[Ed. note: Below has been republished with permission from Port City Daily’s media partner, WHQR.]
A slew of recent White House changes to federal funding has caused confusion for local nonprofits — one of them is the Wilmington Office of the Church World Service, which has resettled 360 refugees over the last two years. WHQR’s Rachel Keith spoke with Wes Magruder, the director of the local chapter, about what the changes mean for the 100-some people they work with each year.
Rachel Keith: Thank you so much for being here — so, tell us briefly what your organization does.
Wes Magruder: CWS Wilmington is a refugee resettlement agency, which means that we are one of many local sites across the country that resettle refugees who are coming to the country through the US Refugee Admission Program, and we do everything from pick up refugees from the airport to getting them into their housing, providing them with basic, essential services for their first 90 days, and enrolling them in an employment program whereby we help them become self-sufficient in the community just as soon as possible.
RK: We’ve talked before, and you’ve said that refugees who come to the United States are some of the most heavily vetted people in the country.
WM: They’ve primarily come through a system and a program run by the United Nations. So these are refugees who have made their way to a UN camp. They’ve been officially registered as refugees, and then they have been allowed to enter into a resettlement program. The U.S. is one of those partners, one of the many countries that accept refugee resettlements. And so the U.S. comes in and does not only security checks but also medical checks.
There’s a series of interviews, and then it’s determined that a family is eligible to be resettled here in the US, and we are one of those offices where that family might end up. But it is a long process; it takes 18 months to two years just to finally get to the US, and that’s not counting the number of years you would have already spent in a refugee camp waiting. Still, resettlement is only an option for refugees whereby it’s determined there is no safe path for them to return home.
RK: And they’re fleeing from political violence or religious persecution or, say, a climate crisis?
WM: Yes, primarily political. The refugee definition of the UN involves facing the fear of persecution for race, religion, or social group.
RK: And the last couple of days have been pretty chaotic for your organization because of recent federal decisions. Can you walk through what your past couple of days have been like?
WM: Yes. Well, it began on day one of the new presidential administration because one of the executive actions was specifically targeted at the US Refugee Admission Program. It indefinitely suspended that program, meaning that as of January 27, there are no more refugee arrivals. However, minutes after the order was issued, flights were already being canceled worldwide for refugees who had already been cleared for admission and arrival.
So that was the first shoe that dropped, so to speak. Then at the end of the week, there was a memo suspending all foreign aid, and we were informed that we could no longer use any funds that we previously had received to help facilitate the resettlement of refugees.
Now, that’s an essential question for us because we have refugees who have arrived very recently, and they’re still within the 90-day service period that we’re supposed to provide services for them. So immediately, we asked, ‘Well, does that mean we have to stop serving those who have recently arrived?’ I think there’s still a lot of confusion about that; different resettlement agencies have answered that question in other ways. Some have said we read this to say that we cannot serve even the active clients we already have.
I can say, and I’m happy to say, that CWS nationally has decided that and interpreted the memo to mean that we must still continue to serve the clients we have this obligation to. So in our office, we’re still serving the clients who’ve arrived and are within that first 90 days.
The most recent was when eight people from Latin America arrived at the Wilmington airport on Friday, January 24, the very day that the order came down. So we’re still serving them. We are enrolling their children in school. We’re getting all the documents they need. We’re assisting them every way possible. But to be honest, at any minute, I suppose the State Department could come down and say, ‘No, you’re not spending any more money.’
RK: And you said there’s a chance that the federal government, later, if they decided to reinstate that, you might not get a reimbursement if they choose to go that route?
WM: Yes, I mean, I think there’s a bit of a risk that our organization has taken, and spending the money, but first of all, the money that is contractually obligated for us to spend on the clients, as well as for our staff who are performing those services. So yeah, there is a risk that the federal government may not reimburse us. I certainly wouldn’t hope it would come to that because our work with the federal government is by contract.
But then there was an order that came down that all federal funding was to be frozen, which again threw us into chaos because that affected some of the other funds and grants we work under. And we just are seeking clarity because I don’t think anybody knows what it means.
We discovered that the White House had rescinded that order shortly before speaking with you. But even again, there’s some conflicting information about that, so I don’t know. I can tell you that all of us, my whole staff, is worried that ultimately they’ll lose their jobs. And you do see, some other resettlement agencies nationwide are already beginning to lay off staff.
RK: Your staff has had to deal with some challenging scenarios for some families. They’re finding out, ‘Hey, I got here in time, but my siblings and parents can’t come. My children can’t come.’
