Tika Bhandari is a community resource navigator with Lutheran Services in Iowa and serves as the delegate for Iowa with Refugee Congress. She attended the Iowa Food System Coalition day on the hill on Jan. 23, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Tika Bhandari has called Iowa home for the past 14 years.
After fleeing Bhutan and spending nearly 20 years in a Nepalese refugee camp, Bhandari and her family came to Des Moines and participated in a community farming program, Global Greens, with the Lutheran Services in Iowa.
Refugees are regularly accepted by the charity in Des Moines that teaches them business, agricultural, language and other skills to be successful in their new home.
Recent immigration policies and executive orders from President Donald Trump, specifically about refugee programs have put much of this work on hold.
Zachary Couture with Global Greens said folks who have spent years waiting in refugee camps and completing the legal processes to come to Iowa are now not allowed.
“We have 100 people who have flights booked, and now they’re not allowed to come,” Couture said. “So we don’t even know what’s gonna happen.”
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Couture said the executive order is counter to everything he has encountered while working with refugees and the resettlement processes.
One point in the order said the admittance of refugees to the U.S. would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
“That is not true,” Couture said, referencing the Global Greens program. “We’re growing food, we’re feeding people, we’re building up the economy.”
According to an impact report from LSI, Global Greens farmers grew over 1 million pounds of food in 2023 and the organization resettled over 400 refugees in Iowa.
Another point in the executive order tasks the secretary of Homeland Security and attorney general to determine where state and local officials can be more involved in resettling refugees into their jurisdictions. Couture said those conversations are already happening between organizations like LSI and local officials.
The executive order is set to take effect Jan. 27 and to be evaluated every 90 days until Trump determines the resumption of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program “is in the interests of the United States.”
The executive order said the country “lacks the ability to absorb” migrants “in particular, refugees” without compromising the availability of resources and the safety of American citizens.
“The reality is that people are legal residents, people are here, contributing to society,” Couture said. “They are people with the same hard working Iowa family values that the rest of our Midwestern neighbors have.”
Unanswered questions
While Bhandari no longer farms with Global Greens, she still supports folks with LSI as a community resource navigator, and serves as the delegate for Iowa with Refugee Congress, a nonpartisan advocacy organization for vulnerable migrant populations.
Bhandari said the people she works with are worried about what these policies will mean for them, or for their families who were scheduled to be resettled soon.
“This is a tough one, and we had a lot of anxiety, depression, a lot of frustration going on right now,” Bhandari said. “What to expect next? Nothing is known.”
Ann Naffier, managing attorney for Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice offered a similar sentiment.
“Things are changing so fast,” Naffier said, noting the many executive orders throughout the week.
Naffier said her office is fielding lots of calls from clients who are scared, and about rumors of the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers in Iowa towns.
“There’s a high, high level of fear in the community,” Naffier said.
She recommends anyone with legal status carry documentation with them at all times in case they are questioned.
On Monday, Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Benjamine Huffman revoked a Biden-era policy that blocked ICE actions in sensitive areas like churches or schools.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
Naffier said she thinks it would be “bad publicity” for ICE to show up in Iowa schools, but said she does not know for certain the parameters at this time.
“I know that some immigrants, and I don’t want to encourage anyone to do this, but I do know that some immigrants are very afraid to send their children to school right now,” Naffier said.
Trump additionally has issued a number of executive orders related to immigration, including proclamations to close, and declare a national emergency at the southern border, enforce immigration laws and to end birthright citizenship.
Naffier said most of the orders are aimed at undocumented folks, but she’s also working with clients who have applied for green cards or are awaiting asylum status and don’t know what that means for their U.S.-born children under the executive order.
“These are just things we don’t know yet,” Naffier said.
Naffier said Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice is reminding undocumented folks of their rights, but also working with them to prepare for the possibility of deportation.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, leading up to Trump’s first day in office, directed Iowa law enforcement agencies to comply with federal efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
Bhandari said she expects to see a lot of decisions both federally and locally that will be difficult for her and her community over the next four years.
“But I think we have to unite together,” Bhandari said. “Let us be strong … Let us raise our voice (about) what we are doing … let us keep doing. I think one day or another, they will hear us.”
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