On Tuesday, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which President Donald Trump halted by executive order on his first day in office. Several nonprofits that provide federally contracted refugee resettlement services, including Lutheran Community Services Northwest, along with stranded refugees and their relatives filed the lawsuit challenging the executive order.
Since 1984, LCSNW has helped more than 45,000 refugees resettle in the region, according to Salah Ansary, its senior director of advocacy and government affairs. Ansary immigrated to Portland in 1978 shortly before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He joins us to talk about the lawsuit and the impact Trump’s executive order has had on his organization’s efforts to aid refugees in Portland, Southwest Washington and the Seattle area.
Correction: The description of this conversation has been updated to correctly reflect Ansary’s status as an immigrant when he arrived in Portland in 1978. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program was created in 1980, after Ansary’s arrival to the U.S. OPB regrets the error.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. On his first day in office, President Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Yesterday, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked that suspension. The judge’s ruling came in response to a suit brought by stranded refugees and their relatives along with several nonprofits, including Lutheran Community Services Northwest, which operates in Oregon, Southwest Washington, and Seattle. Salah Ansary is the senior director of advocacy and government affairs at Lutheran Community Services Northwest. He was at the federal courthouse in Seattle yesterday, and he joins us now. It’s good to have you back on the show.
Salah Ansary: Thank you, thank you.
Miller: I want to start with the presidential order at the heart of this issue. What did it say?
Ansary: The heart, the thrust of the lawsuit really is that President Trump’s order was illegal. They are designed to decimate the U.S. Refugee Admission Program, and really the infrastructure supporting refugee resettlement in the United States. And also, the harm that it inflicts on many, many refugees, irreparable harm. Those who are still stranded in refugee camps, those who were really bound for the United States. The sudden suspension of the program really created havoc for these individuals.
Miller: I think to understand what you’re talking about, we need a refresher ‒ or maybe a first lesson, for some of us ‒ about how the refugee program works. Because it’s not a quick process as I understand it. So starting from the beginning, what happens if someone wants to achieve refugee status and be allowed into this country?
Ansary: You need to go back to, really, the Geneva Convention of 1951, when the member nations decided that we need to have laws that protect refugees, those who are outside their country of origin. And the United States was one of the member states that signed that document. That document really spells out the rights of refugees.
So you can begin from that point on. When a refugee leaves their home, because of many reasons, obviously fleeing persecution, and sometimes a neighboring country is served as the host. That’s where the United Nations then conducts interviews to determine if they meet the definition of refugee fleeing persecution because of political, religious, and other reasons that they have left their country. Once they determine that, then these member nations that accept refugees, the UNHCR then refer these refugees to these nations. And then each host country that are accepting refugees, they have their own teams of folks that will go overseas. In the case of the United States, we have the Department of State, we have Homeland Security department, that they have these refugee corps that goes to these refugee places [and] interviews, after of course the United Nations High Commission for Refugees have interviewed these folks and determined that they are really bona fide refugees.
Miller: But then the U.S. agencies have their own process of doing interviews. What kinds of questions are they asking? What do they want to find out before they’ll say yes?
Ansary: It’s quite a cumbersome process, vis-a-vis the interviews that they conduct. They also want to make sure that these are bona fide refugees through the interview process. But again, the lengthy process ‒ not just one interview, several interviews ‒ and it may take more than a year or two years in the vetting process, in terms of the security vetting process that’s implemented.
Once it’s determined, then they refer these folks for resettlement in the United States. And then you have these resettlement agencies that really, once they arrive, they provide that initial resettlement services, from the airport pickup to finding housing.
Miller: And that’s what groups like yours do?
Ansary: Yes, yeah.
Miller: And so somebody arrives at PDX from Sudan, Afghanistan ‒ a country of origin wherever in the world ‒ the first people that they’d be greeted by would be members of your team?
Ansary: Yes, yeah. We have already received the notice of their arrival. If they are allocated to, destined to come to Portland, then we meet them at the airport, provide housing and case management services, access to health services and so forth.
Miller: How far along were people in the process that you just outlined, who’s arrival in the U.S. was stopped because of last month’s order.
Ansary: Basically, people were travel-ready. Flights were scheduled.
