First part of a three-part series on changes immigration and refugee changes under the new federal administration.
As a flurry of executive orders from the Trump Administration indicates that work with refugees will stop and deportations will begin, staff at Catholic Charities of Arkansas are discerning what the future holds for their clients and how they will need to adjust their work to serve others.
Jennifer Verkamp-Ruthven, director of Catholic Immigration Services and the Refugee Resettlement Office, has found herself adapting nearly every day as new orders and directives are issued.
“It’s completely impacting our work with the Refugee Resettlement Program because our clients are assigned to us — they essentially go through the U.S. State Department to the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) since we’re an affiliate of them. … We’ve had people who have their travel booked that were supposed to come at the end of this month and next month. And their travel is completely canceled,” she said. “There’s nothing that will change that, at least for 90 days … It’s sad too because we’ve got clients that are already here that are waiting for their relatives to come. … We’ve got people that were already living in limbo abroad. I’ve heard of cases where someone had their case pending for over 25 years. They had children born in refugee camps. They were about to travel, and now they’re not, and they don’t have any inclination of when they will.”
From 2015 to 2019, the Refugee Resettlement Office received no new clients, but rebounded in 2021-2022 with the resettlement of 104 Afghan refugees in central Arkansas. In 2024 the Little Rock office accepted another 75 refugees, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Afghanistan and Nicaragua, and were gearing up for another 80 people this year.
Sudden changes
Malleson Emmerling, housing and benefits coordinator for the Refugee Resettlement Office, said things changed immediately Jan. 22, Inauguration Day.
“We have a database that’s connected to the USCCB migration database, and literally on the day of the inauguration, our database changed. The clients who we were told were going to arrive were deleted off our database,” she said. “We had somebody scheduled with a flight for the 22nd of January, and the minute the inauguration started, their flight was canceled.”
A stop work order sent by the U.S. State Department at 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 24, had Catholic Charities of Arkansas and many organizations scrambling. The end-of-the-day memo ordered nonprofits working with the State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Reception and Placement Program to stop work as of the following Monday. The memo went out nationwide.
“I received notice Saturday evening about the stop work order from the USCCB … about the suspension of funds. We had a meeting on Monday afternoon (Jan. 27), where USCCB leadership had virtual meetings with executive directors of Catholic Charities to learn more,” Verkamp-Ruthven said.
Verkamp-Ruthven and the Catholic Charities staff are figuring out how to resettle clients who arrived just days and weeks before the inauguration.
“We actually have 13 clients here. One case had just arrived on the 16th of January, and the longest anybody else had been here was a month,” she said. “The USCCB … said that we could go ahead and continue services … We aren’t going to abandon our clients.”
It wasn’t just refugees who were affected. Some immigrants are in the United States legally through Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which is a temporary immigration status provided to nationals of certain countries.
Matthew Phillips, an immigration specialist with Catholic Immigration Services, said he has already seen major changes.
“Many doors have been closed to obtain a status. Restrictions have been placed on both asylum and parole while the refugee admission program has been halted in its entirety,” he said. “Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuela was recently terminated, meaning that everyone who held that status will lose it in a few months. Several other countries with TPS designations have upcoming expiration dates, such as Nicaragua and Honduras, both of which expire in July of this year. It is very unlikely that they will be extended. People with those statuses have resided in the United States since 1999, and they will most likely lose their authorization to live and legally work in the U.S. this summer.”
Phillips has also seen an increase in detentions.
“Several executive orders authorize and prioritize enforcement of immigration policies to the fullest extent of the law. Although we have not seen any raids in Little Rock as of yet, these orders have led to an increase in cooperation between different agencies, especially between the police and ICE,” he said. “We have seen people referred to ICE after being pulled over for speeding, and people with prior convictions are being placed in immigration proceedings as well.”
A scramble for information
Many refugees have reached out to Catholic Charities staff to try and make sense of the changes.
“They are concerned and want to know what to do,” Verkamp-Ruthven said. “We’ve tried to reassure them that they do have a legal status here. They’re not at risk like someone who is undocumented. We’ve tried to provide comfort, but we’re also teaching them about their rights that they have should they encounter law enforcement, how to explain their situation, how to respect law enforcement, all of that. But they’re concerned, and we’re just trying to provide comfort.”
Other refugees are confused and angry.
“They don’t realize that we’re just a mediator to get them resettled in our state. … Sometimes, you’re the only face they know. There are so many areas of gray in this that need some kind of reform. But is it the right thing to do, to just shut the whole system down? Because that’s what’s happening,” Emmerling said. “… I have personally received text messages from my clients who arrived here a year ago asking me if they were going to be deported. The fear has been heightened. I mean, my own daughters (who are of Hispanic descent) asked me if they were going to be deported, and I legally adopted them when they were born.”
Phillips said that despite popular belief, there is no waiting line for legally entering the country.
