Refugee aid groups say Trump administration is trying to circumvent court order

SEATTLE (AP) — Refugee aid groups said in a federal court filing Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be trying to circumvent a ruling this week that blocked his efforts to suspend the nation’s refugee admissions program.

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle had determined on Tuesday that while the president has broad authority over who comes into the country, he cannot nullify the law passed by Congress establishing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Whitehead, a 2023 appointee of former President Joe Biden, said Trump’s actions amounted to an “effective nullification of congressional will,” and from the bench, he granted the aid groups’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s executive order suspending the refugee resettlement program. He promised a written ruling in the next few days.

But Wednesday, aid groups, including Church World Service and the Jewish refugee resettlement organization HIAS, received notifications that their “cooperative agreements” with the State Department had been canceled.

The groups on Thursday asked Whitehead for an emergency hearing to discuss the impact of the termination notices, or to make clear that his ruling also applies to those newly issued notices. The groups called the administration’s actions a “flagrant attempt” to evade the court’s ruling.

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“Defendants are continuing to implement their defunding of the USRAP, and an emergency hearing is necessary to ensure that Defendants are not permitted to evade this Court’s bench ruling and the forthcoming written order with antics designed to confuse the state of play,” the motion said.

Whitehead set a hearing for Monday.

The State Department acknowledged receipt of an email from The Associated Press about the plaintiffs’ motion, but did not otherwise respond to questions about it. The notices indicated the cooperative agreements with the resettlement agencies were being terminated “for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for alignment with Agency priorities and national interest.”

The refugee program, created by Congress in 1980, is a form of legal migration to the U.S. for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution — a process that often takes years and involves significant vetting. It is different from asylum, by which people newly arrived in the U.S. can seek permission to remain because they fear persecution in their home country.

Despite longstanding support from both parties for accepting refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years. Trump also temporarily halted it during his first term, and then dramatically decreased the number of refugees who could enter the U.S. each year.

There are 600,000 people being processed to come to the U.S. as refugees around the world, according to the administration.

Trump’s order and the administration’s subsequent withholding of funds stranded refugees who had already been approved to come to the U.S., forced the refugee aid groups to lay off staff, and cut off short-term assistance, such as rent, for those who had recently resettled here, the organizations said in the lawsuit challenging the actions.

Thursday’s filing came the day after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block another court order requiring it to release billions in suspended foreign aid. The administration also outlined plans to cancel more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world.

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and head of #AfghanEvac, a coalition supporting Afghan resettlement efforts, said the termination of the contracts would hurt Afghans who worked closely with the U.S. during its more than two-decade-long war in Afghanistan and are now at risk. They have been resettling in the U.S. via the refugee program as well as the special immigrant visa program.

While the special immigrant visa program is still operational, the contract terminations strip away funding that went to helping those who qualified come to America and start new lives here.

“Now Afghans are on their own to get here,” he said.

“Make no mistake about it, this is a betrayal on par with what we all felt in August of 2021,” he said, referring to the chaotic American withdrawal from Kabul under the Biden administration.

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Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed.