Assist teams sue over Trump’s order suspending federal refugee program and funding

A discover outdoors a clinic states that Wits RHI Key Inhabitants Programme is unable to supply providers till additional discover following a USAID notification to pause the programme in Cape City, South Africa, on January 28, 2025.
| Picture Credit score: Reuters

Main refugee help teams sued the Trump administration on Monday (February 11, 2025) over the President’s govt order suspending the federal refugee resettlement program and funding for resettlement companies.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Seattle asks the court docket to declare Trump’s govt order unlawful, cease the order’s implementation and restore refugee-related funding.

“President Trump can’t override the desire of Congress with the stroke of a pen,” Melissa Keaney, an lawyer on the Worldwide Refugee Help Venture, mentioned in a information launch. “The US has an ethical and authorized obligation to guard refugees, and the longer this unlawful suspension continues, the extra dire the results will likely be.”

President Donald Trump’s current order mentioned the refugee program — a type of authorized migration to the U.S. — could be suspended as a result of cities and communities had been taxed by “document ranges of migration” and didn’t have the flexibility to “soak up massive numbers of migrants, and particularly, refugees.”

The Trump administration didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark in regards to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed by the Worldwide Refugee Help Venture on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement company HIAS, Lutheran Neighborhood Providers Northwest and people together with refugees.

The organizations say their skill to supply essential providers to refugees within the U.S. and overseas has been severely inhibited by Trump’s order. It already has impacted refugees who had been accredited to return to the U.S. by having their journey cancelled on brief discover and saved households hoping to reunite aside, the lawsuit says.

It argues that the refugee suspension is illegal and violates Congress’ authority to make immigration legal guidelines.

The federal refugee program has been in place for many years and helps individuals who have escaped battle, pure catastrophe or persecution. Regardless of longstanding assist for accepting refugees, this system has turn into politicized lately.

Refugees bear an intensive vetting course of that may take years. They’re often referred to the U.S. State Division by the United Nations.

Whereas the resettlement program has traditionally loved bipartisan assist, the primary Trump administration additionally briefly halted it after which dramatically lowered the variety of refugees who may enter the U.S. annually.

Spiritual organizations do the vast majority of the refugee resettlement work in the USA. Seven of the ten federally funded nationwide companies that resettle refugees are faith-based.

The lawsuit is the most recent authorized problem to Trump immigration insurance policies, together with his order to finish computerized citizenship for kids born to individuals within the nation illegally, and his order to close down asylum entry on the southern border.