and immigrant populations. According to The Houston Chronicle, the YMCA of Greater Houston didn't say which positions would be cut, which locations would be affected or reveal the size of its staff across the Houston area. President Donald Trump's "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP)" executive order reads: "The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees." The YMCA stated in an email to The Houston Chronicle: "We recognize the impact this has on our employees and understand the challenges this may bring. While we are making adjustments, we remain committed to continuing our services and supporting the community at all our locations." Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones, whose precinct covers the Alief area, released a statement following the announcement: "The Alief Family YMCA has been a cornerstone for families, youth, and seniors-providing not just programs but a true sense of community." She added: "Its closure is a painful reminder of how federal funding decisions can affect local lives. In Precinct 4, we've been proud to partner with the YMCA to provide a safe, engaging, and enriching environment for children and families. We remain committed to our shared vision of supporting youth development, education, and the overall well-being of the Alief community." Linda Reyna, a spin instructor at Langham Creek Family YMCA in northwest Houston, said, per The Houston Chronicle: "For certain programs, they get federal grants, and that's very important for the kids in the community. That's gonna be a big, big blow to different age groups." The 90-day suspension of the Refugee Admission Program is set to expire later this month. Refugee advocacy organizations are watching closely to see whether the administration will extend the suspension or implement permanent changes to the program. The YMCA of Greater Houston is reportedly developing transition plans to ensure continuity of essential services where possible. Community leaders and local government officials are exploring alternative funding sources and partnerships to potentially preserve some programs currently offered at the Alief location. Related Articles New Texas Cruise Ship Terminal Expected in November: What to KnowMap Reveals States Worst Impacted by Trump's TariffsDallas High School Shooting Update: Suspect Targeted Student, Police SayWhere Is 'Ransom Canyon' Filmed? All About Netflix Series With Josh Duhamel 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Life is so dark': Trump cancels flights to KC for 108 refugees fleeing war, persecution
On Feb. 2, a family of refugees — a father, mother and their five young sons, having fled the oppression of Taliban-led Afghanistan —were scheduled to arrive at Kansas City International Airport at 2:29 p.m. on United Airlines Flight No. 561 to begin their new lives in Kansas City. They had tickets, but no chance to board a plane. In the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program — an inauguration day order that on Monday was challenged in federal court — the family's flight was canceled. So, too, was the flight of a Congolese mother, father and their two teenagers set to arrive at KCI on Feb. 7, having waited seven years to reunite with their loved ones already here. A flight three days later for another family of eight from the Democratic Republic of Congo, with six children under age 14, was similarly canceled. 'We had flights already scheduled. . .To get so close and have it pulled away has to be devastating,' said Hilary Singer, executive director of Jewish Vocational Services. JVS is one of four refugee resettlement organizations in the Kansas City area that, last year, collectively resettled some 1,600 people from countries torn by worn and persecution, including genocide. Numbers supplied by JVS, Della Lamb Community Services and Mission Adelante show that as least 108 refugees (JVS 42, Della Lamb 56, Adelante 10) who were expected to arrive in Kansas City in February no longer will. The figure is likely higher given that Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, which resettled 343 refugees in its last fiscal year, opted not to say how many refugees had been expected to arrive this month through its efforts. Suspension of the program — which includes cutting off federal aid used to support refugees in their first 90 days in the U.S. — not only has devastated families, but also has thrust refugee aid organizations into uncertain futures. 'February 6th was one of the hardest days I've experienced in my time at Mission Adelante,' Executive Director Jarrett Meek posted in a blog Monday, citing a freeze on federal funds. 'We had to let go of our entire refugee resettlement team — seven dedicated employees, who had worked, loved, and given their all to serve the 171 refugees we had welcomed over the last 12 months.' Trump, in his Jan. 20 executive order, noted that he was suspending the program over security and other concerns. 'Over the last 4 years,' the order reads, 'the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S, Refugee Admission Program. . . .The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.' The order notes that within 90 days of its signing, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, would submit a report to the president regarding whether the resumption of refugees through the program 'would be in the interest of the United States.' On Monday, a coalition of resettlement organizations sued the Trump administration in federal court in Seattle, holding that Trump's suspension is unlawful. It asks the courts to restart the program. Under former President Joe Biden, about 100,000 refugees were allowed into the U.S. Some 10,000 had been approved to arrive when Trump's order went into effect. 'President Trump cannot override the will of Congress with the stroke of a pen,' Melissa Keaney, attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the plaintiffs, said in a news release. 'The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect refugees, and the longer this illegal suspension continues, the more dire the consequences will be. Refugees and the families and communities waiting to welcome them have been thrown into indefinite limbo and the resettlement agencies ready to serve them don't know if they can keep the lights on.' For families, there is the personal toll. 