Prior to the Trump administration, there were several agencies in this country that handled these people and help them get settled into their new environments. However, with Trump's crackdown on immigration, a lot of these agencies have just plain dried up. An infrastructure that had been around for 4 decades since the signing of the 1980 Refugee Act no longer exists. We are kind of in uncharted waters at this time.
Maybe DeSantis and Abbot should do a little inward looking and send some of these folks to Mar a Lago and some of Trump's hotels?
September 27, 2019 · 12:00 PM EDT
Syrian refugee Baraa Haj Khalaf, left, kisses her father, Khaled, as her mother, Fattoum, right, cries after arriving at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on Feb. 7, 2017, following President Donald Trump's travel ban.
Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters
The day Kara Ulmer closed down the refugee resettlement office she led in Akron, Ohio, was one of the hardest days of her life.
Ulmer opened the office, a local affiliate of World Relief, in February 2015. Armed with balloons and signs, her staff and local volunteers used to welcome refugees at the airport when they landed in the United States. The staff of seven steered the newcomers through their first weeks, months and years in a foreign country: enrolling their children in school, applying for jobs, paying their cable bills, and navigating a maze of paperwork to start their own businesses. The Akron World Relief office helped resettle 415 refugees, some from countries as far-flung as Bhutan, Iraq, Myanmar and Democratic Republic of Congo.
But with far fewer refugees arriving due to the Trump administration’s efforts to curb resettlement, Ulmer said, she was forced to let staff go, then shutter World Relief’s office in April. They gave away $100,000 worth of in-kind donations — mainly household goods to help refugees set up new lives — to local churches and nonprofits.
“It was very emotional and painful for everyone involved,” she said. “We were leaving 415 refugees without the potential for continued help with the agency that resettled them.”
The same scenario is playing out at resettlement agencies across the United States. As the US admits fewer refugees, the organizations that serve them are withering. Local offices rely, in part, on federal funds that are only disbursed when refugees arrive. Fewer arrivals, and thus fewer federal dollars, have financially strained many offices — and threatened a national resettlement infrastructure that has been steadily built up over four decades.
The damage will far outlast this administration, experts say.
More downsizings and closures are likely on the way: The Trump administration announced Thursday that the refugee admissions cap for the next 12 months will be set at 18,000, the lowest point since the Refugee Act of 1980 was established. The cap for fiscal year 2019 was 30,000.
Trump also signed an executive order Thursday allowing state and local governments to veto refugees from coming to their areas.
The low figure drew widespread condemnation from refugee and immigration advocates. It comes at a time when the number of refugees worldwide has reached a record-breaking 26 million, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Of that figure, the UN finds more than 1.4 million are in urgent need of resettlement, with Syrians representing the largest group.
“To cut the number of refugees the US will accept to this low of a number reflects nothing more than this administration’s attempts to further hate, division, and prejudice in a country that once valued dignity, equality, and fairness,” said Ryan Mace, a refugee specialist at Amnesty International USA, in a statement Thursday. “This is purely a political decision, and one that couldn’t come at a worse time.”
In announcing the lower resettlement cap, the Trump administration said it was instead focused on the huge increase in people seeking asylum at the southern border — who do not enter the US via the official refugee resettlement program.
“It is misguided to see our refugee admissions program as the singular measure of America’s humanitarian-based immigration efforts,” the State Department said in a press release. “The current burdens on the US immigration system must be alleviated before it is again possible to resettle large numbers of refugees.”
Maybe DeSantis and Abbot should do a little inward looking and send some of these folks to Mar a Lago and some of Trump's hotels?
US refugee agencies wither as Trump administration cuts numbers to historic lows
The WorldSeptember 27, 2019 · 12:00 PM EDT
- By Tania Karas
Syrian refugee Baraa Haj Khalaf, left, kisses her father, Khaled, as her mother, Fattoum, right, cries after arriving at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on Feb. 7, 2017, following President Donald Trump's travel ban.
Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters
The day Kara Ulmer closed down the refugee resettlement office she led in Akron, Ohio, was one of the hardest days of her life.
Ulmer opened the office, a local affiliate of World Relief, in February 2015. Armed with balloons and signs, her staff and local volunteers used to welcome refugees at the airport when they landed in the United States. The staff of seven steered the newcomers through their first weeks, months and years in a foreign country: enrolling their children in school, applying for jobs, paying their cable bills, and navigating a maze of paperwork to start their own businesses. The Akron World Relief office helped resettle 415 refugees, some from countries as far-flung as Bhutan, Iraq, Myanmar and Democratic Republic of Congo.
But with far fewer refugees arriving due to the Trump administration’s efforts to curb resettlement, Ulmer said, she was forced to let staff go, then shutter World Relief’s office in April. They gave away $100,000 worth of in-kind donations — mainly household goods to help refugees set up new lives — to local churches and nonprofits.
“It was very emotional and painful for everyone involved,” she said. “We were leaving 415 refugees without the potential for continued help with the agency that resettled them.”
The same scenario is playing out at resettlement agencies across the United States. As the US admits fewer refugees, the organizations that serve them are withering. Local offices rely, in part, on federal funds that are only disbursed when refugees arrive. Fewer arrivals, and thus fewer federal dollars, have financially strained many offices — and threatened a national resettlement infrastructure that has been steadily built up over four decades.
The damage will far outlast this administration, experts say.
More downsizings and closures are likely on the way: The Trump administration announced Thursday that the refugee admissions cap for the next 12 months will be set at 18,000, the lowest point since the Refugee Act of 1980 was established. The cap for fiscal year 2019 was 30,000.
Trump also signed an executive order Thursday allowing state and local governments to veto refugees from coming to their areas.
The low figure drew widespread condemnation from refugee and immigration advocates. It comes at a time when the number of refugees worldwide has reached a record-breaking 26 million, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Of that figure, the UN finds more than 1.4 million are in urgent need of resettlement, with Syrians representing the largest group.
“To cut the number of refugees the US will accept to this low of a number reflects nothing more than this administration’s attempts to further hate, division, and prejudice in a country that once valued dignity, equality, and fairness,” said Ryan Mace, a refugee specialist at Amnesty International USA, in a statement Thursday. “This is purely a political decision, and one that couldn’t come at a worse time.”
In announcing the lower resettlement cap, the Trump administration said it was instead focused on the huge increase in people seeking asylum at the southern border — who do not enter the US via the official refugee resettlement program.
“It is misguided to see our refugee admissions program as the singular measure of America’s humanitarian-based immigration efforts,” the State Department said in a press release. “The current burdens on the US immigration system must be alleviated before it is again possible to resettle large numbers of refugees.”