Latest news with #U.S.RefugeeAssistanceProgram
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump administration ordered to admit thousands of refugees
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to allow about 12,000 additional refugees into the country, rejecting the White House's argument that approved migrants can be turned away if they did not arrive in the U.S. by early February. The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued a previous court order meant the government only had to accept about 160 refugees who would be en route to the U.S. by Feb. 3, but U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead rebuffed that interpretation. 'It requires not just reading between the lines, but hallucinating new text that simply is not there,' he wrote Monday. 'It is surprising that there could be any disagreement about the meaning of a judicial order that articulates three specific criteria in plain, straightforward language.' Faith-based refugee aid groups filed a lawsuit in February after President Trump issued an executive order that indefinitely suspended the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program (USRAP), created by Congress in 1980 for people fleeing persecution, wars or natural disasters in their home countries. USRAP is more rigorous than the asylum system that thousands of migrants have used to cross the U.S. borders, and it can take years for applicants to receive approval. The initial lawsuit argued that Trump's order was illegal because it sidestepped Congress, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has broad authority over who is allowed into the country. However, it directed the federal government to continue processing previously approved refugees who had 'arranged and confirmable travel plans to the United States' by the time Trump issued his Jan. 20 executive order that suspended the program. The DOJ set a two-week deadline from that date for refugees to travel to the U.S., but the refugee aid groups argued that arrangements only had to be made and not immediately underway. Whitehead agreed on Monday. 'Had the Ninth Circuit intended to impose a two-week limitation — one that would reduce the protected population from about 12,000 to 160 individuals — it would have done so explicitly,' the judge wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
The Hill
06-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump administration ordered to admit thousands of refugees
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to allow about 12,000 additional refugees into the country, rejecting the White House's argument that approved migrants can be turned away if they did not arrive in the U.S. by early February. The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued a previous court order meant the government only had to accept about 160 refugees who would be en route to the U.S. by Feb. 3, but U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead rebuffed that interpretation. 'It requires not just reading between the lines, but hallucinating new text that simply is not there,' he wrote Monday. 'It is surprising that there could be any disagreement about the meaning of a judicial order that articulates three specific criteria in plain, straightforward language.' Faith-based refugee aid groups filed a lawsuit in February after Trump issued an executive order that indefinitely suspended the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program (USRAP), created by Congress in 1980 for people fleeing persecution, wars or natural disasters in their home countries. USRAP is more rigorous than the asylum system that thousands of migrants have used to cross the U.S. borders and can take years for applicants to receive approval. The initial lawsuit argued that Trump's order was illegal because it sidestepped Congress, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has broad authority over who is allowed into the country. However, it directed the federal government to continue processing previously approved refugees who had 'arranged and confirmable travel plans to the United States' by the time Trump issued his Jan. 20 executive order that suspended the program. The DOJ set a two-week deadline from that date for refugees to travel to the U.S., but the refugee aid groups argued that arrangements only had to be made and not immediately underway. Whitehead agreed on Monday. 'Had the Ninth Circuit intended to impose a two-week limitation — one that would reduce the protected population from about 12,000 to 160 individuals — it would have done so explicitly,' the judge wrote.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Has Upended the Lives of Afghan Refugees
When Hasib Satary and his family arrived in the United States on August 27, 2021—less than two weeks after the fall of Kabul—he was in dire need of resettlement services. It had been a stressful ten-day journey for Satary, a former U.S. embassy employee in the capital of Afghanistan. His travels took him from Kabul to Doha, Qatar, before finally landing at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia to begin a new life. To his relief, the anxiety of arrival was eased by the welcome Satary and his family received from the local community, as well as the assistance of the Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, or LSSNCA, a refugee resettlement agency offering services in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The organization helped Satary with finding a home and employment, and aided in enrolling his three children in school. The services were especially needed for his wife, who was pregnant at the time. 'I had no idea where to go, how to go when I was here. But these individuals in the LSSNCA were very supportive, helping me, showing me, taking me to the hospital, taking my wife to hospital,' Satary recalled. 'It could [have been] very difficult for me if I didn't have that support.' Now, nearly four years after arriving in the U.S., Satary works for LSSNCA as the director of employee services in its northern Virginia office. He helps fellow refugees of all backgrounds find employment, become self-sufficient and integrate into their communities. But the assistance that was so vital to Satary and his family in 2021 is no longer available to new arrivals in the United States. After taking office on January 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending all refugee admissions. Refugees outside of the U.S. who had already received approval to enter the country were blocked from arriving. Shortly thereafter, the administration suspended federal funding for the ten national agencies that shoulder the burdens of refugee resettlement, most of which are faith-based. This severely disrupted these organizations' ability to provide services to already-arrived refugees. Kristyn Peck, the executive director of LSSNCA, recalled receiving the stop-work order from the federal government on January 24, ordering the halt of resettlement services. 