'The first time we heard this news, my wife, she was crying,' said Qasim Rahim, 33. A refugee from Afghanistan, Rahim had been a target of the Taliban, having worked for organizations that supported the U.S. government. In August 2021, he was among the Afghan crowds that swarmed the tarmac at Kabul's international airport desperate to flee the country. His ultimate destination was Kansas City, where a sister and her family already lived. 'I was lucky to have got on a plane and came here,' Rahim said. 'Probably I was to be killed by them.' Although Rahim could get out, his wife, Samia Tahiri, could not. It had already been two years since they'd seen each other, as Tahiri was still a student when they married, studying business in India at a university in Bangalore. Under the Taliban, girls are barely educated and women do not attend universities or hold outside jobs. The Taliban's most recent vice and virtue laws make it unlawful for women to bare their faces in public. They must be fully veiled. As their voices are considered intimate, they are banned from singing or reading aloud or being heard outside their homes. Tahiri, now 27, remained in India. Five years would pass before this past December when she and her husband were reunited in Kansas City. The expectation was that Tahiri's parents, four siblings, as well as her aunt, uncle and cousin would follow from where they were refugees in Pakistan, perhaps as soon as this year. But then on Feb. 3, the family received a letter from the International Organization for Migration: The activities of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program had 'been suspended.' Tahiri broke down when the email arrived. They talk but by phone. But it's been eight years since Tahiri has physically been with her family. 'I almost lost my hope,' she said. 'Nothing is clear right now.' The same holds for Evarist Peter, 23, who, along with his younger brother, arrived in Kansas City in December 2022 from a refugee camp in Tanzania. A sister and brother would also come. Peter now lives in Gladstone. 'I was born in Tanzania, but I am Congolese,' from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peter said. Violent clashes between Congolese armed forced and various militias have wracked the country for decades, displacing millions of people, including Peter's parents. 'I was born as a refugee. I was raised up as a refugee. I got the this opportunity to come to America,' he said. Speaking mostly French and Swahili, he quickly learned English. He's now a student at Penn Valley Community College while also working part-time fulfilling orders for Amazon. Left behind, he said, are his parents and five siblings. Although he hopes that the refugee resettlement program will recommence after the 90-day suspension, he also knows that it may not happen and that years more could pass before he sees his mother, brothers and sisters again. 'Because you know life, I will say home, without mom is dark,' he said. 'It''s something dark, you know. Life is so dark without father.' The news that they won't be coming, he said, came hard. 'If somebody expected something and it happened differently, it is painful,' he said. 'Painful.' Meek of Mission Adelante said their organization was expecting refugees from Venezeula. Della Lamb said the same. 'We were supposed to start receiving people last week,' said Sarah Kolsto, Della Lamb's refugee services director. 'And the way it works is that our clients (before arriving) basically get rid of all of their earthly belongings. So that's what they all did.' Refugee organizations were aware that immigration and refugee resettlement would change in the second Trump administration. In January 2017, during the first days of his first term, the president signed an executive order that banned travel to the U.S. for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The order sparked protests across the country and it was challenged in court. But in June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that such a ban was Constitutional and within the president's power. Singer, at JVS, said that during the first Trump administration refugee resettlement in the Kansas City area dropped precipitously. In 2016, the last year of Barack Obama's presidency, JVS resettled 600 refugees from a dozen countries into the Kansas City area. By the end of Trump's first term, the number had dropped to 80 individuals, most of them Christian and 80% from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By the end of Joe Biden's presidency in 2024, the number had returned to 650 people from a range of countries including Congo, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Venezuela and others. 'We were anticipating with Trump something similar to what the administration did during his first term,' Kolsto of Della Lamb said. 'He came in saying, 'OK, we're not going to let this many refugees in.' He lowered the ceiling. So we were anticipating that. 'But what he did in this round, it's really, really extreme and chaotic. He's not only completely cut off refugee arrivals for a minimum of 90 days, he's also stopped funding. That includes funds for clients to pay rent and utilities, give them pocket money for those first three months while they're looking for employment. It included case management support. We receive funding to provide salaries for our case managers. We haven't laid anybody off at this point, but we are having to find private resources to continue to support these people.' That's currently where Kansas City's refugee resettlement organizations stand — reaching out to private donors to help support and provide services to the refugees who just recently arrived. In it's last fiscal year, Della Lamb resettled 362 individuals. This fiscal year, before the stoppage, it had been slated to resettle 530. 'I can say with probably a pretty good degree of certainty that even if they they kind of restart this program,' Kolsto said, 'it's not going to be anywhere near the capacity that we were at, right?' Meanwhile, refugees like Tahiri and Rahim are left waiting and hoping. 'We have to live with hope,' Rahim said. 'Without hope, nobody can live. We are still trying to be strong.'
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Project 2025 was the plan all along. Trump is proving it now.