WM: Yes, at this point, yes. We had a young man from Northern Africa arrive months ago, and he was waiting for his brother and his mother to join him. They’re separate refugee cases, so they received different travel arrangements. But the mother and the brother were scheduled to travel in February, and something happened. It got pushed back, but at this point, all their travel is wiped off the books. Not only is that tragic, but because it means another delay, it potentially means that the mother and brother will not be able to come at all when you are prepared to travel. You are traveling with a medical exam that has an expiration date. You have a security vetting that has an expiration date. And so if the suspension of the refugee program lasts for very long, they could go beyond their expiration date, and they’d have to do it all over again, move to the back of the line. It’s a terrible situation to be in, to have gotten so close and then find it taken away.
RK: And you were saying that some of your staff, I mean, if you get further crunched, they can’t take people to get their kids registered at school, or take them to doctor’s appointments or get them enrolled in various programs. All of that might have to come to a stop.
WM: We’re acting as if we can, but if we were to find out in the coming days that we can’t, it would put many of our families at risk. They have health screenings. They have doctor’s appointments. They have children who need to be enrolled in school. They have bank accounts. They need to open state IDs they need to have created. So our staff provide a lot of these services. Over the last few days, I’ve been starting to call and work with our volunteer and community partners to prepare to ask for the community’s assistance if we can’t do it ourselves.
RK: What is next for you all? What are you hoping the federal government will do going forward?
WM: We are working as hard as we can on all of our active clients to ensure they have the services or know what they need to receive, which we were going to provide anyway. We’ve just been speeding up the process now, trying to do it as quickly as possible. We’re looking at the question of who is the most vulnerable so that we have backup plans. We’re also thinking about how we might pivot our services.
I fully anticipate that we won’t have any new refugee arrivals anytime soon. I know the executive order said that they would review it every 90 days, but I suspect that it may not be restarted very soon at all. So we’ve decided that we’re going to ask the question, ‘Well, how can we serve the people that we have brought in over the last two years? How can we best serve them?’
Since opening our doors in the last two years, we have resettled 360 refugees in the Wilmington Cape Fear region. About 35% of the 100 people we resettle yearly are under 18. And so we’ll ask ourselves, ‘How can we continue to serve those people who’ve been here a little bit longer?’
So they have new challenges they didn’t face when they first arrived. Those challenges may be helping them to move up in employment, opportunities, get a certification, or some career advancement-type things.
Also, we’re always looking for ways to assist in helping them to learn English better. We find that Wilmington is a very welcoming community, and they want to help us, support us, and support these families who’ve arrived. So I’m confident that we’re going to stay open; I just see that we might have to be doing some slightly different things in somewhat different ways.
We actually do also serve a number of other types of refugees, including Ukrainians, who have come to the US a slightly different way. They’ve come through a private sponsorship program. They come as humanitarian parolees.
And there was another executive order that was issued on day one that puts their future in jeopardy as well. The president is asserted the authority to revoke and close down the humanitarian parole system, which would mean as hard as it is to believe that Ukrainians may lose their status in the country.
It also applies to Afghans and other groups who came here during the Biden administration, legally under the humanitarian parole system or through temporary protected status (TPS). Both of those programs are under threat. It could be rescinded in any moment, which would make those people immediately undocumented, and therefore, they’d be liable to deportation.
Some people are asking me whether refugees are a threat of being deported. I can honestly say no because the refugees who have come here and have refugee status have all the documentation they need, so I do not feel that they should be in any danger. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re not afraid because they’re contacting us and telling us they’re afraid.
Some of the others who fall under the category of TPS or humanitarian parole; when they ask about their risk, we tell them to make sure they’re always carrying their documents with them at all times.
I am hearing just second hand reports of racial profiling. Let’s say you are from Venezuela and came as a refugee, which is perfectly legal here. You have all the documents, but are you going to get stopped over and over and over again and asked for your papers and made to feel fear. So, it affects even those here with papers and documentation.
Find more information about CWS Wilmington, including how to get involved or volunteer, here.
This was originally published on WHQR, the local NPR affiliate, by Rachel Keith. Keith is a graduate of UNCW’s Master of Public Administration program, specializing in Urban and Regional Policy and Planning. She also received a Master of Education and two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and French Language & Literature from NC State University. She served as WHQR’s News Fellow from 2017-2019. Contact her by email: rkeith@whqr.org or on X @RachelKWHQR
