The Evangelical humanitarian group World Relief is speaking out after the federal government told it to halt all government-funded activities serving almost 4,000 refugees after President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admission Program.
In an email update to supporters, World Relief President Myal Greene said that the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, an agency authorized by the State Department to resettle refugees in the United States, received a stop-work order last Friday around 3:45 p.m.
The notice came four days after Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office suspending the refugee program on the grounds that the U.S. has been “inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.” Launched in 1980, the program grants refugees the “opportunity to become permanent residents and, ultimately, citizens of the United States.”
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World Relief provided The Christian Post with a statement maintaining that the order will have negative consequences for “vulnerable people who have already endured profound crises.”
Greene expressed concern that the decision could impact the refugees she said have been lawfully resettled in the United States.
“Beyond the U.S., this ‘stop order’ will harm many who rely upon U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance for people facing conflict, hunger, health crises and lack of access to water and sanitation,” Greene maintained.
Trump’s order states: “The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.”
The USRAP is suspended until the further entry of refugees into the United States aligns with the country’s interests, the order states.
The Biden-Harris administration’s changes to the USRAP resulted in a rise in refugee admissions to the United States in recent fiscal years.
The amount resettled in fiscal year 2024 is the highest in three decades, with over 100,000 resettled refugees, according to the analysis of the situation from the Center for Immigration Studies.
During the years of the Biden administration from 2022-2025, the U.S. refugee ceiling was set at around 125,000 per year, according to the Migration Policy Institute, up from 85,000 during the final year of the Obama administration and 18,000 during the final year of the Trump administration. Despite the 125,000 refugee ceiling, about 25,000 and 60,000 refugees were resettled in the U.S. in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, respectively.
After Trump took office for his first term and made cuts to the U.S. refugee program in 2017, World Relief laid off over 140 staff members and closed five offices amid decreased government funding.
World Relief’s Vice President of Advocacy and Policy Matthew Soerens told CP that during the eight years of the Obama administration (2009-2017), World Relief settled 62,675 “refugees plus Iraqi and Afghan individuals who served the US military mission” who qualified a Special Immigrant Visa.
“Under the 4 years of the first term of President Trump, we resettled 13,009 individuals. Under President Biden’s 4 years, we resettled 29,353 individuals,” Soerens continued. “We’ve been resettling refugees in partnership with both the State Department and thousands of local church partners since 1979, under the Carter administration.”
Citing 2023 U.S. State Department data, Soerens said that Christians have been the majority of refugees resettled under the Trump and Biden administrations, noting that Christians were the plurality but not always the majority most years under Obama.
According to State Department data, the estimated “Funding for Refugee Processing and Resettlement” totaled $2.8 billion in fiscal year 2024 under the Biden-Harris administration. By fiscal year 2025, the amount was set to reach $5.1 billion.
“For comparison, the estimated cost was $2.2 billion in FY 2023, $1.4 billion in FY 2022, $967 million in FY 2021, $932 million in FY 2020, and $976 million in FY 2019,” the Center for Immigration Studies stated in the analysis.
Conservative organizations have been critical of expansions to the refugee program during the Biden administration.
The Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank that seeks to highlight what it says are the “fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States,” contends that the Biden-Harris administration changed the essence of resettlement through a private sponsorship program called the Welcome Corps.
Launched in January 2023, CIS contends the Welcome Corps program prioritized individuals who made it to the United States and happened to have friends or family already in the country, according to the research group.
“It opened the door to non-refugees to be picked for resettlement by non-citizens based in the United States,” the CIS said about the Welcome Corps.
“Sponsored individuals did not need to actually be refugees according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Refugee Status Determination, let alone in that subset of refugees determined by the UN to be in ‘need of resettlement.’ And the sponsors could themselves be earlier refugees or other newcomers.”
The Biden-Harris administration expanded the Welcome Corps to the “Welcome Corps on Campus,” which CIS claims brought refugees to campuses. Other programs, such as the “Welcome Corps at Work,” brought refugees U.S. jobs, the group states.
Through the “Welcome Corps for Afghans,” non-citizens based in the U.S. could sponsor Afghan nationals through USRAP. Another program, the “Welcome Corps for Refugees in Latin America,” offered a path to permanent legal status in the U.S. to individuals of any nationality who are in Latin America.
The U.S. State Department under the Biden-Harris administration expanded access to USRAP for “LGBTQI+” persons. Former President Joe Biden continued the work of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, by directing U.S. executive departments and agencies to advance LGBT-related issues globally.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
