'Cruel, unexpected:' Refugees face canceled flights after Trump executive order
The four Afghan siblings, all minors, had been set to reunite with their resettled parents in Massachusetts on Thursday – several days ahead of the Jan. 27 shutdown date cited in President Donald Trump’s executive order halting U.S. refugee resettlement.
Instead, their flight and others in the coming week were unexpectedly canceled, according to Church World Service, a resettlement agency that had readied to welcome them.
It came as U.S. officials told resettlement partners late Tuesday that all previously scheduled travel of approved refugees was being canceled, according to a memo viewed by Paste BN.
The halt of travel this week, which took refugee agencies by surprise, scuttled hopes of last-minute arrivals as fallout from Trump’s refugee shutdown began rippling across the country and the globe.
“We were hoping that we could get some of the most vulnerable cases that we have scheduled over the next week,” said Danilo Zak, policy director for Church World Service, including the siblings who had been separated from their parents for more than three years.
Refugees already here can keep receiving services provided by resettlement agencies, the memo said, but all travel booking and pre-departure activities for those who haven’t arrived were to be halted. A State Department spokesperson confirmed the agency was working to "suspend refugee arrivals to the United States and cease processing activities."
Writing to resettlement partners, Kathryn Anderson, director of the Office of Admissions of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said: “refugee arrival to the United States have been suspended until further notice."
'Cruel, unexpected and unconscionable'
The halt means travel will be canceled for about 1,000 refugees approved for arrival in the next few months for Church World Service alone. And they are one of ten such agencies in a system that resettled 100,000 refugees last year, a 30-year high.
“The indefinite refugee ban came early, a particularly cruel, unexpected, and unconscionable decision,” said John Slocum, Executive Director of Refugee Council USA. “Denying refuge to the persecuted is not who we are as a nation.”
Trump’s executive order, issued Monday, ordered a pause in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to determine if it “aligns with the interests of the United States,” with a report due every 90 days on whether the program should be resumed.
Some could still be admitted on a case-by-case basis if it is “in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.” The order also said local jurisdictions would have more say in refugee placement to the extent allowed by law.
Trump has long portrayed the program, which has historically enjoyed bipartisan support and resettled more than 3 million refugees fleeing war, persecution and violence since 1980, as a security vulnerability and a strain on communities.
But supporters say refugees admitted under the program constitute some of the country’s most vetted immigrants, spending years going through security checks, medical exams and interviews before they’re resettled with the help of local agencies in cities across the country. A federal study found that over a 15-year period, refugees contributed $123 billion more than they cost the government.
Monday’s order echoed Trump’s first term when he sought to block travel of immigrants from some Muslim-majority nations, temporarily halted admissions and slashed annual admittance caps to historic lows. The resulting funding cuts hobbled or closed some U.S. resettlement organizations.
Biden restored the program – adding funding and staff and accelerating application processing. Admission interviews rose from 1,252 to 159,394 between 2020 and 2024, federal figures show.
Now agencies are bracing for financial strains once again.
Anderson’s memo to resettlement agencies said that the guidance doesn’t apply to Afghans with Special Immigration Visas, a program for those who worked directly for U.S. forces during the war and was accelerated by President Biden after the U.S. withdrawal. They can still travel and receive resettlement aid, it said.
Refugee suspension cuts off thousands more Afghans
But the suspension still cuts off thousands more Afghans and family members who don’t meet criteria for special visas but still need to be resettled as refugees because they supported the U.S. mission in various ways, said Shawn VanDiver, who heads #AfghanEvac, a coalition assisting Afghan refugees. He said that included about 1,600 scheduled to travel within the next few months.
Many are stuck in third countries, including one former member of the Afghan army in Pakistan who spoke to Paste BN on the condition of anonymity for fear of their safety.
After serving alongside U.S.-led coalition forces, the former military member fled to Pakistan after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021 to escape persecution and threats. The Afghan veteran applied to the U.S. refugee program – finalizing medical exams and interviews just months before the refugee program’s halt. In Pakistan the veteran faces police harassment and a lack of security.
“I recently learned that the resettlement process has been halted, which has left me deeply disappointed and in a state of despair,” the Afghan said. “Please, help us find safety and hope once again.”
In hopes of persuading the Trump Administration to restore the program, many refugee advocates are working to publicly distinguish the difference between immigrants who cross the border without permission and well-vetted refugees who arrive legally.
But even if it’s eventually reinstated, refugees who have finished medical and other vetting are likely to see approvals expire and have to start over, resettlement officials said. It’s a blow to those who have waited years, if not decades.
In fiscal year 2023, more than two-thirds of resettled refugees came from The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Some who may have started their long journey to the U.S. will have to return to camps.
“There are so many examples of people who have really been in it for so long – sometimes in danger in their first countries of asylum,” Zak said. Others, he said, who were set to be reunited with family members in the U.S. “are now stranded.”
The pullback by the U.S., the world’s largest resettlement destination, may dim hope for those waiting in refugee camps from Thailand to Tanzania at a time when wars and humanitarian crises have pushed the number of global refugees to nearly 44 million, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Trump also paused foreign development aid pending a review.
“This policy doesn’t just delay hope; it extinguishes it for so many who have already suffered so much,” said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the president of Global Refuge, which aids refugees.
(This story has been updated to add new information.)