'We had welcomed 369 individuals through the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program within the previous 90 days who were now immediately no longer eligible for those services,' Peck said. As a result, LSSNCA laid off 42 staff members the following Monday, primarily case management staff. These workers would have been the main point of contact for those recently arrived refugees—75 percent of whom were Afghan. The administration's actions have been devastating for the recently arrived Afghans. 'They heard the services that people like myself and people who came earlier received—services that they are not going to receive—which is threatening their morale,' Satary said. He recalled a recent meeting with an Afghan man with seven children, who was weeping because he did not receive the resettlement and placement services, as they had been eliminated by the Trump administration—a common source of despair for many new arrivals in the region. 'They are saying it is really an injustice and unfair, the way they are being treated here,' Satary said. For many of these newly arrived refugees, they are caught between a government in Afghanistan that could have them killed, and an American government that is suddenly uninterested in providing support. The Trump administration's actions on refugee resettlement were swiftly met by lawsuits, some of which are still wending their way through the court system. An appeals court ruled last month that the Trump administration could stop approving new refugees for entry, but needed to admit those who had already been conditionally accepted before the refugee system was suspended. (Despite the efforts to make it largely impossible for most refugees to enter the U.S., the Trump administration is working to fast-track the admittance of white Afrikaners from South Africa.) Separately, a district court judge ordered the Trump administration to resume contracts with nonprofits that conduct refugee resettlement. In a status report updating the court this week, the administration's lawyers said that the contracts would be reinstated and then immediately suspended. Tens of thousands of Afghans who were admitted to the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 were permitted to enter with humanitarian parole, allowing them to claim temporary residency status. In the years since then, many have traversed difficult legal pathways in an effort to obtain legal permanent residency. 'They've applied for asylum, which they were overwhelmingly granted due to the persecution they face back in Afghanistan, but it has been an enormous amount of, you know, time and languishing and legal limbo as those applications work their way through the court,' said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the CEO and president of Global Refuge, the parent organization of LSSNCA and one of the 10 national agencies that has long partnered with the federal government to resettle refugees. Others who served with the U.S. military—such as Satary, who worked as an interpreter from 2003 through 2008—were able to apply for Special Immigrant Visas, or SIVs, allowing them and their spouses and young children to obtain permanent resident status. Some may have obtained their green cards, or still have their applications pending adjudication. Then there are those not eligible for SIVs who are still technically in the U.S. with temporary residency, putting them in a sort of legal purgatory—they could apply to renew their parole, or for temporary protected status. With the president's insistence on ending birthright citizenship, and the administration's willingness to detain and deport residents who were in the U.S. legally, the protections once offered by a green card may not seem so stable anymore. 'This administration is obviously doing so many high profile anti-immigrant, anti-refugee actions for the purposes of spreading fear and intimidating people,' said Adam Bates, a supervising policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project, which has brought some of the refugee-related lawsuits against the Trump administration. 'Even the people who have gone through the process and completed that process, I imagine there's palpable concern, and still just a real lack of certainty about what their status is [and] how secure their status is.' Although the SIV program has technically not been targeted by the Trump administration, it's unclear how applicants would be affected by a potential new travel ban reminiscent of the first Trump administration's partial prohibition on visitors from predominantly Muslim countries. Bates also noted that, despite being distinct from the refugee admissions program, the program relies on much of the same infrastructure, which has now been disrupted. Moreover, Afghans eligible for SIVs or asylum who remain in Afghanistan are now unsure whether they will be able to make it to the United States. 'People need to know what to expect so they can plan for their lives. And that's the big that's the big thing that the Trump administration is not allowing them to do at the moment,' said Shawn VanDiver, the founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of organizations working to relocate and resettle Afghans in the U.S. 'The concerns that we're seeing are presenting mostly in that vein. Like, 'Am I going to be able to get my family here, ever?' Satary also noted that many Afghans eligible for SIVs are women, who have very little rights under the Taliban government, and are unable to even visit a place where they can access the internet to inquire about their status. To many in Afghanistan, and their families in the U.S., it feels like a broken promise. 'I remember when talking to my family and friends in Afghanistan, they were very happy with President Trump coming to power, and they were saying like, 'Now is the time for us to become free, or at least make our way to the U.S.,'' Satary said. 