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The federal Refugee Admissions Program is still inactive, even after a judge ordered it to restart. Resettlement groups say more than 125,000 refugees remain in limbo, even though they were vetted and their travel to the United States was approved. Here's Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service.
JACK JENKINS, BYLINE: Three months after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately restart the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, Mark Hetfield, whose group is among those suing the administration, is losing patience.
MARK HETFIELD: I can't believe how hard they're fighting to make sure that refugees who have already been approved by Homeland Security to come here are not allowed to come here.
JENKINS: Hetfield leads HIAS, a Jewish group that helps with refugee resettlement. He says the Trump administration has repeatedly sought clarification and appeals, using stalling tactics to tie up the case in court. Hetfield says the freeze on emissions has left around 128,000 refugees in limbo, even though they had been vetted and approved through a yearslong process to enter the country. Twelve thousand, he said, had already booked travel plans.
Since Trump froze the program, groups that help with refugee resettlement have been forced to lay off workers after the administration abruptly halted their funds. At least two have announced plans to end partnerships with the government altogether. According to Mevlude Akay Alp, a lawyer with faith groups in the case, the government has used the decimation of the refugee resettlement agencies to argue that the program is too broken to restart, even as the administration fast-tracked refugee status for 59 white Afrikaners last month.
MEVLUDE AKAY ALP: That's entirely a problem of the government's own making. The admission of Afrikaners a couple of weeks ago - I mean, that really just goes to illustrate that whenever the government wants to, it is capable of processing and admitting individuals under the refugee program very quickly.
JENKINS: The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to direct questions about the case. The federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to restart admitting refugees has appointed a neutral party to determine which refugees should be immediately allowed to enter the U.S. But that will take more time - time, faith groups say, the refugees don't have.
For NPR News, I'm Jack Jenkins in Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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