The State Department has abruptly canceled the travel of thousands of refugees who have been cleared to fly to the United States, days before President Trump’s deadline to end the resettlement program that provides safe haven for people fleeing persecution.
The cancellation of these flights comes after an executive order signed by Mr. Trump on Monday temporarily suspended the resettlement of refugees. This order effectively stops the process of bringing refugees into the country, which involves many government agencies, as well as non-profit organizations that receive new people.
More than 10,000 refugees are currently on the way to the United States, according to government data. They include Afghans who are at risk because of their relationship with the United States before the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Among the other refugees who were authorized to leave were people from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
The sudden suspension of flights was especially painful for the refugees who were going through the difficult and lengthy process of entering the country legally, resettlement workers said.
Angela Plummer, executive director of Community Refugee & Immigration Services, which resettles refugees in Columbus, Ohio, said the agency was expecting a large number of people to arrive on canceled flights.
“These are people who follow all the rules and are in danger,” said Ms. Plummer. “It hurts.”
The decision to stop the refugee program is consistent with the promise of Mr. Trump’s fight against immigrants.
Under the decades-old refugee program, people who have fled their countries because of persecution, war or other life-threatening causes can legally immigrate to the United States. Mr. Trump said continuing to accept them would burden communities that are ill-equipped to handle them, according to the order he signed on Monday.
The State Department followed up its order with a memo on Tuesday saying “all scheduled refugee travel to the United States is being canceled, and no new reservations will be made.” Organizations, such as the International Rescue Committee and others that help refugees, he noted, “should not request to travel with any additional refugee situations at this time.”
On Wednesday, US refugee officials at Homeland Security agencies, such as US Citizenship and Immigration Services, were told to stop making decisions on refugee cases, according to an internal memo obtained by The New York Times.
The news that the Trump administration has canceled travel even for refugees who have already been allowed to resettle in communities across the United States shocked the leaders of non-profit organizations contracted by the State Department to help new arrivals.
“This sudden suspension of refugee admissions is a tragedy for families who have endured unimaginable persecution and waited years for a chance to rebuild their lives in safety,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, head of Global Refuge, in a statement.
“Refugees go through one of the toughest vetting processes in the world,” he continued, “and it’s heartbreaking to see their dreams of safety dashed just days, or in some cases, hours before they start their new lives. here.”
Eskinder Negash, president of the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said that “many people have been waiting for years, and in some cases decades, in refugee camps and have actively gone through the refugee process to receive permission to travel.”
“Even if the refugee system is reopened in the future, the permanent suspension of refugee movement and processing will have lasting trauma and impact on refugees and families,” he said.
Ms. Plummer said her team has been fielding calls from worried customers who have been waiting for their relatives to come for years, and they realized that the hope of meeting them is now dim.
Among them is Nur Ahmed, who arrived in Columbus in 2010, after fleeing the civil war in Somalia. He sponsored his child, younger sister and mother to join him.
Their case was stopped when Mr. Trump taking the first term as president.
The son and sister of Mr. Ahmed, both in their 20s, arrived last week, just before he returned to the White House. But his mother, 70, was due early next month, and her arrival could be postponed indefinitely.
“I am very lucky that my son and sister have arrived, but I am sad that my mother has been left behind,” he said.
Often members of the same family are assigned different travel dates, and in this case it can mean years apart.
“Trump has delayed us before; now he is back and he is delaying again,” said Mr Ahmed, a cross-country truck driver. “All I feel is pain since Donald Trump came again.”
“I haven’t seen my mother since I left, and I don’t know when I’ll see her again,” he said in an interview, while delivering dry food on a highway in Texas.
As part of a series of immigration reduction orders, Mr. Trump has suspended the refugee resettlement program since January 27. Officials with resettlement agencies had hoped that refugees who completed the years-long process and were booked on flights would still be able to travel to the United States.
In his first administration, Mr. Trump dismantled the refugee program by imposing additional layers of vetting on applicants he deemed a security risk and lowering the cap on the number the United States was willing to take.
The president makes an annual decision on how many refugees the United States is willing to accept in a given year, and the numbers have varied, as Republican presidents have historically set some of the highest caps.
However, the number of refugees admitted to the country fell to a historic low, reaching 11,000 in 2020, Mr. Mr. Trump has prioritized religious minorities, especially white Christians from countries like Moldova and Russia.
President Biden rebuilt the program, and the number of refugees increased, reaching 100,000 last year, the most in three decades.
In this case, Mr. Trump has justified stopping the admission of refugees on the grounds that they are struggling in cities that need to benefit the American people.
“The United States does not have the capacity to absorb large numbers of immigrants, especially refugees, into its communities in a way that does not affect the availability of services to the American people,” said the order, which was signed by Mr. hours of his appointment.
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