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U.S. halts refugee program, puts Arkansas resettlement agency in jeopardy

Courtesy
/
Canopy NWA

Last week, the Trump Administration began implementing sweeping new immigration policies - leading to crackdowns on undocumented migrants in communities across the country. Another policy change included halting all refugee resettlement programs in the country.

Joanna Krause is the executive director of Canopy of Northwest Arkansas, the state's sole resettlement agency.

She said 11 refugee families who were meant to come to the state last week were told their travel had been denied.

"So when we came into work on Tuesday morning and started to see that travel was being canceled immediately, that was a shock and really heartbreaking," Krause said. "Canopy had travel scheduled for the following week for 11 families. Eight of those families have family members here in our community. So having to pick up the phone and call and say, 'I'm so sorry, your family member who you've been preparing for, who you've been waiting for, for months and months and quite a few cases for years isn't coming anymore.' That's just that's just devastating."

Krause said these refugees had been in the process of being resettled for years, undergoing vetting and intense security screenings. And she said the agency had been preparing for this eventuality based on Trump's 2017 pause of the refugee program, which was then reinstated four months later. However, they were caught off guard by how immediate and unconditional this executive order's effects were.

"This is a program that's really foundational to our country," Krause said. "People who have been welcomed to be able to seek refuge, that's really one of our bases of, you know, the American dream. We're operating under the Refugee Act of 1980. So, this is a program that has been steadily operating under the same set of laws and processes for decades. So the first time through, it did come as a shock. This time around, we've been preparing."

However, what she wasn't prepared for was a federal memo halting all resettlement services. On Friday of last week, the White House issued a stop work order for all refugee reception and placement programs, which provides all services to refugees during their first 90 days in the United States. Canopy is not allowed to use federal funding to help with groceries, housing or medical care and services, among other direct services.

"We know that refugee resettlement and integration isn't just about being met at the airport," Krause said. "If you're coming to a new community, you don't know anyone or you have a very small circle, you need to find a job, you might need to learn the language. That's not something that can be achieved in short order. We need to make sure that Canopy is still here, partnering with our community to do all of those things for the refugees who we welcomed as recently as last week."

She said 25 families, 65 individuals, are still within that 90-day period and said Canopy will still support those families using donations and non-federal money. Status for refugees already in the country has not changed, they maintain legal immigration status.

And while the work of organizations like Canopy is up in the air, the pause on resettlement is set to be re-evaluated 90 days from when it was signed, and Krause said she invites elected officials in Arkansas to come to see what resettlement is all about.

"If you come to the Canopy office, you'll visit the youth services team that's prepping for the after-school program or, in the summer, our summer camps," Krause said. "You'll see case managers getting ready to putting car seats in cars so they can pick someone up from an airport or drive someone to a doctor's appointment. You'll see our employment specialists and career coaches prepping resumes. That's what resettlement looks like."

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Daniel Caruth is KUAF's Morning Edition host and reporter for Ozarks at Large<i>.</i>
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