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 |
| The latest: ICE’s “Operation PARRIS” continues in full force in Minnesota. Federal agents going door-to-door have arrested dozens of refugees without cause – including children – transferring many of them to a detention center in Texas. World Relief, a refugee resettlement agency operating in Minnesota, told Sojourners that it is advising refugees “not to leave their homes for any reason.”
As the operation specifically targeting refugees remains underway, Minnesotans of a range of immigration statuses continue to face a barrage of aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it has made over 10,000 arrests in Minnesota in the past six weeks. Some warrantless arrests have taken place in essential public locations that immigration enforcement agents generally avoided under prior Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, including arrests at a hospital and a university campus. Many of those arrested have been targeted despite holding U.S. citizenship or having existing legal protections from deportation. North of Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley says federal agents have stopped several off-duty police officers – all of them people of color – to ask them for proof of citizenship. Minnesotans continue to fight back against the federal takeover, as documented by a team of seven Washington Post reporters in this must-read piece. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to at least five Minnesota elected officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, seeking documents connected to their policies on immigration enforcement. The subpoenas mark a significant expansion of the criminal investigation that the Department of Justice first opened into Governor Walz and Mayor Frey on Friday, alleging that they both conspired to impede the thousands of federal agents who have flooded the state in recent weeks. The Trump administration has also made clear that it does not intend to prosecute the ICE officer who killed Minneapolis mother Rene Good. Instead, the Justice Department plans to investigate Good’s widow, a decision that contributed to the resignation of six federal prosecutors. Some Democrats consider supporting Department of Homeland Security funding bill, despite significant funding for enforcement. Punchbowl News reports that some House Democrats are considering voting in favor of the annual spending bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The bill provides $28 billion to ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and lacks of the kinds of oversight mechanisms that CWS and other faith-based organizations called for earlier this month. Some appropriators have argued that the $28 billion in funding for ICE and CBP represents level funding compared to last year, but Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement disagrees. “It is an increase in ICE funding,” she said. “The reason people are saying it isn’t is because the CR from last year had an anomaly—a one-time funding amount of $485 million. If you add that into the base-year funding and look at this year, there is a $115 million decrease, but that was one-time anomaly funding.” Rep. Jayapal says that without meaningful guardrails on ICE and CBP, she won’t vote for the legislation. “I can’t be complicit in continuing to allow them to violate the constitutional rights of people across this country.” However, many lawmakers remain undecided. Take action to urge your lawmakers to refuse to support an increase in spending for lawless immigration enforcement. Governor Mikie Sherrill takes office in New Jersey as the debate over legislative protections against immigration enforcement remains unresolved. Last week, outgoing New Jersey governor Phil Murphy vetoed two bills that immigrant rights advocates had long championed, arguing that enacting the bills could jeopardize federal funding and lead to legal challenges. One would have codified New Jersey’s existing ban on collusion between federal immigration enforcement and local police. The other would institute data privacy protections for people accessing public services like hospitals and libraries. “In failing to sign these bills, Governor Murphy has left New Jersey without critical protections at a moment when ICE is brutalizing our communities” the ACLU of New Jersey said in a statement, urging the newly-inaugurated Sherrill administration to move quickly to support the measures. During her campaign, Governor Sherrill expressed similar concerns about the bill banning police from aiding federal immigration enforcement, but advocates remain optimistic. Make the Road New Jersey Executive Director Nedia Morsy lawmakers now have a chance to make the bills even stronger. “We weren’t successful in this way, but there’s still so much opportunity — there is momentum to do more.” Separately, on her first day in office, Governor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia vetoed her predecessor’s “Executive Order 47” on January 17, ending Virginia’s participation in the 287(g) program through which states and localities opt in to participating in federal immigration enforcement. |
Today’s Headlines, Calls to Action and Community Resources |
Stories of Impact |
| The Moreno Family: “We are a Venezuelan family of five members who had to flee our country due to threats and persecution. The case holder is my wife, who was directly threatened with death in Venezuela. For this reason, we were forced to leave everything behind and seek refuge in Colombia. In August 2024, we received a conditional approval from the United States under the Safe Mobility program, but we were never able to travel because the process was suspended with the change of government. Since then, we have been living in painful limbo, unable to return to Venezuela and without a defined future in Colombia. Our eldest daughter is about to turn 17 and dreams of studying veterinary medicine, but opportunities are very limited in our current situation. As parents, our greatest wish is for our children to have access to education and a secure future, away from threats and uncertainty. Despite the difficulties, we continue to try to maintain hope, training ourselves and exploring opportunities abroad. Telling our story is our way of asking not to forget the refugee families who are trapped in blocked resettlement processes.”
Mother’s Plea for Hope: “I’m refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo currently living in Ethiopia with six children. I was full of hope to finally be on the path of being resettlement to the United States. But suddenly, that hope was taken away after the Trump administration suspended USRAP indefinitely and everything stopped. I keep waiting, praying and tell my children to be patient, but days turned into years. Life has become harder. What I see is fear and confusion in my children, and they ask me questions that I can not answer. I try to stay strong for them, but I, too, have lost hope. I feel helpless. I wonder if I will live a life where tomorrow is not a treat, but a promise. I speak out not for just myself but for the tens of thousands of refugees like me who have been approved, vetted and left stranded. I ask you, CWS, and all people of faith and compassion—please, do not forget us. Advocate for our resettlement. Please, help restore our hope. I dream of seeing my children in school, free from fear and full of dreams. I dream of a tomorrow that is better than today. I want my children to know that the world has not turned its back on them. We are mothers, fathers, children, survivors—still holding onto a thread of hope. Help us to turn hope into reality. Thank you for standing for refugees.” Joseph: “I am a Central African refugee in Benin approved for the American refugee program. With my family, we are suffering so much right now because we are not working, we do not have good conditions to ensure the future of our children and even in terms of health, we do not have the means to provide for that. We live in very painful conditions, sometimes going days without eating. The living conditions are not appropriate; the children are on the mat spending sleepless nights. With everything we have experienced as trauma during the war in the Central African Republic and what we are currently living, it is madness that does not yet touch us. We are really unhappy about the program that has been suspended.” 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. |