Miller: They’d gone through every aspect of that?
Ansary: Every aspect. And as I said, it’s a lengthy process for these individuals to go through two, three years before they actually are being accepted.
Miller: So it’s almost like you have a winning lottery ticket and you’re about to cash it in, and then someone says “no, we’re taking it away.”
Ansary: My entire family fled the country. This is way back. But I cannot imagine that if I had received a notice that they are not coming after two, three years of the process. It is devastating.
Miller: For your own family, this is in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion, 45 years ago?
Ansary: Yeah, they came to Portland in 1981.
A lot of loved ones that are being separated, it’s incredibly painful to see these individuals all of a sudden told no, you cannot go anymore.
Miller: What did your organization and the other plaintiffs argue in your briefs to the federal judge?
Ansary: Well, if you look at the Refugee Act of 1980, that was a bipartisan support that the law was established in terms of an orderly, well coordinated process of resettling refugees. And these presidential orders that are issued, based on those documents, are illegal. It cannot be done this way. Not only that, but really decimating not only these programs, but the life of these individuals that are coming in there. After the court hearing yesterday, some of the testimonies of some of the former refugees that were there and that talked as to what this injunction means to them.
Miller: What did you hear?
Ansary: “We have families still overseas.” Or “I came when I was four years old, and here I am a contributing member of the society, and I pay taxes, and law abiding, and now this program is halted or suspended, it doesn’t make any sense based on humanitarian grounds, justice.” These folks are devastated.
Miller: We’re talking now because the judge agreed, it seems, with your arguments enough that he made this preliminary injunction, and also because he said it seems like there are merits in the ultimate case. But based on the way this administration has responded to other recent rulings, rulings over the last month, how much faith do you have that it will actually restart this program immediately?
Ansary: Even one month, the damage has been done. A lot of those folks overseas that are processing refugees, they have lost their jobs. A lot of the resettlement agencies are already in the process of massive layoffs of these individuals that are working and have the experience. And even if this program starts rebuilding, just like the negative campaign that happened in 2017, it took us four years to rebuild the programs. Because at that time, the program was temporarily, not totally stopped, but there were some bans on some specific refugee groups. And for us to rebuild the program to a place where you can have the capacity to assist folks, is now in total jeopardy.
Miller: Was your organization affected at all by the federal spending freeze announced last month, and has not yet been fully reversed?
Ansary: Yes. Just prior to the January 20th inauguration, we had 370 refugees that arrived. And according to the provision of services under the cooperative agreement that we have with the Department of State, these individuals are entitled to 90 days of initial resettlement services.
Miller: Services funded by the federal government through the Department of State, through a contract that you got as a nonprofit. They arrived in the U.S. right before the inauguration. And if I understand correctly, you’re saying you’ve been expecting money to pay for the services that you are giving to them. Have you gotten that money?
Ansary: No. I think the money that the Department of State funds, as I understand it’s part of the USAID.
These are nonprofit agencies that assist. Yes, our agency operates in three states, we have diversified funding. But maintaining staff to assist, and especially if you’re anticipating over 1,400 refugees in a year, you have to have the bilingual staff, and you have to have the qualified staff to assist.
So now all of these things are in jeopardy. And I don’t know how long this will continue. The injunction hopefully will restart the program. But boy, seeing what’s been happening, I don’t know if this will really materialize in a timely manner.
Miller: What do you think this will mean for people who’ve just arrived here, who are in a sense promised at least six months of support, or 90 days of support. What will this mean for making a new life?
Ansary: We have, as agencies, been settling refugees ‒ after World War II, over 50,000 refugees have been resettled, especially after the fall of Saigon and the Southeast Asian population. We have incredible, committed volunteers of faith-based communities and people that have helped us in the resettlement process. I think that we cannot stop our moral obligation for these individuals that wanted to make a new start in their lives, and pick up the pieces from what they have lost. I don’t think that we can abandon them. But we rely heavily on the support of our community. So we want to make sure that we continue to do this.
Miller: Salah Ansary, thanks very much.
Ansary: You’re very welcome. Thank you.
Miller: Salah Ansary is senior director of advocacy and government affairs at Lutheran Community Services Northwest.
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