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Nonprofit organizations are responsible for helping newly arrived refugees settle into life in the U.S. Since the Trump administration paused the program to admit refugees and froze funds that supports the work they do, they've been scrambling to provide services to over 22,000 newly arrived refugees. NPR's immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo reports.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Once a refugee gets to the United States, they are graded by one of thousands of staff and volunteers at local and national resettlement organizations. The work they do over the person's first 90 days in the country is sprawling.
KATHERINE REHBERG: Receiving people at the airport, supporting them to find housing, enroll children in school, access health care, like, and help people find work and learn English.
BUSTILLO: That's Katherine Rehberg of the Church World Service, one of the flagship organizations conducting refugee resettlement. But now she says...
REHBERG: It's those services that are really at risk.
BUSTILLO: Across the federal government, Trump ordered funding and work to be paused. It's not immediately clear if the funding phases are directly tied to the administration's review of refugee programs, or they could be caused by technological errors or internal confusion. But some, like Lora Ries, who worked on immigration issues for the first Trump administration, agree with the president that a review of funds is needed.
LORA RIES: It doesn't make sense to keep sending money out the door and try to analyze it all at the same time.
BUSTILLO: Still, refugee resettlement workers fear they won't be able to support tens of thousands of refugees in their process to integrate into the U.S.
CAITLYN LEWIS: They've left us completely in the dark.
BUSTILLO: That's Caitlyn Lewis, executive director of the Community Center for Immigrants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her organization uses grants from the Homeland Security Department to help refugees acquire green cards. Refugees are required by law to seek permanent status after one year of being here.
LEWIS: I'm in regular contact with our grant program officers. It's just a shock that it's like, wow, everything we're doing aligns with all these new executive orders, yet our funding is still frozen.
BUSTILLO: Nonprofit leaders say their mission of facilitating a legal pathway to citizenship is at risk. Meanwhile, several pages related to refugee resettlement programming across the State Department and DHS have been archived, and it's not clear when or if support from the federal government will resume.
Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, Washington.
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