Colorado & Infrastructure Collapse: Resettlement at Risk
The costs of resettlement's collapse need to be clear: dismantling resettlement's overseas, domestic, and information infrastructure is not in the interests of the United States.
“Each day that the Refugee Ban and the Refugee Funding Suspension remain in effect causes lasting damage that cannot be repaired. Once staff with expertise, extensive networks and relationships, and goodwill are separated from employment, full rehiring and rebuilding the goodwill they cultivated is nearly impossible.”
- Pacito v. Trump
The Collapse of Resettlement
On the left is a map of America’s local resettlement offices as of December 2024, prior to the beginning of the second Trump Administration. Approximately 360 local offices support refugees as they rebuild their lives in the United States. Now facing existential resource constraints, some of these offices are already making the impossible decision to close.
This trend will only continue. On the right is a map of the local resettlement offices that remained at the end of the first Trump Administration.
This is what our resettlement program—and the resettlement infrastructure in our communities—may look like come 2028.
Except this time, the damage may be even more extensive. In 2017, the President’s Executive Order limited the initial suspension of resettlement to 120 days and included a command to “resume USRAP admissions only for” favorable nationals following the deadline.
President Trump’s most recent suspension has no such command and may last indefinitely. A resettlement program governed by the whims of the President is a resettlement program subject to collapse.
Only The GRACE Act can reliably operationalize America’s humanitarian commitments, ensuring that our overseas, domestic, and information infrastructure are able to deliver promises of refuge to refugees.
Refugees deserve a resettlement program they can rely on.
America does too.
Overseas Infrastructure
Before a refugee steps foot on American soil, they undergo rigorous security screenings, medical clearances, and thorough cultural orientation processes. These services—to refugees and the American people—are delivered by Resettlement Support Centers.
The United States contracts with resettlement agencies and other non-governmental partners to operate several Resettlement support Centers throughout the world: Church World Service in Africa, The International Rescue Committee in Asia, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Eastern Europe and Tel Aviv, the International Organization for Migration in Eurasia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and The International Catholic Migration Commission in Turkey and across other areas of the Middle East.
These Support Centers—the door to the U.S. Refugee Program for most refugees—may not survive the next four years.
A recent lawsuit challenging Trump’s Executive Order reports:
“The Resettlement Support Centers administered by HIAS (in Vienna, Zagreb, and Tel Aviv) and CWS (in Nairobi) have been completely defunded and dismantled by the notices of suspension and stop-work orders issued by the State Department, in spite of standing cooperative funding agreements with that department.”
Only eight employees—a paltry 16%—remain at HIAS’s Resettlement Support Centers in Vienna, Zagreb, and Tel Aviv. Church World Service has laid off 600 employees across the continent of Africa, including those supporting the work of their Resettlement Support Center. Newer innovations in how refugees are referred to America’s Resettlement Program, such as the Equitable Resettlement Access Consortium—an initiative that enables non-profits to refer uniquely vulnerable refugees for possible resettlement in the U.S.—have ended.
Resettlement Support Centers are the ones who pick up the phone when refugees call with questions about their cases, their families, and their futures.
What happens when there is no one left to answer those calls?
Domestic Infrastructure
“Financially, the impact of the Order and its implementation has been catastrophic, directly impeding the Plaintiff Organizations’ ability to carry out their mission-driven work.”
- Pacito v. Trump
We’ve repeatedly highlighted that almost 40% of local resettlement offices closed during the last Trump Administration. What we haven’t highlighted is that we are rapidly approaching a similar level of programmatic suspensions, layoffs, and closures much more quickly than anyone anticipated.
Less than one month into the second Trump Presidency, some resettlement agencies are laying off one-third of their staff nation-wide. Church World Service has furloughed almost 1,000 resettlement staff across the U.S., including caseworkers, financial coaches, English tutors, and citizenship teachers in your local communities.
Resettlement agencies are in the red. The federal government has not paid your local resettlement office “for work performed in November and December 2024, well before the Suspension Notices and the Foreign Aid Executive Order issued.” Though a judge has ordered the Trump Administration to lift the foreign aid funding freeze temporarily, uncertainty continues to govern the finances of America’s local resettlement offices.
This loss is not just material, it is relational. Resettlement agencies spend years developing relationships with landlords, school boards, doctors, employers, police, churches, and volunteer groups. When resettlement agencies disappear, these relationships do too.
