Aid groups sue over Trump's suspension of refugee program, funding

An alliance of refugee service and resettlement organizations sued the Trump administration on Monday over the suspension of the United States Refugee Admissions Program, which in Tucson led to layoffs and an inability to provide basic living needs to refugees.

Funding for USRAP, a network of federal and nonprofit agencies helping refugees resettle in the U.S, was suspended Jan. 27 by an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on his first day in office.

The lawsuit, led by some of the largest refugee organizations in the nation, also challenges the immediate shutdown of refugee application statuses before the Jan. 27 order deadline. The Trump administration’s actions “have not just harmed refugees waiting to come to the United States. They have also devastated refugees already here and the organizations that seek to help them,” the lawsuit says.

Refugee organizations in Tucson

The Department of State also issued a “stop-work” order or suspension notice on Jan. 24 for all programs funded by the Reception and Placement grant, a component of USRAP that aids non-profit resettlement agencies in sponsoring refugees.

These agencies are in cooperation and under contract with the Department of State.

Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest in Tucson and Phoenix is a local affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries, one of the agencies in partnership with the U.S. government. It helps set refugees up with a place to live and greets them at the airport.

“We help them get jobs. We enroll their children in school. We help them become part of the community,” said Connie Phillips, its CEO and president.

Because of the “stop-work” order, the group cannot do any of these things under the Reception and Placement grant. This means the organization is relying on donations to provide for 129 refugees in their care in Tucson alone since they cannot incur expenses through the grant.

But Phillips says donations will not be nearly enough to do the work well.

“This is devastating, it really is a catastrophe,” Phillips said. “There are not enough philanthropy dollars at all in this kind of work.”

And since the grant is also funding the salaries of immigration workers within Lutheran Services, 17 employees were laid off by the organization last week in Tucson. Phillips said in a statement that LSS-SW supports the recent lawsuit against USRAP suspension and that the cancellation was “unjust and unfair.”

“We did not anticipate that there would be a work stoppage, an actual stop work order,” Phillips said.

Refugee caps and past executive orders

By immigration law, the president is required to determine a refugee admissions goal for the next fiscal year.

Trump set historic lows for the targeted number of refugees admitted into the United States in his first term. For fiscal year 2018, he set the refugee cap at 45,000. It decreased over the last two years of his term, to 30,000 and 18,000.

In 2017, Trump wrote a similar order.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Executive orders 13780 and 13769 issued a suspension of USRAP for the reasons of terrorist entry and the need for further vetting. The 2017 suspension was focused mainly on countries with a large Muslim population, but the current one targets all refugees.

The suspension is under the claim that the United States is unable to handle the influx of migrants and needs to realign USRAP in a way that “protects their (citizens’) safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.”

Who the refugees are

The nine plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who aren’t organizations, are either refugees or supporting refugees in the U.S. The lawsuit outlines how the suspension of USRAP affected each of their refugee processes.

Plaintiffs had travel cancelations or case suspensions, and others lost benefits after recently coming to the U.S. These benefits and the support from resettlement agencies is what keeps refugees afloat their first months in the U.S.

Lutheran Services, like the other resettlement agency affiliates, sets up housing for incoming refugees and teaches them skills to survive in America such as mailing a letter or paying bills.

They also help new refugees get jobs, which most use to help pay back the travel loans they received from the U.S. to fly here.

Other agencies in Tucson include the International Rescue Committee, among others.

“Refugees are a very thin slice of a kind of legal immigration into the country,” said Alyson Ball, a volunteer at a national IRC branch and part-time resident of Green Valley, south of Tucson.

Refugees are vetted by the United Nations and U.S. before being resettled into an accepting country. A small proportion of people who apply to be refugees become one.

All refugees are authorized to work in the U.S. and refugee agencies help support them monetarily and technically while they are getting self-sufficient and integrated in the U.S.

Refugees do not come directly from their home country but are required to be temporarily placed outside of it and demonstrate the “fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group”, as written by U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services.

After undergoing additional health screenings and coming to the U.S., they have one year to apply for a Green Card, which is something local agencies help them do.

But now resettlement groups are unable to pay employees working with refugees, leaving families unsupported and unfunded in a new country.

“This is unnecessary, and this is cruel, and this is unjustified,” says Phillips, the head of Lutheran Social Services here. “It doesn’t just hurt those people who come, it hurts United States citizens.”