By David Paulsen
Posted 1 hour ago
St. Michael’s Interfaith Refugee Resettlement Ministry at St. Michael’s, Brattleboro, Vermont, is seen assisting Afghans arriving in the United States in 2022. Photo: Lisa Sparrow
[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church’s 85-year history of helping refugees resettle in the United States will end next month, an early casualty of the new Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies.
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, in a Jan. 31 letter to church leaders and staff, announced that
Episcopal Migration Ministries
will wind down its core operations by Feb. 14, and 22 EMM employees will be laid off. EMM was one of 10 agencies with federal contracts to resettle refugees on behalf of the State Department, but that work ground to a halt last week when President Donald Trump suspended the refugee program as one of his first acts after taking office Jan. 20.
Ending EMM’s federally funded work, one of the church’s most prominent and respected ministries, was a “painful decision,” Rowe said, but not unexpected, given the change in presidential administrations.
By the end of Trump’s first term in January 2021, resettlement agencies said the president had decimated their capacity to welcome individuals and families fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries. The executive order that Trump signed at the start of his second term went even further, all but ending the 45-year-old federal program, and his administration also has ordered a halt in funding to assist refugees who already have resettled in the country.
“EMM will retain a small team to manage the wind down of EMM’s federal grant-sponsored programs. They have been selected based on program responsibilities and knowledge, performance, ability to communicate with affiliate and federal partners, and some consideration for seniority,” Rowe said.
Departing employees will be offered severance packages. Rowe added that he hopes church-provided outplacement services “will help them find a new way to use the gifts, skills and passion that they have shared with EMM.”
“These departing employees have every reason to be angry, frustrated and frightened at this end of the work to which they have devoted their energy in recent years,” Rowe said. “I am also grieving the loss of this refugee resettlement ministry and the end of this season of our ministry.
“Please know, however, that an end of federal funding for Episcopal Migration Ministries does not mean an end to The Episcopal Church’s commitment to stand with migrants and with our congregations who serve vulnerable immigrants and refugees. As Christians, our faith is shaped by the biblical story of people whom God led into foreign countries to escape oppression, and no change in political fortunes can dissuade us from answering God’s call to welcome the stranger.”
The Rev. Sarah Shipman, EMM’s director, issued a statement thanking the agency’s staff “for their commitment to our mission and their dedicated professionalism – both in serving vulnerable refugee communities directly and in mobilizing churches to welcome new neighbors among us.”
“While we do not know exactly how this ministry will evolve in our church’s future, we remain steadfast in our commitment to stand with migrants and with our congregations who serve them,” Shipman said.
People protest against Trump administration cuts to the U.S. refugee resettlement program, in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington in October 2019. Photo: Reuters
Trump’s executive orde was one of a series of first-day measures by the Trump administration targeting both legal and illegal immigration. The order did not go as far as ending the refugee resettlement program outright, though it suspended those operations indefinitely, “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
Several of the 10 agencies that have been responsible for resettling refugees are affiliated with religious denominations, and like EMM, some have been forced to reconsider their own operations while lamenting the Trump administration’s abrupt policy shift.
“Some provisions contained in the executive orders, such as those focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a Jan. 22 statement.
Then on Jan. 24, the resettlement agencies reported receiving letters from the Trump administration ordering a halt in federal funding intended to help refugees for their first three months, covering costs such as food and rent, as they begin to establish new lives and contribute to their adopted communities.
“It is particularly shameful to leave newly arrived Afghan allies to fend for themselves after the tremendous sacrifices they’ve made in support of American interests,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said in a written statement. “This is the antithesis of what it means for the United States to keep its promise of protection to the allies of America’s longest war.”
During the 1930s in southern Ohio the Episcopal Church began formally welcoming refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. In 1938, the Church created a poster depicting a well-known scene from the Gospel of St. Matthew. In it, Jesus is cradled in his mother Mary’s arms, as they along with Mary’s husband Joseph, flee their country after its government instituted an infanticide campaign.
EMM’s work was historically rooted in the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief, which began assisting people from Europe fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, The Episcopal Church partnered with 16 other Protestant denominations to create Church World Service to provide overseas aid and resettlement assistance for displaced people. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, thousands of Southeast Asian refugees were resettled in U.S. communities with The Episcopal Church’s help.
The current federal refugee resettlement program was enacted by Congress in 1980, and The Episcopal Church participated from the start, through the Presiding Bishop’s Fund. EMM was established in 1988 as a separate agency to coordinate The Episcopal Church’s resettlement work.
The federal program has long had bipartisan support. EMM and the other contracted agencies have provided a range of federally funded services for the first months after the refugees’ arrivals, including English language and cultural orientation classes, employment services, school enrollment, and initial assistance with housing and transportation.
Refugees were thoroughly screened and vetted by the federal government in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, and they often waited years for their opportunity to start new lives in the United States. Because of Trump’s order, more than 10,000 refugees reportedly were stranded in locations around the world awaiting final clearance to travel to their new homes.
Bethany Christian Services, one of the 10 resettlement agencies, released a statement Jan. 28 saying it hoped to work with the Trump administration on policy changes that would enable refugee resettlement to resume as soon as possible.
“Providing protection to those seeking safety is one of our nation’s proudest and longest standing traditions,” Bethany Christian Services said. “The temporary suspension of refugee resettlement efforts will cause significant impact to vulnerable men, women, and children legally seeking safety and hope in our nation.”
Each year, the U.S. president is required by law to set a ceiling, or maximum number of refugees to be admitted. During Trump’s first term, his administration reduced the ceiling to a record low of 15,000 refugees a year. President Joe Biden reversed that policy when he took office in 2021, raising the ceiling to 125,000 refugees, though it took several years for EMM and the other resettlement agencies to rebuild their networks and capacity.
In December 2021, EMM celebrated welcoming its 100,000th refuge. By the end of Biden’s term, EMM had 15 affiliates around the country, up from 11 in 2020. They helped welcome more than 6,500 refugees in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2024.
Children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have received refugee status, stand outside a temporary hotel residence in Boise, Idaho, in October 2021. Photo: Reuters
Global resettlement needs have only increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The UNHCR estimates there are more than 32 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more have been displaced within their home countries.
During the presidential race, Trump’s campaign leaned heavily on anti-immigrant sentiment, raising new concerns about the future of the resettlement program. In the months leading up to the November election, EMM pushed to further expand resettlement capacity by encouraged Episcopal congregations to become remote placement community partners, which allowed them to assist one newly arriving individual or family at a time.
Now, that capacity has dropped to zero.
Although Trump’s order does not say when refugee resettlement might resume, it instructs the secretaries of Homeland Security and State to report back to the president every 90 days. It does not elaborate on what criteria must be met to end the suspension.
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org