A coalition of some of the nation’s largest refugee resettlement organizations on Monday sued the Trump administration over its indefinite pause of the refugee system, asking a federal court to move swiftly to restart the program.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Seattle, aims to immediately revive a system that had thrived for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations and to restart federal funding for organizations that help refugees resettle in the United States. It is the first suit to challenge the Trump administration’s freeze of the program.
“The impact of these executive actions has been sweeping and harmful for our refugee clients, our staff and our local faith community partners,” Rick Santos, head of the Church World Service, one of the resettlement organizations that filed the suit, said in a statement. “These executive actions have abandoned refugee families both abroad and those who are already a part of our American communities.”
Among those who have been affected by the pause, Mr. Santos said, are two Afghan parents living in Massachusetts whose four children had been set to arrive in January.
“They now do not know if or when their children will be able to come home,” he said.
One of President Trump’s first actions on his first day in office was to freeze the refugee resettlement system with an executive action, contending that the country has seen an influx of immigrants in recent years and that communities across the United States were not in a position to welcome refugees.
He ordered agency leaders at the Homeland Security and State Departments to recommend whether to restart the program within 90 days.
The previously bipartisan refugee admissions program brought in tens of thousands of refugees regularly each year from countries like Burma and Syria. Refugees must prove that they face persecution in their home countries.
Foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States as refugees go through significant vetting, including interviews, security checks, medical screenings and many other forms of scrutiny on their applications.
That changed when Mr. Trump first took office, in 2017. His administration cracked down on illegal immigration at the southern border and restricted asylum claims, while also targeting the refugee system and cutting admissions significantly. By the last year of his first term, Mr. Trump proposed a record low 15,000 refugee admissions.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. revived the program, and last year saw the arrival of around 100,000 refugees, the highest total in decades.
The new halt on refugee resettlement has quickly had an impact: More than 10,000 refugees were in a pipeline to travel to the United States when it went into effect. Soon after, U.S. officials notified resettlement groups that refugee flights were canceled.
A 22-year-old refugee from Congo whose flight was canceled after a two-year application process to resettle in the United States is one of the plaintiffs in the suit filed on Monday.
“He sold almost all of his possessions, other than the things that can fit in the two bags that they’re allowed to bring with them,” said Melissa Keaney, a lawyer with the International Refugee Assistance Project, who helped file the lawsuit.
“Now they’re in this indefinite period of not knowing how to both rebuild their lives in Nairobi and for how long of a period they should expect it to remain there while the suspension is in place,” she said. “So it’s just been really devastating for refugees who expected to be able to travel imminently and now are seeing their travel canceled.”
The lawsuit also aims to resume federal funding of refugee resettlement organizations, which ground to a halt on Jan. 24, four days after Mr. Trump took office. The groups argue that they rely on those funds to help refugees obtain housing, food and other necessities as they rebuild their lives in the U.S.
Mr. Santos said that his organization, Church World Service, had to put more than half of its U.S.-based staff on furlough because of the pause in funding.
“We have more than 4,000 refugee clients who have arrived in our communities within 90 days of the ban taking effect, who we are now struggling to provide the core services that they are entitled to under U.S. law,” he said. “These services ensure they have safe and affordable housing, medical care and employment support so that they can get a great start and quickly become contributing members of their new communities.”
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