'But now, some of them are sad when they are seeing he's not even talking about them, he's not even thinking about them.' Refugees may find integrating into a new community difficult even under the best of circumstances. There is the high cost of living in the D.C. metropolitan area; the need to obtain employment; the need to obtain transportation to get to that employment; the need for a good line of credit to finance the car they need for transportation to get to that employment. Because it is near impossible to support a family with one income in this area, Afghan women may need to find jobs for the first time in their lives, which could also prove to be a cultural adjustment. Then there is the emotional turmoil of leaving a country where their lives are at risk for one that no longer feels welcoming. 'So many of them experienced trauma in their home country, the anxiety induced by the evacuation, and then now the uncertain future they face. And so we just don't want to add insult to injury in terms of making their predicament even more precarious as a result of U.S. policy,' O'Mara Vignarajah said. Struggles relating to health care, employment, and housing are among those that are typically addressed with the assistance of a refugee resettlement agency. Even though a large portion of the federal funds that LSSNCA relies on have been unfrozen, the organization has been deeply impacted by the administration's actions—the team at LSSNCA has laid off around 75 people since last October, Peck said. 'Prior to January 20, we really had wrap-around support. We were able to provide families and individuals that were arriving through the refugee program, and we felt really good about the support we were able to provide folks to transition to a new community and new country,' she said. Amid the policy changes of the Trump administration, Peck said LSSNCA had focused on 'mobilizing volunteers and congregations and multi-faith coalitions to support refugees,' which in turn assist with the services that would normally be provided by a case-management team. The community-level work of volunteers echoes the longtime advocacy of U.S.-based organizations, many of which are veterans groups. Several veteran and faith-based organizations pushed for years for Congress to approve bipartisan legislation called the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would expand the number of people eligible for SIVs and create an easier pathway to residency for Afghans in the U.S. on humanitarian parole. Even prior to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, said Bates, 'there was so much advocacy to come up with a pathway or a process that will allow folks to enter the US on some kind of permanent pathway, instead of having to parole all these folks.' 'It's not as if folks didn't see this train wreck coming. I mean, there were years and years of runway. And so it's that much more frustrating and outrageous that we find ourselves here,' Bates continued. Satary thinks about some of the American soldiers that he served alongside when he was working as an interpreter with the U.S. military, friends whose deaths he witnessed firsthand when they were killed in action. Now that he lives in northern Virginia, he visits their graves when he goes to Arlington Cemetery. The failure to help Afghans is not just a betrayal of his people, Satary believes, but those soldiers he considered comrades. 'That's hurting me,' Satary said. 'We served alongside those individuals. But now [the] administration is forgetting us, and maybe that means they are not remembering those soldiers as well.'
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
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump sued over order suspending refugee admissions
A coalition of refugee resettlement organizations sued President Trump on Monday over an executive order from the first day of his administration that indefinitely suspends the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program (USRAP). The suit challenges not just the suspension but the abrupt cutoff of funding to those that aid refugees, including for work done in advance of Trump taking office. Trump's order bars processing of those fleeing persecution and danger for 90 days as administration officials study whether accepting refugees is 'in the interests of the United States,' leaving it to the president to determine when to do so. 'President Trump cannot override the will of Congress with the stroke of a pen,' said Melissa Keaney, an attorney with International Refugee Assistance Project, which is representing the resettlement groups, in a statement. '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 if the government continues to withhold critical funding. This could decimate the USRAP, carrying consequences for years to come.' The suit was filed on behalf of Church World Service, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, and HIAS, formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. 'The American Jewish community owes its very existence to those times when the United States opened its doors to refugees fleeing anti-Semitism and persecution,' said Mark Hetfield, HIAS's president, in a statement. 'HIAS will stand for welcome, stand up for what we believe in, and fight this refugee ban in court.' Nine refugees are also listed as plaintiffs in the suit, representing those cut off from accessing the program, a group that includes many refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan The suit argues the suspension violates numerous laws, including the U.S. Refugee Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. It also argues Trump has circumvented the Constitution's mandate on the separation of powers. The suit also challenges Trump's withholding of funds to the organizations which is spent on helping refugees get established in the United States. 'National faith-based nonprofit organizations that receive a majority of their funding from the federal government—are already struggling to keep their lights on and their staff employed, let alone continue to serve the vulnerable refugees at the core of their missions,' they wrote in the suit. 'Since receiving the Suspension Notices, the Plaintiff Resettlement Agencies have not received reimbursements for millions of dollars they are owed from the State Department for work performed in November and December 2024, well before the Suspension Notices and the Foreign Aid Executive Order issued.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
