Daily State of Play: Trump’s Indefinite Refugee Ban and Funding Halt


June 25, 2026

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.

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Breaking: The Supreme Court issued rulings in two major lawsuits affecting people seeking asylum and Temporary Protected Status holders this morning. In Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, the Court ruled that the administration can prevent people from seeking asylum at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that the decision “blesses the Executive Branch’s decision to slam the door shut on all who are fleeing persecution.” In Mullin v. Doe, the Court ruled that the administration can terminate TPS for more than 350,000 people from Haiti and Syria. We will have more analysis on these rulings and ways to take action in our Monday edition of State of Play. 

Both decisions will deeply impact families across the country. CWS provides Lakou Tanama Virtual Healing Spaces five days a week, free of cost. If you are working with Haitian clients, families, or community members who may benefit from additional emotional support in Kreyòl during this time, we encourage you to share this resource within your networks. Find more information in English and Kreyòl.

The latest: Trump administration rolls out sanitized history materials to white South Africans; immigration lawyer on DHS watchlist detained at airport; nationwide expedited removal reinstated; and “Alligator Alcatraz” shuts down.

Administration begins delivering sanitized history lessons to white South Africans entering the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. The Department of Health and Human Services has partnered with the conservative education nonprofit PragerU to provide “welcome gifts” to white South Africans arriving in the U.S. Alongside a tablet, an American flag, and copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the package includes a report commissioned by President Trump that minimizes the role of slavery in U.S. history and a children’s book featuring “a story about a Black South African who must protect a white rugby teammate from a Black mob.”

A Brown University historian of South Africa told the New York Times that the materials’ description of post-apartheid South Africa is “selective in the extreme, and even inaccurate.” According to the Daily Wire, the Office of Refugee Resettlement began distributing this information this week. 

Immigration attorney detained at airport after DHS watchlist of attorneys discovered. Earlier this month, a half dozen Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents briefly detained and searched an immigration attorney at San Francisco International Airport. One agent told him that the search was not random, and another said he appeared on a watch list. Nikolas De Bremaeker, a Belgian national who has worked as an attorney in the U.S. for a decade, told the San Francisco Chronicle he has no clear explanation for the detention. However, he was profiled in one of the largest newspapers in his home country comparing the Trump administration’s crackdown to the actions of Nazis in the 1940s, sharing that his grandfather was taken from a tram by the Gestapo. 

This administration has targeted immigration attorneys in multiple ways, from a March 2025 Executive Order seeking sanctions for “frivolous” litigation against them to a memo last month directing ICE to target lawyers suspected of filing false asylum claims. In late 2025, an attorney using ICE’s detention facility appointment website discovered a “watch list” containing thousands of immigration attorneys’ names and email addresses. Al Otro Lado quickly filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking answers, but the agency has not released more information.

Despite the distress of his airport detention, De Bremaker told the Chronicle, “With what my grandfather went through, I don’t want that happening again. I will do what it takes and if the government wants to harass attorneys, I think that it’s unconstitutional and undemocratic and it’s harassment, but that’s not going to stop me from doing this work.”

Nationwide rapid deportations allowed to resume. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court restored the Trump administration’s ability to apply expedited removal across the country. The policy allows immigration officers to deport people who cannot prove they have been continuously living in the U.S. for at least two years without the chance to appear before an immigration judge. A district court paused expanded expedited removal last August, finding that the administration lacked procedures to prevent wrongful deportations. 

ACLU attorney Anand Balakrishnan said the ruling “undermines the fundamental principle that people receive due process when the government seeks to deport them.”

“Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in the Everglades finally shuts down. Florida officials told vendors operating the state-run “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility to begin dismantling its sprawling infrastructure on Monday. Last week, DHS announced that all people detained in the Florida Everglades were transferred to other facilities, citing the hurricane season. The administration notably did not take this precaution in 2025.

Since opening, the facility cost Florida hundreds of millions of dollars to operate, while people detained there reported unsanitary conditions, medical neglect, and serious human rights violations. Regardless of whether this shut down is permanent, environmental groups plan to continue pursuing full remediation of the damage caused to the Everglades in court.

Today’s Headlines

    Opportunities to Take Action:

    Community Resources:

    Stories of Impact

    Loni is a mother of six children who fled violence and torture in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The family’s flight to Houston to reunite with her husband and the children’s father was scheduled for February – but it was cancelled after the ban went into effect. Loni and her children are now stuck indefinitely in Malawi.

    The Sung family are refugees from Myanmar who were split up as they fled for safe harbor. Part of the family has been resettled in Texas, and they have been waiting for years as the rest of the family goes through the resettlement process. The flight was scheduled for early February, and the family here bought a four-bedroom home just to accommodate them. Their flight was cancelled at the last minute.

    Taq, a resettlement caseworker in Ohio, has witnessed first-hand the devastating impact of recent Executive Orders that have halted refugee arrivals, leaving families like his own in limbo. Taq’s cousin and his family were scheduled to arrive in the United States on February 20th but had their flights canceled, and his brothers, who are awaiting asylum interviews, are living in fear. “They are now left stranded…those still in [Afghanistan] have seen their hopes crushed.”

    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.