With President Donald Trump’s newest travel ban set to take effect Thursday, refugee resettlement agencies throughout the Bay Area and beyond are still unsure if refugees looking to flee turmoil in their own countries will actually be allowed to start new lives in the United States.
The Trump administration on Wednesday set new criteria for visa applicants from six mainly Muslim nations and all refugees that require a “close” family or business tie to the United States.
Visas that have already been approved will not be revoked, but instructions issued by the State Department say that new applicants from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen must prove a relationship with a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the United States to be eligible. The same requirement, with some exceptions, holds for would-be refugees from all nations that are still awaiting approval for admission to the U.S
Grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancees or other extended family members are not considered to be close relationships, according to the guidelines that were issued in a cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates late on Wednesday. The new rules take effect at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, according to the cable, which was obtained by The Associated Press.
As far as business or professional links are concerned, the State Department said a legitimate relationship must be “formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course rather than for the purpose of evading” the ban. Journalists, students, workers or lecturers who have valid invitations or employment contracts in the U.S. would be exempt from the ban. The exemption does not apply to those who seek a relationship with an American business or educational institution purely for the purpose of avoiding the rules, the cable said. A hotel reservation or car rental contract, even if it was pre-paid, would also not count, it said.
Earlier in the day, resettlement agencies were in the dark about whether certain refugees are cleared to enter. At the center of the debate is what exactly defines a “bona fide relationship” — a term coined by the Supreme Court that not even government officials initially knew how to define.
“Bona fide relationship — we don’t have a definition here at the State Department for that yet,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert during a press briefing before the new rules.
Nauert said the Justice Department is tasked with defining the term, though it’s unclear when that will happen. State Department officials have told resettlement agencies that they should proceed with the resettlement of refugees already scheduled to travel to the U.S. through July 6.
“Beyond July the 6th, we are not totally certain how that will work because, again, this is in flux, this is in progress, this is a new development as the Supreme Court just spoke to this,” Nauert said.
Meanwhile, resettlement agencies such as Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County and the International Rescue Committee remain in limbo. The uncertainty potentially will place thousands of refugees at risk in countries wracked by war, runaway crime and devastating poverty, they said.
“Unfortunately we have a misguided policy that again has a lot of confusion around how it may be implemented,” said Karen Ferguson, executive director of the International Rescue Committee’s Northern California offices. “There are more questions than answers right now.”
An estimated 47 percent of the 10,706 refugees that the IRC resettled last year had no discernible U.S. ties, but, “It’s difficult to know what a U.S. tie is,” said Ferguson, who’s based in Oakland. If the term is narrowly defined to refer only to familial or employer connections, it would exclude a number of refugees seeking resettlement through charitable organizations.
The court order places restrictions on travel from the six Muslim-majority countries included in the previous bans — Iran, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — as well as the entry of all refugees worldwide until the Supreme Court takes up the case in the fall.
The U.S. resettled an estimated 12,590 Syrian refugees alone last year, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute. About 18,000 Syrian refugees were resettled between October 2011 and December 2016. The U.S. admitted 84,995 total refugees in the fiscal year ending in September 2016, the most in any year during the Obama administration, according to Pew Research. Nearly 39,000 Muslim refugees were admitted during that time frame.
Perhaps most at risk under the partial ban is Catholic Charities’ Refugee Foster Care program, which admits unaccompanied youth under 18 into the Bay Area, becoming their legal guardians. If the government does not consider these youths to have “bona fide” ties to the U.S., it’s unlikely the program will continue in the next few months, according to Angela Albright, division director for the program.
Many of the teens eligible for foster care in the U.S. are only months away from turning 18, at which point they will age out of the program and become ineligible for resettlement.
“For a lot of kids, four months will make or break their chance completely,” Albright said. “We don’t want the system to pick and choose which child can be saved and which can’t for fear-based political reasons.”
But if an unaccompanied youth has established a relationship with a resettlement agency, that relationship should meet the standard, according to Eunice Lee, co-legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law.
Normally, refugees in the process of resettlement do form organizational relationships with resettlement agencies in the U.S. after being vetted for several years, and they should not be subject to the ban because they have those relationships, Lee said.
“To me it seems to meet the standard,” she said. “I think the main thing to keep an eye on is how the government will define this credible claim of bona fide relationships.”
California resettled 3,851 refugees between October and March, according to the most recent data from the state’s Department of Social Services. The vast majority arrived in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento counties, which each settled about 1,000 refugees during that period. Meanwhile, 90 refugees were resettled in Santa Clara County and 20 were resettled in Contra Costa County.
The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday. The State Department is expected to provide more details on the ban during a press briefing Thursday.
The Associated press contributed to this report.
