U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A coalition of faith groups who provide refugee services Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court over the Trump administration’s executive order suspending refugee resettlement as well as withholding funds for those services appropriated by Congress.
Linda Evarts, the International Refugee Assistance Project’s lead attorney on the suit, is urging the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington to issue a temporary restraining order; an injunction on the suspension of the processing and admissions for refugees; and resumed funding by the State Department for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for processing applications and post-arrival services.
“This is a program that was created by Congress and the president cannot just override it with a stroke of a pen,” she said. “The longer his suspension lasts, the longer the harm will take to repair, if it can ever be repaired.”
The International Refugee Assistance Project filed the lawsuit on behalf of faith groups Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Lutheran Community Services Northwest, as well as refugees who had their resettlement flights canceled, a local refugee sponsor and families trying to reunite.
“[I]n an attempt to sound the final death knell for U.S. refugee resettlement, the Trump Administration suspended, effective immediately, funding to the resettlement partners that assist in processing refugee applications abroad and that provide necessary — and statutorily mandated — benefits to refugees and Afghan and Iraqi allies who have recently arrived in the United States,” according to the complaint.
Suspension of refugee admissions on Inauguration Day
The executive order that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office suspended all refugee admission and processing, as well as funding for organizations that handle resettlement in the United States.
The order directed officials at the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to submit a report every 90 days and Trump will determine whether refugee resettlement is “in the interests of the United States.”
“President Trump’s orders are blatantly illegal,” Evarts said. “They are designed to decimate the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and the infrastructure supporting refugee resettlement in the United States. It violates Congress’ will to make immigration laws by trying to unilaterally override the Refugee Act.”
The Refugee Act establishes caps on the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. The number of refugees allowed for fiscal year 2025 is 125,000, and so far 44,000 refugees have been resettled into the U.S.
Confusion, flight cancellations
The executive order led to confusion and the cancellation of flights for vetted and approved refugees, according to the complaint.
That included one of the plaintiffs who is part of the class action, who ”was scheduled to travel on January 22 with his wife and baby and had sold all of the family’s possessions and given up their rental house in preparation; he then learned that their travel was canceled,” according to the complaint.
This is not the first time Trump has tried to suspend refugee resettlement operations.
In his first term, he signed an executive order that suspended the resettlement of refugees from Muslim-majority countries.
In an executive order on Feb. 7, Trump directed the State Department and DHS to prioritize the refugee resettlement of Afrikaners, an ethnic group in South Africa made up of European descendants, predominantly Dutch.
The executive order noted that Afrikaners are “victims of unjust racial discrimination” after South Africa’s government passed a land ownership law in an effort to address land disposition that occurred under apartheid.