IMMIGRATION
set to arrive in the United States each week in this federal fiscal year under former President Barack Obama’s plan. In October, for example, 9,945 refugees arrived, or about 2,300 a week.
But the recent increase after this year’s slowdown is enough to please the charitable organizations responsible for helping these refugees start new lives in America.
As of Thursday, 42,409 refugees had arrived in the United States — including 2,149 in Ohio — since the federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, according to data from the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System.
Although the monthly numbers dropped off from February to March after Trump’s first executive order, issued on Jan. 27, they are on the rise again in April despite Trump’s second order, which was halted on March 15 by an injunction by a federal judge in Hawaii. Ohio’s refugeeadmissions figure in February, for example, was 79; it was 191 in April as of Thursday, with three days left in the month.
“No one is saying we should take them all in,” Angie Plummer, executive director of Community Refugee and Immigration Services ( CRIS), said of the unprecedented 65.3 million people worldwide who have been displaced from their homes. “But we can do better than we’re doing.”
Her group resettled 40 refugees in February, 11 in March and 34 in April. And it has helped a total of 596 people in this federal fiscal year.
Trump’s January order denied entry to all refugees for up to 120 days and all travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for 90 days, saying the measures were needed to keep out Islamic State and al- Qaida fighters migrating from Middle East hot spots.
Federal courts shot down parts of that initial executive order, but their rulings did not affect parts affecting refugees, leaving the nine groups that are designated by the State Department to resettle refugees bracing for funding reductions and scrambling to raise money. Trump’s second order, issued March 6, continued to impose a 90-day ban on travelers, but it removed Iraq from the list of countries.
The national resettlement groups and their local affiliates say that although they are grateful for the bump in recent refugee arrivals, Trump’s action is causing considerable challenges because they have laid off hundreds of employees. For example, World Relief is closing five of its offices, including one in Columbus that is to shut down in mid- July.
That’s because Trump’s second executive order, like the first, reduces the number of refugees that will be admitted into the country in this federal fiscal year, from a planned 110,000 to 50,000. April’s increase in new admissions will mean that the country reaches the 50,000 quota sooner, with some people estimating the cap will be hit by mid- June.
Simply put, fewer refugees means less money for the agencies that resettle them. The State Department pays each refugee
“No one is saying we should take them all in, but we can do better than we’re doing.”
— Community Refugee and Immigration Service executive director Angie Plummer
agency $950 per person to cover administrative costs to provide services for 90 days; an additional $ 1,125 goes directly to each refugee to cover expenses such as food, housing and pocket money.
Plummer said resettlement services make up about a third of her agency’s nearly $ 4 million budget. To cut costs, she said, she had to eliminate 10 positions, including a Congolese resettlement case manager, an Arabic- speaking healthcare worker and an Arabicspeaking resettlement worker, making it difficult to communicate with new arrivals from those parts of the world. “It makes a real mess of things,” Plummer said.
Until recently, her organization, which is affiliated with Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries, was operating under a $ 300,000 deficit, she said. But budget cuts and donations have helped fill the gap.
Nadia Kasvin, director and co-founder of US Together, which is affiliated with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, said it’s hard to provide the same kind of services her clients depend on after cutting her staff from 13 to six. “Nobody is doing just one job anymore,” she said.
The worst part is not knowing what will happen next month, let alone next year, if resettlement activity doesn’t return to normal, Kasvin said.
Columbus’ third resettlement agency, World Relief Columbus, stopped accepting new refugees for resettlement last month because of its impending closure on July 15. Resettlement agencies usually work with refugees for at least 90 days after their arrival, helping them with clothing, food, housing, employment services, follow- up medical care and other services to get them on their feet.
“I’m down to two part-time staff and myself,” said Kay Lipovsky, the group’s office manager. “We had eight.”
Lipovsky said she’s talking with city, community and church leaders about how she might continue to serve refugees in other ways, possibly by creating a volunteer bank of sorts that matches people with immigrant-serving groups.
Mashami Pacifique, 21, fled her homeland of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa with her parents and five of her six siblings when a civil war broke out in 1996. For years, they wandered between Congo and Uganda, trying to survive as best they could as countryless, homeless refugees.
But her world was disrupted further after rebels fatally shot her father in 2012, and she became separated from the rest of her family when she fled. She reunited with her older sister, Pacis Umutesi, 32, and Umutesi’s two children, Baracka Galvine, 8, and Joshou Gisa, 5, and they lived in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, until they were resettled in Columbus three weeks ago.
After years of looking back on her life, Pacifique says she’s finally ready to look ahead and is glad to have CRIS helping her.
“I want to go back to school and start really living my life,” she said.