The Trump administration’s indefinite refugee ban, stop work orders and prolonged delays in reimbursement for resettlement agencies have had a devastating impact on tens of thousands of refugee families and communities across the country and around the world. Welcome to the latest edition of State of Play from Church World Service. This resource will provide regular updates from the CWS Policy Team on the current state of play; updated asks for national, state and local leaders; and the latest headlines and community resources. Subscribe now to receive daily updates on the latest developments and ways to support impacted communities.
State of Play |
After five hours of voting, budget resolution passes the House. The House passed the budget resolution late last night, setting the stage for Congress to pass another reconciliation bill that would give tens of billions of dollars more to ICE and Border Patrol. Now, the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees will develop the legislative text for the bill, which – unless pressure builds to stop it – will eventually come to another final vote before the House and Senate. Take action here.
Justices appear divided on TPS, while supporters rally outside. The Supreme Court heard nearly two hours of oral arguments yesterday about the Trump administration’s decision to strip Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of Haiti and Syria. Since Congress created the program in 1990, TPS has protected people from deportation to countries suffering from armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary crises and allows them to work for up to 18 months in the United States.
During the hearing, two conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, seemed sympathetic to the argument that former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem failed to consult with the State Department before terminating TPS for Haiti and Syria, as required by law.
Several liberal justices brought up the Trump administration’s past derogatory statements about Haitians and immigrants and questioned its favoring of white South African refugees over immigrants of color. The challengers argued that the end of TPS for Haiti was a preordained result driven by racial animus, while the administration’s lawyers claimed that President Trump’s reference to Haiti as a “shithole” country was unrelated to race. A separate case recently revealed that a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employee was instructed to claim that TPS caused more Haitians to migrate to the United States despite a lack of any empirical evidence.
Outside of the Supreme Court, hundreds of TPS supporters rallied to chant, sing, and stand in solidarity throughout the arguments. The legal team addressed the crowd after they left the court, which you can watch here. The ruling expected in late June or July directly affects TPS for Haiti and Syria, but it has significant implications on the 11 other countries whose TPS designations the Trump administration has also sought to terminate.
Resolution seeking to restore automatic extensions for work permits fails in the Senate. Yesterday, Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) forced a floor vote on a resolution to overturn the Trump administration’s 2025 Interim Final Rule (IFR) that eliminated automatic work extensions for expiring work permits. The vote failed 47-50.
The end of automatic extensions affects 3.8 million workers who were once eligible, with thousands of workers losing their jobs because USCIS takes months to process renewal applications. For more than a decade, USCIS had automatically extended work authorization for eligible workers facing processing delays.
Last week, Public Citizen Litigation Group and Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) filed a lawsuit on behalf of an immigrant worker at risk of losing her jobs because of the IFR. The plaintiff is a citizen of Mexico who has lived in the U.S. for nearly a decade and is the sole provider for her eight-year-old U.S. citizen daughter.
Stories of Impact |
Plaintiff Miriam and her family fled the Democratic Republic of Congo after facing persecution by paramilitary groups. They lived in a refugee camp in Burundi for fifteen years as they proceeded through the lengthy U.S. refugee resettlement vetting and screening process. She gave birth while going through this years-long process, and was erroneously advised by UN staff at the camp that adding her new son to the case would delay the resettlement process – and she understood she would be able to immediately apply for him once the rest of the family arrived in the U.S. Upon resettlement, Miriam immediately filed a Follow-to-Join application for her son, an application that has now been blocked by the refugee ban. A lawyer supporting the case asked the government for an exception to the ban, and was told the existing exception process “was not for” Miriam’s now-nine-year-old son. Miriam believes the government is purposefully neglecting her and preventing reunification with her son because her family is Black. She calls her son every day.
Plaintiff Babak resettled in the U.S. as a refugee from Iran, and is now a citizen. He has submitted an application for his wife and her parents through the Lautenberg program for those facing religious persecution. The family is Zoroastrian, a religious group that faces discrimination across all facets of society in Iran. While his wife was able to make it to the U.S. via another pathway, the family has been separated for years. They had been scheduled for an appointment to move their case forward and were preparing to leave for processing in Austria when the refugee ban stalled their case once again.
| Find more stories of impact here, and watch this space for new stories as they arise. Have a story to share? You can share it with us via this form for refugees overseas or this form for refugees, immigrants and service providers in the U.S.
|
