Updated February 13, 2025 at 09:54 AM ET
Krish O'Mara Vignarajah is the president and CEO of Global Refuge, one of the groups helping relocate tens of thousands of refugees fleeing violence and political and religious persecution.
Every day since President Trump's inauguration feels like triage to her.
Her phone rings nonstop.
Her case managers are desperate for answers to console refugee families whose relatives approved to come to the U.S. are now stuck abroad.
Local relocation organizations who partner with Global Refuge are wondering how to keep their daily services going for the 6,000 individuals under their care who recently came to the U.S.
And last week, the first set of layoffs at Global Refuge were announced.
"While so much of the rhetoric had been focused on unauthorized migration, the brunt of the executive orders we saw sought to dismantle existing legal immigration systems," said O'Mara Vignarajah, who held previous roles in the Obama administration. "That was obviously disheartening."
In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order that paused the federal refugee program. The White House later sought to freeze all federal funding, including that going to organizations whose mission involves welcoming refugees into the country.
Then Trump ordered all heads of agencies to review funding that they provide to nongovernmental organizations.
It is not immediately clear the extent to which the funding freezes are tied to the administration's efforts to review refugee programs — or whether the funding issues could be caused by technological errors or internal confusion.
Still, the actions, which included directives from federal agencies to stop work, left hundreds of organizations across the country reeling with how to provide vital services to newly arrived families.
Hundreds of people providing relocation services to over 22,000 refugees have been laid off or furloughed, based on several interviews with the leaders of national and local resettlement and humanitarian groups. Millions of dollars in federal grant money remain frozen.
These groups rely on federal funds to help refugees find homes, hunt for jobs, enroll children in schools and other activities.
"He ran on the border. He ran on an undocumented immigration," Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, said of Trump. HIAS works with over two dozen local partners across the country, and is in the midst of resettling 3,000 people. "Of course, refugee resettlement is the polar opposite of that," he said.
Organization leaders across the country told NPR they had expected Trump to put a pause on the refugee program and particularly new arrivals, as he did during his first term.
But the additional pause on funds for existing services, for families already on U.S. soil, caught them off guard.
"This time, he's not only stopped arrivals, but he immediately defunded the entire refugee resettlement infrastructure of the United States government and its partners," Hetfield said. "He is stripping our capacity bare."
Extensive vetting process
Potential refugees have to complete an extensive application and vetting process that includes review from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services, and then the State Department. They are then paired with one of 10 agencies that handle resettlement.
Once in the U.S., they get up to 90 days of relocation assistance, including help setting up a home, finding employment, enrolling children in schools, learning English and finding medical care. Some organizations later help with citizenship applications.
Since the start of the 2025 fiscal year, which began in October, 27,300 people have been resettled in the United States.
This work is supported in part by federal grants coming from the Health and Human Services, State and Homeland Security departments.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is inside the Department of Health and Human Services, told NPR it has not requested a pause on its payments to national resettlement agencies. HHS cited system outages as a reason some payments from the agency generally might be paused, according to filings in a lawsuit against the funding freeze.
The State Department told NPR that they suspended arrivals, case processing and foreign assistance, pending reviews. The department also archived the online page for its Resettlement and Placement program, from which organizations receive funds from.
"Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?" said Secretary of State Marco Rubio regarding the broad audit of funds out of the department.
Lora Ries, border security and immigration center director at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, also defended the pause in refugee programs and their funding.
"It doesn't make sense to keep sending money out the door and try to analyze it all at the same time," said Ries, who worked inside the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration. "I think the American public supports pausing this to get a handle on it, to audit it, analyze it. And then decide what's in this country's interest."
Lawsuits over paused payments
The freezing of refugee resettlement funds and others government-wide has attracted lawsuits, including one from 22 states that argues "critically important programs" including "refugee assistance" have been paused.
The Office of Management and Budget, which issued the funding freeze memo, withdrew the memo after the suits. But in a five-page order issued this week, a federal judge in Rhode Island wrote the administration in several instances has continued "to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds."
On Monday, several resettlement agencies and refugees filed their own lawsuit challenging the pause in the program and funds stemming from directives out of the State Department, including the Population, Refugee and Migration Bureau.
One plaintiff is a refugee from Iraq who arrived in January "and is statutorily entitled to receive benefits as a recently resettled refugee — but has been informed those benefits are now unavailable."
During a call with reporters, the plaintiff, who goes by the pseudonym of Ali in court documents, said that he is now eating one meal a day and doesn't know if his rent will be paid next month due to the indefinite delay in benefits.
Mounting financial challenges for providers
Organization leaders said they've followed a standard process for decades to help refugees, and it has received support from both parties.
"For us to be told that we had to cut families off like that, it's inhumane. And it was shocking. And of course, we're going to help these families," said Pamela Bos Kefi, CEO of Journey's End, a local resettlement group in Buffalo, N.Y. "It felt like a personal attack against refugees and those of us who do this work."
The group, which has 115 people using their services at the moment, is among those who have already laid off nearly two dozen staff, some of whom are former refugees themselves.
Groups say they have continued services, even with the risk that the federal funding doesn't come through, and are fronting the money in hopes they get reimbursed.
"We've made that investment and had a promise of reimbursement that's not yet come through," said Katherine Rehberg, vice president of programs at the Church World Service. The group has furloughed half of their U.S.-based staff.
"People are concerned, understandably, for their own financial stability. Just like all of us who have families and financial commitments, they need to house themselves and eat," Rehberg said.
Left "in the dark"
After helping refugees during the 90-day resettlement period, several organizations also rely on federal grants to help prepare refugees for potential next steps such as applying for lawful permanent residency or citizenship. Refugees are required to apply for permanent residence, or a green card, after they've been in the county for at least a year.
Caitlyn Lewis, executive director of the Community Center for Immigrants in Milwaukee, Wisc., saw over 900 people went through her center last year for English classes, citizenship classes and legal assistance. To start the year, they had even more clients than usual, with 100 people seeking help applying for citizenship.
About 28% of her group's budget comes from federal grants including a grant from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem halted last week.
The group is a member of the National Partnership for New Americans, which reports that its members face more than $3.3 million in frozen funds.
In spring of last year, the agency announced over $12 million in grants aimed at helping immigrants prepare for naturalization. That page is now archived.
"They've left us completely in the dark," Lewis said. "I'm in regular contact with our [federal] grant program officers. So it was just a shock that everything we're doing aligns with all these new executive orders, yet our funding is still frozen."
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