SEATTLE, WA — CWS, HIAS, LCSNW, and IRAP welcomed the compliance order issued yesterday in Pacito v. Trump, reaffirming that the government must process and provide resettlement support to refugees who were conditionally approved and had travel scheduled before January 20. This order comes following a hearing last week in the lawsuit, which challenges the suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and the abrupt withholding of millions of dollars in critical funds to refugee-serving agencies filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) on behalf of Church World Service (CWS), HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSNW), and nine impacted individuals.
The order decisively rejects the government’s proposed limitation on which refugees are protected by the district court’s preliminary injunction, following the Ninth Circuit’s recent clarification order narrowing its scope while the appeal is pending. The district court confirmed that the government must immediately resume the processing of around 12,000 vulnerable refugees who were conditionally approved for resettlement with confirmed travel plans prior to the Executive Order. The first compliance deadline is May 12, directing the government to take immediate action to restart refugee processing, facilitate travel for refugees who remain travel ready, and renew travel clearances for refugees whose clearances have expired since January.
100 Days of Attacks on Immigration, Asylum, and Refugee Rights
Read More“We welcome the Court’s order which makes it clear once again that the Government must immediately resume resettlement for the thousands of refugees whose path to safety was illegally blocked by the Trump Administration. Despite multiple court orders to resume this life-saving humanitarian program, refugee families remain separated, Afghan allies remain stranded, and refugees in desperate need of medical attention and protection from persecution remain at risk,” said CWS President and CEO Rick Santos. “Every day that resettlement is delayed increases the risk and harm that these refugee families face, and dismantles the long-established infrastructure and partnerships that allow the resettlement program to function.”
“Despite multiple court orders, the U.S. government has thus far done next to nothing to resume resettlement for vulnerable refugees who were already approved to travel to the United States,” said HIAS President Mark Hetfield. “We welcome yesterday’s ruling by Judge Whitehead and appreciate his strong words on the importance of welcoming families and children, victims of war and persecution. At HIAS, we are ready to welcome people through the safe, legal, and historically bipartisan resettlement process. We just need the U.S. government to do the same.”
“Once again the court has spoken clearly and demanded urgency from the federal government,” said David Duea, CEO of Lutheran Community Services Northwest. “Hundreds of refugees have endured years of waiting and vetting to come to Washington and Oregon. More than 40 refugees were booked to fly to Seattle or Portland in February and to receive life-changing services from LCSNW. They should be reunited with family by now. Their children should be in local schools by now. Their long, desperate journey to get here should be over by now.”
“Refugees who were scheduled for travel as President Trump took office had their dreams of a new beginning cruelly and unlawfully ripped from them, leaving them in an uncertain and unsafe limbo,” said Deepa Alagesan, IRAP Senior Supervising Attorney. “The district court’s order leaves no room for further ‘jiggery-pokery’ by the government. The Trump administration must process these refugees’ cases, provide them with resettlement support, and fund the organizations that carry out these vital functions.”
At HIAS, we are ready to welcome people through the safe, legal, and historically bipartisan resettlement process. We just need the U.S. government to do the same.Mark Hetfield, HIAS President
Additional Information and Resources
The compliance framework was created in response to the Trump administration’s repeated and blatant refusals to comply with the court’s preliminary injunctions or arbitrarily limit their scope. The administration had proposed limiting relief to 160 refugees who were scheduled to travel in the two weeks following President Trump’s Executive Order. In Monday’s ruling, the court rejected the government’s argument, writing, “The Government’s interpretation is, to put it mildly, ‘interpretive jiggery-pokery’ of the highest order. It requires not just reading between the lines, but hallucinating new text that simply is not there.”
The order also states, “This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says … The Government’s obligation to process, admit, and provide statutorily mandated resettlement support services to the Injunction-Protected Refugees is immediate. Likewise, the Government’s obligation to restore funding, information, and operational support to its USRAP partners as necessary to process, admit, and provide resettlement services to these individuals is also immediate.”
Media Contacts
IRAP | Spencer Tilger | media@refugeerights.org
CWS | M.E. Margolis | media@cwsglobal.org
HIAS | Rebecca Kirzner | media@hias.org
LCSNW | Matt Misterek | mmisterek@lcsnw.org
Read the order: HERE
Learn more about the case: HERE