This is not in anyone’s interest—and in no way in America’s interest.
No one has said it better than Ron Buzard, the Executive Director of the African Community Center of Denver:
I shake my head. I reject it, totally. Here's why. I was just trying to think of a way to express this. As my boys were growing up, I taught them to share toys, to share food. As they grew older, we taught them to share what they had with those in need. Now, they're teaching my grandchildren the same thing.
Was that in their interest? What I taught them? I believe it was. I believe this humanitarian effort—refugee resettlement—is in the interest of the United States.
Information Infrastructure
Additionally, the Trump Administration appears to have ceased reporting on refugee arrivals. The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration typically posts resettlement numbers—by state and nationality—on the 5th of each month. The promised January report is now twelve days late.
You might be asking: Didn’t the Trump Administration suspend resettlement in January? What is there to report?
Two Reasons:
First, we don’t know how many refugees were resettled prior to the pause. Without this number, we cannot accurately or comprehensively compare fiscal year data. Put simply, we don’t know the extent of the damage: how many checks resettlement agencies were owed for clients they recently resettled, how many refugees were left stranded due to the federal funding freeze, and how many may lack ongoing support from other federal funding streams (such as the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s grants for supporting longer-term integration activities) as the Trump Administration continues to disrupt resettlement.
Second, there is no transparency on the purported “exceptions” allowed under the January 27th Executive Order. If the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security “jointly determine” that the admission of a refugee is “in the national interest and does not pose a threat,” they are authorized to admit that refugee.
If the State Department does not continue month-by-month reporting on newly-arrived refugees—even if that information is a big, fat zero—the public has no way of knowing if the Trump Administration is utilizing that exception.
Clarity provided by continued public reporting is especially important due to the procedural ambiguities governing the exceptions process. The recent court challenge to the Executive Order notes that there is no established process or “timeline for establishing a process” for exceptions.
Ron Buzard, African Community Center of Denver, describes what this ambiguity looks like on the ground:
We're hearing nothing. Now, the executive order itself says that there could be case-by-case exceptions—very vague. But we're hearing nothing. Only that a determination of whether or not resuming admissions of refugees is in the interest of the United States, that that determination will be made within 90 days. . .I have not heard of any case-by-case determination that has allowed someone to come at this point.
Then why have an exceptions clause in the first place?
Because the Trump Administration knows that their universal suspension will, one day, become a political liability. Across the aisle, resettlement is popular.
When that time comes, we cannot allow the Trump Administration’s exception process to frame the conversation on resettlement.
The costs of resettlement’s collapse need to be clear: without bipartisan Congressional intervention, there will always be more ungranted exceptions. There will always be more persecuted Christians, Chinese democratic activists, and military allies in need of refuge.
Exceptions are not a promise of refuge. They are a promise of continued denials.
Advocacy for exceptions should be paired with advocacy for The GRACE Act: exceptions are evidence that a reliable U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is in America’s interests.
This isn’t purity politics, it’s priority politics.
The Reality of Infrastructure Collapse in Colorado
Colorado is home to nearly 30,000 refugees, who make significant contributions to Colorado’s economy ($1.5 billion in annual income), schools, churches, and communities.
One member of Colorado’s refugee community, Legesse Beyene, recently highlighted the stark impact of Trump’s pause on resettlement on CBS News:
After waiting 15 years to reunite with his children and wife after fleeing repression in Eritrea, Legesse Beyene will now “wait longer. Maybe Forever.” After an arduous seven-year struggle for status approval, his two children were set to arrive at Denver International Airport. Now, because of Trump’s Executive Order stopping resettlement, Legesse Beyene and hundreds of others are stuck in limbo.
If this is happening in Colorado, this is also happening in your community.
The GRACE Act
We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: the only way out of this mess is The GRACE Act. Without requiring refugee admissions each year, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program’s infrastructure will remain at risk of collapse.
The Executive Director of the African Community Center of Denver instructs us on our next steps:
Well, many of our congressional delegation here in Colorado already see the benefit of refugee resettlement. But yes, it is definitely urging our elected officials to maintain that moral tradition of refugee resettlement, not only in our country but in our state and in our community.
Contact your elected officials today and tell them to support The GRACE Act and save resettlement.
Thanks for reading Save Resettlement. Next week: Connecticut & Codification.
Hold onto hope.
