Updated March 08, 2025 at 00:01 AM ET
When 21-year-old Jefferson arrived in the U.S. in December, a case manager from a resettlement agency met him at the airport and took him straight to an apartment. Within a month, the manager also helped him land a job operating a machine that packs lettuce.
Jefferson's new life in America was taking shape. Then suddenly, in late January, his case manager disappeared.
"I was left alone, with no one to provide guidance in this new country," he says, speaking in Spanish because he doesn't yet know much English.
It turned out the case manager had been let go — and their work phone shut down — after the Trump administration froze refugee resettlement.
Jefferson is a political refugee from Nicaragua. NPR has agreed not to use his last name because he is afraid of retribution against family still there. He says he's grateful to have been allowed into the U.S., a process that often takes years and includes intense vetting. But he says losing such crucial support in adapting to his new country was a harsh blow.
"I felt abandoned," he says.
Refugee aid groups say their "existence ... is at risk"
Thousands of recently arrived refugees like Jefferson are stuck in limbo across the U.S.
On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, citing concerns over the country's ability to absorb large numbers of refugees. That stranded about 10,000 people who were barred from boarding flights to the U.S., including Afghans who had risked their lives working for the American government or military.
A few days later, the administration issued a stop work order that ended services for refugees already in the U.S. That, along with the funding freeze, has hobbled resettlement agencies nationwide, forcing them to lay off hundreds of staff and even shut down offices.
"The further existence of our organization is at risk at this point, because we are unable to pay all of our bills," says Kristyn Peck, CEO of Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area.
She says she's had to cut a third of the staff and is owed more than $2 million in federal money for work already done. "We just haven't been reimbursed for services since before December," she says.
Refugee resettlement agencies have filed multiple lawsuits challenging the Trump administration actions. A U.S. Supreme Court decision on Wednesday could lead to reimbursement for some services already rendered. But the State Department also has terminated all contracts with resettlement groups. For now, those groups are scrambling to help recently arrived refugees most in need.
A "retraumatizing" experience when the promise of help is broken
Jefferson was placed in a sparsely furnished, one-bedroom apartment in Riverdale, Md., with another refugee who arrived last August. After losing his case manager, he says he struggled on his own for more than a month.
He had acute pain from a toothache but had no idea how to find a dentist. His biggest fear, though, was how he was going to pay the rent. He'd only just started his job. Typically, the federal government helps cover housing for the first three months after someone arrives.
His roommate panicked, worrying they'd be evicted — and decided he had to pay the full rent for both of them, despite how tough it would be.
"Basically, I was left with no money," says Raemifael Abraham. "I barely had enough to pay the bus fare to my job."
They cut back on food and made it work. But then Abraham lost his job packing air-conditioner filters, in what he was told was a seasonal downsizing.
The federal government's abandonment of newly arrived refugees has been "retraumatizing," says Amy Hoang Wrona, development director with the nonprofit Homes Not Borders. She says some new arrivals were placed in hotels and just left there.
"Many, many, many have lived in refugee camps for months, if not years, with the promise of help. And then they come here and then sit in a hotel for one to two months with no communication," she says.
Wrona's group readies apartments for refugees, but it has stepped up fundraising so it can do more for them. "We are filling in the gaps," she says. That includes paying rent for more than two dozen refugee families, and checking in on those who lost case managers.
"We would literally knock on people's doors asking them, like, 'Have you had your kids enrolled in school yet?' " says Laura Thompson Osuri, executive director of Homes Not Borders. "They'd been here for a month, and it hadn't happened."
The organization has also hired some case managers who got laid off by the funding freeze. One of them is Federico Rostran, who's now working again with Jefferson and his roommate. "It's hard for them to identify what do they need to do, where do they need to go," he says.
Rostran helps refugees apply for a social security card, sign up for health insurance and get a work permit. His ultimate aim is to set them up for success.
"Teach people how to do things on their own, and get confident about it, and not be intimidated," he says.
A political divide over refugee levels has widened in the past decade
A clash over refugees also played out in Trump's first term, when he sought to give state and local authorities the power to reject refugees from being resettled in their communities. His administration set a record low cap for new refugees, at 15,000. In 2018, the Pew Research Center found a growing number of Republicans said the U.S. did not have an obligation to welcome refugees.
When President Joe Biden came into power, he reversed course. Last year, his administration approved a cap of 125,000 refugees, the highest in three decades.
The Trump administration frames its most recent pause as part of its broader crackdown on immigration. The president's executive order says the U.S. lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of refugees "in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees."
By contrast, advocates note the government's own assessment finds that refugees are a net gain for the nation's economy. Peck, with the local chapter of Lutheran Social Services, says the ability to "provide a beacon of hope and safety and freedom to people who are fleeing persecution" is a tenet of U.S. democracy.
Normally, Peck's staff serves refugees for years, offering workforce development, mental health support and legal guidance. But with its staff and budget dramatically shrunk, she says they are prioritizing the most vulnerable among recent arrivals. The group is tracking who has gotten eviction notices, paying what it can, and pleading for patience from landlords.
And if federal funding does not come back?
"I think people will be at risk for homelessness," she says. "They'll be at risk for food insecurity, for joblessness."
Meanwhile, Jefferson, the refugee from Nicaragua, is studying English at a community college and working six days a week. Homes Not Borders was able to pay his last month's rent.
The future still feels uncertain, but he hopes his case manager can stay on the job. After one year here, Jefferson will be required to apply for a green card — to live and work permanently in the U.S. — and he'd really like expert legal guidance with that.
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