“Without an immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen, it is very hard to obtain legal permanent residency in the United States,” he said. “Even with a family member, it may take up to 30 years to immigrate legally in some cases. Also, spouses of U.S. citizens cannot obtain a status without first entering the U.S. with an inspection at the border, meaning first leaving the country, sometimes for a statutory period of up to 10 years before they can apply for a waiver of inadmissibility.”
Emmerling said there is a plethora of misinformation, which easily evolves into fearmongering.
“Think before you publish things on social media. Do you really know the truth about something? Or are you just passing along messages that you’ve heard on the Nextdoor app or Facebook?” she said.
Now, Catholic Charities of Arkansas is waiting for the Trump Administration to complete its review of the Refugee Resettlement Program in the U.S. For the time being, there are still many unanswered questions.
“We had just ramped up because we were granted affiliate status last January,” Emmerling said. “We have just spent the last six or seven months ramping up with getting people trained on how to do everything that you have to do. And so for us personally in Arkansas, it’s kind of like, ‘Oh my gosh, now what?’ Our clients are anxious and worried because they don’t know what’s going to happen in their lives.”
Similar fears sprang up during President Trump’s first term in 2017 to 2021.
“We have people who are here from when we had the huge influx of Afghans, and then people since then. We do have some funding to even help people who have made it through that initial 90-day period of resettlement. We will turn our focus to them and serving our new arrivals. … We want to at least take the time to focus on them because they still have a lot going on, and we want to help them become as successful as possible,” Verkamp-Ruthven said.
Verkamp-Ruthven is concerned about the immigrant populations that CCA serves as well.
“We are concerned about discrimination and racism increasing even more for them, even though they’ve already experienced some of that here, unfortunately,” Verkamp-Ruthven said. “Also for our immigrant population, making sure that people know what their rights are, what to do if they were approached, if they were arrested.
“The undocumented are those that we’re extremely concerned about, especially those that have lived here for years and they’re paying taxes, or they made a choice to enter without inspection. But as we know, there’s often not an option under the present U.S. immigration system, and there are extreme situations for why people would make the choice to do that, to take care of their family, avoid persecution, things like that. We’re worried for them, and we’re just trying to help them be prepared,” she said.
Faith and politics
Verkamp-Ruthven said there’s also an additional challenge of balancing political ideologies and faith.
“We have to put our faith before our politics and think about what it is that Jesus teaches us, what it is that the Church teaches us. Unfortunately, when we look at the political world, it can be uncomfortable because there’s not a side that is fully in line with what the Church teaches. And that’s hard,” she said. “But if everyone from the Catholic faith could be more grounded in what it is that the Church teaches and stand for that, I think there would be less division.
“To me, it’s just so clear from what Jesus taught, what the Church says, what our bishops are saying, what our clergy are saying about our undocumented brothers and sisters. It is our obligation to care for others … And if we could respond more in love and understanding, I don’t think we’d be in this situation.”
Dennis Lee, executive director of Catholic Charities of Arkansas, said Bishop Taylor’s Jan. 23 message on immigration explains the approach the diocese’s Refugee Resettlement Program is taking with its work and outlook.
“We see our work with refugees as an opportunity to be Christ for others. Having the funding we receive from the federal government suddenly cut off presents challenges, but we will not let it keep us from being what Bishop Taylor asks of us, which is to allow God ‘to use us not only to be a light to our nation (enlightening others about human rights, about truth, and about life), but also more importantly, a source of love, love that banishes fear, love that brings hope and healing,’” he said.
He added, “Catholic Charities of Arkansas is blessed to have the support of Bishop Taylor and the people who make up the Church in our diocese. Over the next few months, we hope the stay on new refugee arrivals will be lifted, but in the meantime, we have plenty of work to do with the refugees that have already been entrusted to our care.”
“Christ himself was a refugee, as seen in Matthew 2:13 …” Hollenbeck said. “I am grateful that our office will continue to work to ‘welcome the stranger.’”
How you can help
Those who wish to donate can mail checks to CCA, 2415 N. Tyler St., Little Rock, AR 72207, or visit dolr.org/catholic-charities/ways-to-donate.
Immigrant or refugee
Changes in how immigration law is applied in the United States have increased the confusion about different migrants living here.
- Temporary Protected Status: A program that allows people from certain countries hit by conflict, civil disorder or natural disaster to live and work in the United States legally short-term.
- Refugee: A person who flees their native country and legally resettles in the United States or another country because of a well-founded fear based on that person’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.
Claire Hollenbeck, resource coordinator for the Refugee Resettlement Office, said there’s often a lot of misinformation surrounding refugees.
“When I first began working in Refugee Resettlement, something I noticed right away was confusion around some of the terminology,” she said. “A person who enters the United States as a refugee is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the United States. They are granted the legal status of refugee and have a (rather lengthy) pathway to citizenship.”
- Undocumented immigrant: A person living in the United States without authorizationN Legal permanent resident: Also known as “green card holder,” he or she has the right to live in the United States indefinitely. Most can eventually seek citizenship and become U.S. citizens.
