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On his first day in office, President Trump paused the U.S. program to admit refugees. Organizations working to resettle refugees have also had to contend with slow grant funding and demands to stop work altogether. As NPR immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo finds, hundreds of employees have been furloughed or laid off. Now organizations are grappling with how to help resettle more than 22,000 newly arrived refugees.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: As soon as they arrive to the U.S., refugees are greeted by staff and volunteers dedicated to help them settle into their new homes.
PAM KEFI: We would pick the family up at the airport and provide them with a hot meal, some basic safety and cultural orientation on their first day here. Like, you know, what is the fire alarm going to sound like? What's the smell of gasoline in our ovens here? What to do in case of an emergency, you know, 9-1-1.
BUSTILLO: That's Pam Kefi, CEO of Journey's End, a local resettlement group in Buffalo, New York. She first started doing refugee resettlement work in 1997.
KEFI: And then we begin the process of providing at least 90 days of fairly intensive case management support. And that includes helping people get linked with primary care, vaccinations for kids to go to school and then, of course, registering for school.
BUSTILLO: The list of services is sprawling but, she says, vital for the people who arrived to America with only a few belongings after a lengthy vetting process by the federal government. But after the first week of President Trump's second term, a pause in funding from federal grants and the order to stop work halted her organization's care of 115 families.
KEFI: Those were families that were currently under our care, who we are contracted to support, who we then were told we would not be reimbursed for services for those families.
BUSTILLO: Trump's pause of the refugee program, request to freeze funding across federal agencies and for nongovernmental organizations to stop work left refugee resettlement organizations across the country reeling. Several grants are given by the State Department, which issued a stop work order, and organizations are financially left on the hook. Resettlement organizations told NPR that there are millions of dollars in government funding on hold. That's forced local groups to front the costs. Katherine Rehberg is the vice president of programs at Church World Service, one of the 10 flagship resettlement nonprofits that work nationwide.
KATHERINE REHBERG: We don't think it's only the government's responsibility. It's a public-private partnership. But that public piece is a core part of it, and that's the piece that right now is really challenging our ability to operate and to continue to meet the needs of people who are already here.
BUSTILLO: The Trump administration is hoping to do an audit of all federal spending. It's not immediately clear if the funding freezes are directly tied to the administration's review of refugee programs. Or they could be caused by technological errors or internal confusion. Laura Rice, who worked on immigration issues in the first Trump administration, said that nongovernmental organizations are paid through several agencies. And that's one of the reasons this funding is paused.
LAURA RICE, BYLINE: It doesn't make sense to keep sending money out the door and try to analyze it all at the same time.
BUSTILLO: Still, resettlement organizations, like Journey's End in Buffalo, are uncertain how much longer they can hold out. Several organizations filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the leadership of federal agencies they say are responsible for leaving refugees abroad and stopping services. One plaintiff, who goes by the name of Ali (ph) and just arrived to the U.S., told reporters he's eating one meal a day and doesn't know if next month's rent will be paid due to paused services. Kefi from the local group in Buffalo said that she's hoping there's more support to come.
KEFI: A lot of people think of refugee resettlement as charity for refugees, and certainly that's why I got into this work. But I've really grown to love the idea that my city that I grew up in is a welcoming city for those individuals.
BUSTILLO: Organizations are hoping to bolster their other avenues of funding while they wait for the final word on if their grants will be returned.
Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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