SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Some refugee families are back on track to arrive in Utah this month after a federal judge halted President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning refugees, said refugee resettlement organizations Monday.
Catholic Community Services received word Monday that most of the 30-some refugees whose trips had been postponed are now being rescheduled to arrive in the coming weeks, said Aden Batar, the agency’s director of immigration and refugee resettlement.
At Utah’s other refugee resettlement organization, about one-third of the nearly 40 refugees whose trips were postponed are now back on track to arrive, said Pamela Silberman, program manager with the International Rescue Committee.
Both agencies say they are hoping nothing will happen to force another wave of cancellations.
“From one day to the next, we don’t know what’s going to be happening,” Silberman said.
The fierce legal battle over Trump’s travel and refugee ban moved up the judicial ladder Monday, headed for a possible final face-off at the Supreme Court. An appeals court refused to immediately reinstate the ban, and lawyers for Washington and Minnesota - two states challenging it - argued anew that any resumption would “unleash chaos again.”
The refugees who are now in line to arrive in Utah include the husband of Somali refugee Nimo Hashi, who was devastated to learn last week her husband’s arrival had been canceled. He has never met their 2-year-old daughter. He is now scheduled to arrive later this week, Batar said.
When Batar called Mashi to give her the good news she said her husband had called from the refugee camp in Ethiopia the night before to let her know. But, she said she didn’t really believe it until she heard it from Catholic Community Services.
“She was so excited,” Batar said.
Hashi said she last saw her husband when she was two months pregnant with their daughter, Taslim. The couple met in Ethiopia after they both fled Somalia amid the civil war. Her refugee case had already been approved, so officials told her to go ahead to the United States where she could apply for her husband to join her.
The news also gives some relief to staff at the two agencies, which were bracing for funding cuts in the coming months because they receive a certain amount of federal dollars per refugee they help resettle.
The International Rescue Committee already decided not to fill open positions to avoid bringing people into an uncertain situation, Silberman said.
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