People cheer during a rally to oppose then-President Donald Trump's executive order barring people from certain Muslim nations from entering the United States, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, in downtown Seattle.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Ever since the November election, case workers at World Relief Western Washington have been working evenings and weekends, driving to SeaTac to pick up arriving families and helping them get settled.
That’s because, for the past two and a half months, the Biden administration has been bringing all the refugees who are vetted and ready to travel into the U.S. as fast as possible, in case the incoming Trump administration shuts the door to more refugees.
“Our team is stretched. Our community is stretched,” said Medard Ngueita, the executive director of World Relief Western Washington. “We rely on host home volunteers to be able to place families while we're looking for permanent housing for them, and we ran out of those.”
Last year, Washington welcomed more than 12,000 new refugees. Ngueita said, since November, weekly arrivals have been up 40%.
When president-elect Donald Trump was in office the first time, he sharply limited how many refugees could come to the U.S. Arrivals slowed to a trickle, and Ngueita had to lay off or furlough some staff members.
He’s worried that could happen again, and refugees could get stuck waiting in camps.
“If we shut the doors on refugees, more people will be made more vulnerable,” Ngueita said. “We're keeping people who are running for their lives in a perpetual fear.”
Ngueita said many of the refugees already living in Western Washington have family members who are trying to join them, and he’s worried that a policy shift could prolong the families’ separation.
Eilís O’Neill name is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.