Families of refugees approved to resettle in New Hampshire are in limbo after their flights to the U.S. were canceled last week. The cancellations came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugees Admissions Program.
Jean Hakuzimana works at Ascentria Care Alliance, an organization that supports refugees in New Hampshire. He was working with 12 refugees who were expected to arrive here within the next few months.
He recently spoke with NHPR Morning Edition host Rick Ganley about the impact of their canceled travel plans — and how Trump's actions are impacting refugee communities more broadly.
Transcript
Editor’s note: This has been lightly edited for clarity.
First, can you tell us more about the refugees who were scheduled to come? Who are they, and where were they coming from?
Those are refugees who were cleared. They were background checked by the U.S. government [and] in good standing to come in New Hampshire, and mostly to join their families because their families have been resettled here in prior years, and they were coming mostly from Africa and mostly the Congo.
Can you give me some more specific stories about who they are and their families here in New Hampshire they were coming to?
We have a single mom who [has] been here for quite a few months, and she came pregnant, and she had a baby. And the baby and the mom, they were expecting to see the dad coming next week, and he will not be able to come because of the executive order. All those are challenging times for them now, because it's now history.
They've been anticipating his arrival, and now this is all on hold.
Yeah.
You're the one that needs to break the news to people that their spouses or their children aren't coming to the U.S. as expected. How do they react to that news?
I think mostly there are emojis of crying if you send it on WhatsApp, for example, or if you call them, it's a total silence. Imagine someone who has been here for a while and who has been expecting someone that they have not been able to meet for quite [some] years. And they had a chance or an opportunity, and now it's no longer. And that goes across many spectrums. We can speak about Afghans, people from Afghanistan, people from Ukraine. I mean, people from different backgrounds of refugees. So they were expecting theirs in many ways, and now it's not a possibility.
(Related story from NPR: Afghans who helped the U.S. are in dangerous limbo after Trump's order on refugees)
So these refugees were cleared and scheduled to come here. What happens to them now?
I don't know. But they have to return to refugee camps if they have refugee camps. If they have urban areas where they've been living or some U.S. base — like Afghans — they are living in spaces where the U.S. has provided them to stay. But so far, they have to return and their families have to wait.
I'm imagining that some of these folks have been in refugee camps for years now.
Ten years, 20 years, more than that. Across the many fronts of the areas where we have these refugees coming from, the war is going on. There are bullets flying over the towns. Let's say Congo, eastern Congo, it's now in total shambles. The war is going on. The whole entire eastern Congo there is an imminent war going on. The government soldiers have surrendered in some areas. The rebels are taking over some areas. That's a news story that has been there for many years, and that history has pushed the refugees — some of them, not all of them — to be able to come in the USA. But with these programs, it's impossible for them to find that hope they used to have.
Refugees have legal status in entry to the U.S. What kind of vetting process have they had to go through to even get to the point where they were scheduled to fly here?
I think it's a long process that is done through the government agencies... So it starts overseas. Even from the refugee camp, they do medical screenings, they do a background check and everything. So for refugees, they are scrutinized. They are really background checked. They come here vetted, and they have a go ahead to come, compared to the national conversation that we've been hearing around.
What else are you hearing more broadly from the refugee community right now, after the news that the refugee admissions program has been suspended?
I think that there is a, I can say, a worry. People are worried because the misinformation is raging wild and many people are sometimes confusing illegal versus legal. I don't want to go into those terminologies, but what I can say is that refugees, they resettled into the USA through the legal channels of the U.S. government. They are not breaking any rules to come here, and it is the USA who is asking them or helping them to resettle in the country.
I imagine there's a lot of confusion and worry about the future here.
There are many confusions, and we are talking about people who have spent years in refugee camps, who have survived many hurdles or bullets and war going on in their country. So seeing something like this, hearing something like this, you don't know how much it can impact their lives, their mental health and reviving their memories. You know, you don't know how much this can destroy their wellbeing. So someone needs to come out and say something. You are here legally. You are okay. No one is going to take anything from you.
We're at the beginning of Trump's second term here. What are your concerns? What are your worries? What are your hopes?
I think that I don't hear much from our leadership in this state about legal immigrants. We have Afghans, we have Ukrainians, we have Africans who came through those legal channels. You have people from Latin America. But they need to be reassured that you are in New Hampshire and you are safe. No one is going to do anything. If you go on social media, you can see the virulent rhetoric that is against immigrants. And I mean, I don't know how they feel, but it takes into consideration anyone who is probably not white or I don't know how they consider…
I can tell you, I think, two weeks ago, the governor was presiding [over] the naturalization of citizens. So those are people who came here legally. They come from different backgrounds of the world. And having that ceremony already taking place, presided by the governor, that's a very good sign that we are talking about people who are legal and people should understand that they are safe and they can continue their activities without worries and scares.
