![Li Chuanliang [left] and Pastor Pan Yongguang, part of a group of Chinese Christians resettled in Texas and awaiting final approval of their refugee status, watch a Chinese-captioned live broadcast of President Donald Trump speaking at his inauguration on a cell phone, Jan. 20, 2025, in Midland, Texas.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/dd088ab/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4794x3196+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F96%2F79%2Fb150338a45f4aefc045d51a3921c%2Fap25028748064194.jpg)
Tens of thousands of recently arrived refugees are losing support for basic necessities like food and rent, the Associated Press reported, after President Donald Trump ordered a suspension of federal funding for resettlement agencies last week.
Rabbi James Greene is the chief executive officer at Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, a resettlement agency in Springfield. He said the day after Trump was inaugurated, all of the clients they were going to receive that week were canceled out of the system. That included three family reunification cases, which are intended to reunite family members living in the U.S. with their relatives who are refugees.
Greene said the U.S. State Department issued a stop-work order last Friday for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, after Trump ordered a pause to review if aid allocation aligned with his foreign policy.
“Stop work to serve the 138 clients who were already here, who had been here for less than 90 days,” Greene said. “That meant we were asked by the federal government to abandon clients who didn't have housing, who were not yet enrolled in school. The work of resettlement is pretty extensive and there's a lot of wrap-around services that connect to it.”
Greene said they received the stop-work order just a half an hour after writing a check for a family from Afghanistan to move into an apartment in the valley.
“So if we had written that check Friday morning instead, that family would have been able to move into their apartment right away,” Greene said.
That family’s ability to move is delayed for now, Greene said.
"We're using some funding that exists from the state of Massachusetts for that family to help ensure that they can move into their apartment,” Greene said. “I believe they're going to move in next week and the truth is, if we didn't have that funding, I'm not sure what we would have done."
Greene said Jewish Family Service is also trying to raise private donations from the community to supplement the loss of federal funding right now.