As a candidate, Donald Trump said he knew "nothing" about Project 2025, the conservative playbook put together by a group of some of his former top advisers. As president, he's following through on a lot of its ideas. Some overlap between a Republican president and a conservative think tank's policy ideas would be expected, but Trump's immediate embrace of very specific ideas in the 900-page proposal makes his disavowals of it on the campaign trail seem disingenuous, at best. In some cases, Project 2025 was building on Trump's ideas, as with its proposal to reimplement a plan from his first term to gain more control over federal workers. In other cases, such as withdrawing from a global tax deal, the Trump administration seems to be picking up on an idea in Project 2025 that the candidate hadn't said much about. That list is likely to grow. Just last week, Trump floated the idea of overhauling or eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency — in line with a proposal from Project 2025 to send more disaster funding directly to states. Below, we took a look at Trump administration decisions that echo proposals from Project 2025. White House: Suspended the Refugee Admission Program, with the possibility of renewing it every 90 days based on the advice of the secretary of state. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed an 'indefinite curtailment' of the number of refugees admitted under the U.S. Refugee Admission Program to shift resources to immigration enforcement. (p. 178) Notable: The executive order cites Springfield, Ohio, where Trump falsely claimed immigrants were stealing and eating pets during the campaign. White House: Suspended all claims of asylum at the southern border until the president issues a finding that 'the invasion at the southern border has ceased.' (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed raising the standards for 'credible fear of persecution' for asylum-seekers and specifying that fear of gangs and domestic violence aren't grounds for asylum. (p. 148) Notable: The executive order doesn't use the word 'asylum' at all, instead citing 'section 208 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1158,' the section of U.S. law governing asylum claims. White House: Directed the Defense Department to send active-duty military personnel and the National Guard to the southern border because of a 'national emergency.' (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed sending active-duty military personnel and National Guard members to 'assist in arrest operations along the border' involving drug cartels. (p. 555) Notable: The White House goes further than Project 2025, which only proposed that military personnel be considered to fight criminal organizations. White House: Declared that the federal government will define gender as only male or female for purposes of federal documents and prison assignments. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed that Health and Human Services "proudly state that men and women are biological realities" (p. 489) and end programs that recognize transgender Americans. (p. 450) Notable: The executive order defining gender as beginning "at conception" was criticized by scientists for being biologically inaccurate. White House: Directed federal agencies to expedite permitting for oil and natural gas in Alaska, with a priority on liquefied natural gas projects. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed opening more areas of Alaskan wilderness owned by the federal government for oil and natural gas exploration and development. (p. 523) Notable: Another executive order froze funding from two Biden-era laws that would have gone to clean energy projects in Alaska, including hydroelectric dams, wind turbines and solar energy. White House: Withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, including any related agreements and any financial commitments. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed ending a "global, climate-themed agenda" (p. 418) to the "perceived threat of climate change" (p. 419) by ending programs designed to meet the Paris climate agreement (p. 257). Notable: Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement in his first term. President Joe Biden then signed an executive order rejoining it. White House: Withdrew from the World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations that focuses on global health. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed reducing support — "up to and including withdrawal" — for the WHO, which it argued showed a "manifest failure and corruption" during the pandemic. (p. 191) Notable: Trump has attacked the WHO since 2020 over its approach to the pandemic and took steps in his first term to withdraw. White House: Withdrew from a global corporate minimum tax deal under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed withdrawing from the OECD entirely, calling it "little more than a taxpayer-funded left-wing think tank and lobbying organization." (p. 698) Notable: The 2021 global tax deal was negotiated by the Biden administration with nearly 140 countries. White House: Reinstated an executive order creating Schedule F with minor changes and revoked another Biden-era executive order protecting federal workers. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed reinstating Schedule F, created by an executive order at the end of Trump's first term, which gave the president more power to fire federal workers. (p. 80) Notable: The executive order renames "Schedule F," which had become controversial, as "Schedule Policy/Career." White House: Ended diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI) programs, mandates, policies, preferences and activities at federal agencies and targeted federal contractors. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed deleting the term 'diversity, equity and inclusion' from every federal rule, regulation, contract, grant, regulation or legislation. (p. 3) Notable: The Air Force briefly interpreted Trump's order as requiring it to stop teaching about the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II. White House: Ordered a hiring freeze on all federal civilian employees in the executive branch except the military or immigration, national security or law enforcement positions. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Proposed a freeze on all top career-position hiring to "prevent 'burrowing in' by outgoing political appointees" and noted that several recent presidents began with hiring freezes. (p. 79) Notable: Trump has also sought to reduce the federal workforce by ending work-from-home policies, an idea proposed in Project 2025 for only the Environmental Protection Agency's lawyers. (p. 443) White House: Revoked the security clearances of dozens of former senior intelligence officials for signing an open letter in 2020 raising questions about Hunter Biden's laptop. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Stated that the intelligence community faced a "crisis of confidence" over the Hunter Biden story and called for revoking security clearances for people who talk with the media. (p. 213) Notable: Trump also ended the Secret Service detail assigned to protect former national security adviser John Bolton from assassination threats from Iran. White House: Ended federal efforts to fight misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, claiming they infringed on freedom of speech. (Executive Order) Project 2025: Called for barring the FBI from engaging in any activities related to "combating the spread of so-called misinformation or disinformation." (p. 550) Notable: Research doesn't support the claim that conservatives are unfairly targeted by fact-checkers for spreading misinformation. This article was originally published on
