6 FEBRUARY 6-12, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Grounded! COLORADO-BOUND REFUGEE FLIGHTS CANCELED AFTER TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDER. BY BENNITO L. KELT Y Refugees hoping to rebuild their lives in Colorado are stuck in limbo because of one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders, according to refugee resettlement agencies, who note that their fl ights to this state have been canceled. “This is going to have a traumatic impact on families,” says Nicky Smith, the Inter- national Rescue Committee (IRC) regional director who oversees Denver. “The families and the communities are defi nitely feeling the impact of the executive order. People are frightened, people are nervous, people don’t know what’s happening. We can see from the volume of calls we’re getting into the offi ce.” On his fi rst day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order suspending the resettlement of refugees and any deci- sions on refugee applications for ninety days beginning January 27. After ninety days, the Secretary of Homeland Security is slated to submit a report to the president regard- ing whether refugee resettlement is in the interests of the United States and if it should continue, according to the executive order. The order blamed a lack of resources and public safety concerns as the reasons for the pause. “The Refugee Admissions Program is one of the oldest, most established and most stable pathways for citizenship into the United States,” Smith notes. “The system was already vetted last time around by the Trump administration. They went over the process then. There haven’t been changes to the admissions process since then.” People fl eeing war and persecution in their countries have been immigrating through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Pro- gram since 1980. The federal program works with refugee resettlement agencies like the IRC, a national nonprofi t that Albert Ein- stein helped found after World War II, and local agencies like the African Community Center of Denver, which resettles hundreds of African refugees into Denver and Aurora each year, to fi nd homes and resources for them to rebuild their lives. The IRC had fl ights to Colorado booked for refugees in February, but those fl ights have been canceled and the resettlement process for those refugees will be paused for at least ninety days, Smith says; the IRC will advocate for the White House to permit a handful of refugees in the meantime. “With no knowledge of what’s going to hap- pen post-ninety days, we have to encourage the administration to look at case-by-case examples, even during the ninety days of suspension,” Smith explains. “There’s vast decades now of evidence to demonstrate that the U.S. refugee admission pro- cess is one of the most secure, vetted processes.” Rhossy Ouanzin Gbebri, spokesperson for ACC of Denver, says the nonprofi t had scheduled fl ights to Colorado for sixteen refugees fro places like Sudan between January 27 and late February, but those flights were canceled last week. The nonprofi t is “deeply concerned” it won’t be able to help 41 other refugees who were assured by the ACC of Denver that they would be able to reunite with their families in Colorado in the coming months, Ouanzin Gbebri adds. “This order puts vulnerable individuals, including children and families, into a state of anxiety,” Ouanzin Gbebri says. “They feel it’s prolonging family separation and compounding the challenges they’re already facing.” Smith notes that “this type of separation has a signifi cant impact on people’s ability to navigate and recover from their own psychological trauma.” Trump signed the order during a fi rst-day blitz against immigration that included a dec- laration of emergency to send troops to the southern border and an executive order to end birthright citizenship that was subsequently blocked by a federal judge. Along with refu- gee resettlement, Trump halted the asylum system and shut down the CBP One app that migrants used to enter the U.S. on parole. On January 27, Trump tried to freeze nearly all federal grants, but a federal judge temporarily blocked that order, too. Refugee resettlement agencies rely heavily on federal funding, Ouanzin Gbebri says, and the ACC of Denver has already prepared for a drop in federal funding with a hiring freeze. Trump could also lower the refugee cap — the limit on how many refugees can be admitted into the country each year — which would also reduce federal funding. Trump lowered the cap the last time he was in offi ce. “It’s going to be extremely diffi cult the next four years,” Ouanzin Gbebri says. “We’re just trying to focus on what’s in front of us for now.” The term “refugee” has a legal defi nition in the U.S. that applies specifi cally to a person who asks, while in their native country, to come to the U.S. to fl ee war or persecution. An asylum seeker is also fl eeing war or perse- cution, but they apply for or declare asylum when they arrive in the country. “Migrant” isn’t a legally defi ned term in the U.S., but it typically refers to someone who comes here for work. Most of the 43,000 migrants who have come to Denver during the past two years are fl eeing persecution by the Venezuelan government, but they’ve been called migrants by city offi cials and the media, often because they’re seeking work and not all of them apply for asylum. Trump’s executive order lumps migrants and refugees together, and cuts off refugee admission on the grounds that the U.S. can’t handle being “inundated” any longer. “The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular refugees, into its communities 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 refu- gees,” the executive order states. “Major urban centers such as New York City, Chi- cago and Denver have sought federal aid to manage the burden of new arrivals.” Refugees have been coming to Denver in much smaller numbers than the much- publicized migrants. From October 2022 through this past December, Colorado had resettled about 3,000 refugees in the state, mostly from Afghanistan, Burma and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Refugee resettlement can be a slow process. Even though migrants showed up in Denver seemingly overnight, refugees wait years, if not decades, to come to the U.S. because of the vetting process. “It takes decades for some families to be resettled because of the volume of checks and balances they go through in the application process,” Smith says. “The resettlement process in the U.S. is well organized and rigorous, and involves many layers of vetting and security checks,” Ouanzin Gbebri adds. “Some refugees go through this vetting program for twenty years. You have children being born and staying in a refugee camp for twenty years because of this vetting process.” Colorado is currently home to more than 75,000 refugees, according to the state Of- fi ce of New Americans. In 2024, the ACC of Denver resettled nearly 1,400 refugees in the Denver area, a 30 percent increase from the year before and the most in a single year since the nonprofi t began resettling in 2001, the group reports. The U.S. has resettled more than 3.1 million refugees since 1980. About 80 percent of the refugees who have resettled in Colorado have come through Aurora, according to the Aurora Offi ce of International and Immigrant Affairs. The city declines to comment on Trump’s executive order, but “Aurora remains deeply committed to supporting its immigrant and refugee com- munities,” says city spokesperson Joe Rubino. While the suspension of refugee admis- sions is in place, Ouanzin Gbebri says re- settlement agencies will focus on supporting refugees who are already in the U.S. while advocating for new arrivals. “We’re going to keep on advocating for refugees awaiting to travel to the U.S.,” Ouan- zin Gbebri says. “At the same time, we’re going to keep on working and serving the people that we already have here in the country.” Email the author at [email protected]. NEWS KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Late last month, the African Community Center of Denver had to cancel fl ights for sixteen refugees from places like Sudan. BENNITO L. KELT Y
