Zak said refugees who already had their tickets booked, unaccompanied refugee minors and refugees with “particular medical challenges” all “remain stranded, while Afrikaners continue to be fast-tracked ahead of them and instead of them.”
The Trump administration has focused on Afrikaners, the white South African minority who once ran the country’s apartheid system, as refugees because of claims they are being violently persecuted, despite police statistics showing Afrikaners are not disproportionately likely to be victims of crime.
Over a monthslong legal battle, the Trump administration, plaintiffs and courts went back and forth about which refugees the administration was required to admit, with the 9th Circuit progressively narrowing the group of refugees the administration was required to admit.
A depiction of a refugee being held by Lady Liberty during a protest in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4, 2025. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)
Under injunctions put in place by U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, an appointee of President Joe Biden, over 70 refugees, including two individual plaintiffs, were able to resettle in the U.S., according to their lawyers.
Now, the appeals court has decided in a majority opinion by President George W. Bush appointees Judge Richard Clifton and Judge Jay Bybee that the Trump administration is likely to prevail in suspending the refugee program because of the “broad discretion” of the president, allowing him to block further resettlement.
Trump appointee Judge Kenneth Kiyul Lee agreed with that determination but dissented from the other judges’ ruling that the Trump administration would likely lose to plaintiffs in their attempt to defund refugee services after refugees arrive in the U.S. The majority argued Congress makes that funding mandatory, while Lee said those programs are also subject to executive discretion.
In February, the Trump administration sent out termination notices of grant agreements to the 10 refugee resettlement organizations that were operating in the U.S. Seven of those organizations are faith-based. Those notices came just one day after Whitehead had issued a preliminary injunction that should have restarted the refugee admissions program.
Since then, the Catholic bishops’ conference and the Episcopal Church have ended their contracts with the federal government.
On March 10, the Trump administration told the district court that it was “actively preparing a request for proposals for a new resettlement agency that could provide reception and placement services,” but Friday’s appeals court ruling notes that the Trump administration had said during oral argument that it “was unaware whether any progress had been made toward securing a new agency or agencies that could provide reception and placement services.”
Mark Hetfield discusses the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program during a panel at the Religion News Association conference, April 3, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (RNS photo/Kit Doyle)
Hetfield and the plaintiff’s lawyers expressed resolve to continue fighting for refugees. Hetfield told RNS, “As the Jewish community’s refugee agency, we will continue to fight for their right to safely resettle in the United States.”
Similarly, Zak said, “We will keep fighting for stranded refugees and their right to resettle in the United States.”
Evarts echoed those sentiments: “We will continue our fight to welcome people fleeing persecution to this country, just as Congress intended with the Refugee Act, and to recognize the immense contributions refugees make to our communities.”
This article originally appeared here.
