IMMIGRATION

In late July, Matamba flew with his wife, Tshibola Aimee, and their two adult children to the United States from Uganda, where they had been staying in a refugee camp for 12 years. The family had fled to Uganda after escaping war in their country, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Matambas’ flight wasn’t canceled, but they knew it was a possibility. They knew the fear and devastation that had gripped others because of the decisions made by the president of the country they were heading to.

The Matambas were among the lucky ones.

They are four of 2,581 refugees resettled in Ohio since the federal fiscal year began last October, according to the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System. That number is far smaller than many refugee-resettlement agencies had planned in October, before President Donald Trump attempted to enact bans on certain groups of people coming into the country; two of the bans were blocked by courts.

As a result, the agencies are dealing with fluctuating numbers of refugees coming into the country, which translates into ever-changing budgets and staff sizes.

But far more profound than that is the suffering of many people overseas who were promised a future in America but are now stuck, many of them in refugee camps where they’ve been waiting for years, said Angie Plummer, executive director of Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS).

Plummer describes the bans and Trump’s actions as “a tennis ball going back and forth between the courts and the administration.”

“Except refugees’ lives are not a game,” she said.

Since October, CRIS has resettled 604 refugees in the area, and US Together, another Columbus refugeeresettlement agency, has settled 359, said Nadia Kasvin, director and co-founder of US Together, which is helping the Matambas.

“We started off the year busy ... and then when all of the executive orders and court decisions happened, it went up and down,” Plummer said.

CRIS settled 117 refugees in October 2016; 97 in November; and 112 in December. In January, the number fell to 68 and it hasn’t reached that level since. In August, just six refugees were resettled, Plummer said.

US Together settled 50 people in October 2016; 48 in November; and 61 in December. The agency was going strong with 66 in January, but in February, the number dropped to 37, and it has been lower than that since. In September, eight refugees are scheduled to be resettled.

Numbers are never consistent, Plummer said, and Kasvin said there’s no average.

“There’s always fluctuations, but it’s never been the case that we didn’t know if the whole program is shutting down,” Plummer said.

At the beginning of this fiscal year, CRIS planned to settle 958 and US Together planned to settle 1,300. Each is planning for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, and the numbers are even more bleak.

US Together has laid off employees and plans to settle only 400 refugees, Kasvin said.

“We worked for years to build up our capacity to where we’re able to settle and provide services for (1,300) people” a year, Kasvin said of the agency’s capacity before the travel bans. “We have to cut down, and building it back is difficult.”

CRIS first planned to settle 690 refugees in the coming fiscal year, but it learned last week that the total will be smaller, although Plummer doesn’t yet know how many people will be affected.

A third resettlement agency in Columbus, World Relief, closed its doors in July because of Trump’s executive order limiting the number of refugees that can be settled nationally, from the 110,000 planned to 50,000. World Relief had stopped accepting new refugees in the spring ahead of its impending closure. Agency officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

Resettlement officials are anxious that their planning for the new fiscal year will get thrown off track once again. The proposed RAISE Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate in early August and supported by Trump, would limit the annual number of refugees allowed into the country to 50,000.

Although that is the

current limit, the number usually is set by the president at the beginning of the fiscal year. Before leaving office, President Barack Obama set the number at 110,000 for this fiscal year. If the bill passes, the limit will be harder to change once Trump is out of office, Plummer said.

Plummer has a long list of once-active cases that have been put on hold. She doesn’t know whether or when they will be reopened, or when those abroad will get to come to the United States.

“They’ve given up everything in their little place in the world and are ready to start over,” she said of families who are getting stalled in the process. “The most vulnerable folks are getting stuck.

“They’re talking about suicide if they can’t go.”

Kabashi Matamba said that back in Africa, “it’s very bad.”

“I had nothing to do because Trump is president,” Matamba said. “He decides.”

The family seems excited to learn more English and get jobs in their new country: Matamba’s son, Byalwanga, 22, wants to be a mechanic; Matamba’s daughter, Mbuyi, 20, wants to be a hairdresser.

But they’re also apprehensive.

“Other people, they stay in their houses,” Matamba said of Americans. “We don’t know what’s inside their hearts.”

“The most vulnerable folks are getting stuck. They’re talking about suicide if they can’t go.”

— Angie Plummer, executive director of Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS)