The Statue of Liberty, a light of hope for immigrants since 1886, is lit up at night on Liberty Island in New York Harbor on Aug. 17, 2023, in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
The email deciding the fate of Amouna’s extended family is all of three paragraphs long.
The website for Welcome Corps, a new program established in 2023 that connects Americans with refugees across the globe who need resettlement assistance in the United States, offers even less information.
“In accordance with the executive order, ‘Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,’ refugee travel to the United States and all U.S. Refugee Admissions Program refugee case processing activities are suspended until further notice,” a yellow warning on the website reads. “This includes intake of new applications for the Welcome Corps, as well as processing of all active or previously submitted applications.”
Those “active or previously submitted applications” include Amouna’s brother, sister-in-law, nephew and mother, who, before President Donald Trump assumed office on Jan. 20, had plans to relocate from Syria, by way of Egypt, and reconnect with Amouna’s family at the Boise Airport next week.
They had plane tickets. A flight number. An arrival time. Amouna’s 24-year-old son, Abdullah, had saved money from his job as a semi-truck driver to secure an apartment for the extended family members and paid for their security deposit and several months rent.
They had a light of hope that their time apart – nearly five years – was finally coming to an end.
But the executive order, signed by Trump on his first day in office, suspends the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States” – leaving families like Amouna’s in painful limbo.
Amouna and Abdullah asked me to use only their first names in this column to protect their family’s privacy and to try to ensure their immigration case isn’t negatively affected.
Since Welcome Corps started in 2023, 87 private sponsor groups applied to be a part of the program in Idaho, and 30 refugees have resettled in the Gem State through Welcome Corps sponsors. There are 16 refugees that have been matched with sponsor groups to resettle here that are impacted by the executive order’s pause in refugee resettlement.
“Basically, they were shocked,” Abdullah told me in their cozy Boise apartment on Monday. “That’s the short word for it. It’s sad for them, because they were planning. I would be so sad if I were them because I did get the opportunity to come here. … But then it was just cancelled one day. They’re miserable now.”
Abdullah said because his extended family was so close to flying to the United States, they had already ended their lease with their landlord in Egypt and sold most of their belongings. Their furniture. Their car. Their material life as they knew it.
Now, they’re scrambling to secure housing there as they await word on when they can get new plane tickets, new flight numbers, new arrival times. Now they’re stuck waiting for the federal government to have a new outlook on how refugees — who were already promised a new life here — “align with the interests of the United States.”
The United States should live up to its prior commitments to its newest Idaho residents
Trump’s executive order may be re-examined in 90 days after the secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the secretary of State, submits a report. But in the meantime, it has upended the lives of Amouna and Abdullah, and it has also upended the lives of other refugees across Idaho.
Idaho welcomes about 800 refugees each year, in close partnership with resettlement agencies in Boise and Twin Falls as well as businesses, churches, local governments and other community networks, according to the Idaho Office for Refugees, the nonprofit that administers resettlement programs in the state. Most recently, refugees coming to Idaho are primarily from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has experienced years of humanitarian crises; Ukraine, where Russia’s invasion has displaced millions of people and destroyed homes and lives; and Afghanistan, including many allies who worked alongside U.S. soldiers, a Jan. 22 news release from the office says.
“Idaho families who have been waiting for years to reunite with their relatives – some in the final stages of resettlement – will now have to wait even longer, with their loved ones facing dangerous situations in third countries,” Idaho Office for Refugees Director Tara Wolfson said in the release.
As a nation built by the hands of immigrants, we must all ask ourselves one question: Why?
Why does this order not let families like Amouna’s and Abdullah’s – who already have financial sponsorship support and have been deeply vetted in accordance with federal law – be reunited? Why not put a pause on any new applications through the Welcome Corps program instead of a full ban of everyone already working their way through an already complicated system? Why not allow those with plane tickets already in hand to be welcomed home?
When has legal immigration – let’s be absolutely clear that this is what this is – ever failed to align with the interests of the United States?
According to the Idaho Office for Refugees, polls show that the majority of Americans across the political spectrum do support welcoming refugees. Christian organizations from across the country have signed a statement urging the president to sustain the resettlement program. Additionally, nearly 500 bipartisan state and local officials from all 50 states signed a letter in September expressing strong support for welcoming and resettling refugees in the United States.
And while refugee resettlement is often thought of as a humanitarian endeavor, it also has real impacts on the U.S. economy.
According to the federal Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the net fiscal impact of refugees and asylees was positive over a 15-year period between 2005 and 2019, at $123.8 billion. It found that refugees and asylees contributed an estimated $581 billion in revenue to federal, state and local governments. They contributed an estimated $363 billion to the federal government through payroll, income, and excise taxes, and $218 billion to state and local governments, through income, sales, and property taxes in that time.
“This means that refugees and asylees contributed more revenue than they cost in expenditures to the government,” the office found in a February 2024 report. “The net fiscal benefit to the federal government was estimated at $31.5 billion, and the net fiscal benefit to state and local governments was estimated at $92.3 billion.”
The most heartbreaking thing, to me, isn’t even that this family will continue to be separated for at least several months – an unfair horror that is simply compassionless.
It’s the lack of public response on these issues from Trump’s fellow Republicans in our congressional delegation – the people we elect on behalf of all Idahoans, including Amouna and Abdullah, to represent our interests in Congress as a check and balance to an overreaching executive branch.
Amouna said she has reached out to our elected officials on the federal level, and as of Monday afternoon, had not heard back. The Idaho Office of Refugees itself is connected with the delegation for further guidance on how to administer this executive order and how to support the refugees already in the pipeline to come to America who are now left wondering when they’ll be reunited with their families.
Our delegation should be forward facing, highly visible and unflinching in their support for fairness and compassion for these future Idahoans who hope to make their homes here. We should never forget that there are real human beings that were full of joy and hope — and now sadness and uncertainty — that must grapple with the true and agonizing effects of these immigration policies.
There is a light of hope outlined in subsection D of the executive order – one that the delegation could affect directly.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall examine existing law to determine the extent to which, consistent with applicable law, State and local jurisdictions may have greater involvement in the process of determining the placement or resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions, and shall devise a proposal to lawfully promote such involvement,” the order states.
We should honor our country’s prior commitments to families who were promised – by their federal government through Welcome Corps and other resettlement programs – the opportunity to reunite in Idaho as immediately as they are able.
I asked Abdullah what Idahoans should know about the executive order’s impact on families like his.
“Just imagine your family are separated from you for a couple weeks like this,” Abdullah said. “What could you do? What could you feel about it? For us, it’s been years. We’ve tried to help, but then some orders come through with a sign: Stop everything. It’s hard because we’ve been through a lot of stuff like war, bombing, you know, scary stuff. No food; no electricity. Just us just trying to see a light in a tunnel that they just turned off.”
It’s time we do everything in our power to join together to turn the light of hope back on.
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