>> All right. Kurt Bauer, thanks very much.
>> My pleasure. >> A President Trump executive
order late last month suspended refugee admissions to the U.S.
And resettlement funds. Last year, more than 1500 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 Soerens, 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 U.S. 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 had we're 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 reunited 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 that loved one 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, so not able 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 US military from Afghanistan who are at risk
because of their service to the United States. Mission in
Afghanistan. It includes persecuted Christians and other
religious minorities who were persecuted for their faith in
their country of origin and were desperate for their 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
do both those things. from the Trump administration,
or have you reached out to them on this?
>> We have, you know, we actually even before
inauguration, we had 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. Sign 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 legal form of immigration that
helps people who fled persecution, there's really
broad bipartisan support. But I would say, you know, we've
communicated that to the white House. The 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
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 others, 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 in loss funding does that represent
for you? >> You know, I don't know the
specific figure for Wisconsin at the national level. It's we
estimate it's somewhere around $8 million that we are 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 again, 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 175
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 without
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 >> All right. We need to leave