A President Trump executive order
late last month suspended
refugee admissions to the US
and resettlement funds.
Last year, more than 1800
refugees from all over the world
settled in Wisconsin.
The Christian humanitarian nonprofit
refugee resettlement agency
World Relief operates
in the Fox Valley and Chippewa
Valley in Wisconsin.
We turn to Matthew Sorenson,
vice president of advocacy
and policy at World Relief.
For more on this situation.
And thanks very much for being here.
Yeah, I'm so glad I can be with you.
So we understand that refugees
ready to travel to the US
had their flights canceled when this
executive order came came
down.
Was your agency in Wisconsin
expecting people on those flights or
flights in subsequent days?
Yeah. I mean, we had travel that was
that was confirmed.
Of course, we were aware that the
president might do something similar
to what President Trump did back in
2017. So I think we
were aware of this being a
possibility of suspending refugee
resettlement.
And in cases where it was
family reunification, where we've
got somebody in Wisconsin who was
waiting to be united to a
loved one, you know, I think we
would have at least shared that
We're concerned that this could be a
possibility, but that doesn't do
anything to change the devastation
when a family that in some cases
might have been waiting for a decade
apart, often with their loved
ones stuck in a refugee camp
overseas, and that
travel had to be canceled.
And we are hopeful and prayerful
that the president will resume
refugee resettlement after the
initial 90 day suspension
of resettlement that was announced
on his first day in office.
Because where does the suspension
of the program leave those people
cleared to come here and those
hoping to?
Yeah, it's it leaves them with a
lot of uncertainty.
And I mean, frankly, refugees
live in some of the most vulnerable
situations in the world, often in
camp settings, often in
a second country where they're being
allowed to reside, but not to work
lawfully and unable to provide for
themselves.
So that opportunity for resettlement
to rebuild their lives in a state
like Wisconsin while also
contributing to the economy and
meeting key labor needs
is an incredible opportunity.
And we're just really devastated.
And this includes people who are
allies of the U.S. military from
Afghanistan who are at risk
because of their service to the
United States mission in Afghanistan
and includes persecuted Christians
and other religious minorities who
are were persecuted for their faith
in their country of origin and were
desperate for that religious liberty
that we offer here in the United
States.
So it is really devastating.
And again, we're really hoping and
praying. You know, President Trump
has said that he values legal
immigration.
He has talked as recently as in the
last few days about wanting to
defend persecuted Christians.
The refugee resettlement program is
an important way to be able to to do
both those things.
Have you had any outreach from the
Trump administration or have you
reached out to them on this?
We have. You know, we actually even
before inauguration, we helped
mobilize a Christian statement on
refugee resettlement.
And we are an evangelical Christian
organization. So we've had
more than 11,000 Christians around
the country signed on to a
statement.
Again, many of these are people who
voted for President Trump.
This isn't about Republicans or
Democrats, but on this
question of refugee resettlement,
this unequivocally illegal form of
immigration that helps people who
have fled persecution.
There's really broad bipartisan
support.
But I would say, you know, we've
communicated that to the White
House.
They actually the communication that
we've received, post-inauguration
has been discouraging because we
were actually told on January 24th,
a few days after inauguration,
that not only was refugee
resettlement being suspended going
forward for at least 90 days,
which we had opposed, but
maybe anticipated might be a
possibility.
But then we got word on the 24th of
January that we should stop all work
to provide support for refugees who
had already been resettled in the
previous 90 days in places
like Appleton and Eau Claire and
Oshkosh.
And that has put us in a really
challenging situation because, you
know, we've committed to provide
housing for those refugees in
Wisconsin. It's about 175 people.
And that's, of course, a lot of
resources that we had expected the
federal government to follow through
on their commitment for.
And now we're working with churches
and other individual donors to meet
that very significant gap.
I understand that is about
175 refugees
newly here that you were
hoping to provide these services
for. And how much
in lost funding does that represent
for you?
You know, I don't know this specific
figure for Wisconsin.
At the national level, it's
we estimate it's somewhere around $8
million that we're
needing to raise very quickly.
That's not actually all the costs,
but to cover the most basic expenses
for the roughly 4000 people that
we've resettled around the country.
And about 175 of those are there in
Wisconsin.
And that, again, the biggest cost
there is rent. You can do the math
on covering rent for 475
people for three months, which is
what the federal government
committed to these people before
they arrived.
And what we committed to them as
well. And we're doing our very best
to keep that commitment we don't
want to see anyone with.
Housing.
And we want them to be able to be
economically self-sufficient on
month four and have a job and be
able to cover their own expenses.
That's how this system usually
works.
But when the government kind of
pulls out of the public part of that
public private partnership, we're
relying very heavily on churches and
individual donors to help fill in
those gaps.
All right.
We need to leave it there.
Matthew Chance, thanks very much.
And thanks for your work.
Thank you.
For more on this and other issues
facing Wisconsin, visit our Web site
at PBS's wisconsin.org
and then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Fredericka Freiberg.
Have a good weekend.
And I'm sorry for the plight that
you and your organization find
yourselves in. But thank you.
I think it really shows.