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Donald Trump’s administration abruptly terminated contracts with refugee resettlement and assistance groups 24 hours after a judge ordered the government to restore a federal refugee program and funding to aid organizations.
Lawyers for aid groups argue the administration is trying to circumvent court orders by cancelling their contracts altogether.
On Wednesday, brief messages from State Department officials told refugee groups that their contracts were “terminated for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive” from Secretary of State Marco Rubio for “alignment with agency priorities and the national interest.”
Other messages told aid groups that funding is “immediately terminated” because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
The cancellation of those contracts follows global chaos and humanitarian emergencies as Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency deliberately gut foreign assistance and face legal challenges over allegedly unconstitutional and illegal attempts to dissolve entire agencies.
“Simply put, termination of funding based on purported ‘alignment with agency priorities’ cannot be justified if agency action is unlawful,” attorneys for aid groups told a court on Thursday.
District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Washington state will hold a hearing on March 3.
The Independent has requested comment from the State Department.
Global Refuge — the largest faith-based nonprofit organization squarely focused on refugee resettlement and support for people seeking asylum — received one of those messages.
The end of federal support for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program marks the “essential destruction of a program that has saved more than 3.6 million lives” since it was created by Congress in 1980, according to Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge.
“This decision will undoubtedly disrupt critical services for vulnerable families and trigger widespread layoffs among social service professionals, forcing local communities to address entirely avoidable evictions, food insecurity, and devastating job losses,” she added.
The termination notices arrived on Wednesday — one day after Judge Whitehead said he would issue a preliminary injunction to block Trump’s executive orders that temporarily suspended refugee entry and froze foreign aid.
Lawyers for plaintiffs in that case, which include three national and local resettlement agencies and nine refugees, asked the judge to hold an emergency hearing to address their canceled contracts.
Rubio and the State Department “have now revealed their true intention, which is exactly what plaintiffs have said all along,” lawyers wrote.
“Defendants seek to shut down the entirety of the [refugee admissions program] … immediately and permanently, in blatant violation of the Refugee Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and this court’s ruling,” they added.
The termination of their contracts appears to be a “deliberate effort” to preempt the judge’s written order, “antics designed to confuse the state of play,” attorneys said.
In a separate case in Washington, D.C., a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate funding for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by midnight on Wednesday.
Hours before that deadline, Trump pressed the Supreme Court to block the order. Moments later, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to pause the lower-court order while the legal battle plays out.
That same day, lawyers with the Department of Justice reported that “nearly 5,800 USAID awards were terminated, and more than 500 USAID awards were retained.”
Congress created the Refugee Admissions Program to resettle people displaced by war, disasters and persecutions – a process that can take years and requires federal authorities to rigorously vet refugees.
Trump also temporarily halted it during his first term, and then dramatically decreased the number of refugees accepted by the United States each year.
Roughly 600,000 refugees are awaiting entry into the United States.
But within just two days of Trump’s inauguration, resettlement groups were blindsided by the administration’s order to suspend all refugee entries and cancel all flights for incoming refugees, stranding thousands of people who were already cleared for entry, with sponsorships and support from families and aid groups in the United States.
HIAS, the oldest and only Jewish refugee aid organization in the United States, is a plaintiff in both the Seattle and Washington, D.C. lawsuits targeting refugee admissions and foreign aid, respectively.
“We challenged President Trump’s unlawful suspension of [the program] because it not only hurts refugees — it hurts our country,” HIAS president Mark Hetfield said following Tuesday’s ruling in Seattle. “Refugees are a blessing to our country, not a burden.”
The Trump administration’s termination of refugee aid agreements “upends a proud bipartisan American tradition that has worked for decades — one built on partnership between government, local communities, and faith-based organizations like ours to ensure refugee families have the support they need to succeed,” said Vignarajah with Global Refuge.
“This abrupt termination is not a simple review of federal resources; it seeks to end America’s longstanding religious tradition of helping the least among us,” she added.
