LINCOLN, Neb. (Flatwater Free Press) – Der Yang knew there wasn’t much time.

It was fall 2024, with a possible second term for President Donald Trump on the horizon. During his first term, Trump paused resettlement for months and set a record-low cap on the number of refugees allowed into the country.

Yang and her team at the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement (CIRA) got to work resettling as many refugees as they could before Trump’s inauguration. Drives to the airport became more frequent. Staff rushed to secure housing for newcomers.

From that October to January, the organization welcomed 303 to Nebraska.

They haven’t resettled anyone since.

The Trump administration’s freeze on refugee resettlement in January 2025 started a domino effect throughout the country. Vetted refugees, days away from entering the U.S., had their flights canceled. Funding to support newly arrived refugees was suspended. Layoffs began at resettlement agencies. Programs closed altogether.

Of four resettlement agencies in the state, only one, Lutheran Family Services, is actively resettling refugees. Newcomers number in the dozens. And this year, all new Nebraska refugees have come from one country: South Africa.

It’s a dramatic change for the Cornhusker state, which in previous years accepted thousands of refugees from dozens of countries. Those same refugees are now facing empty pantries and financial hardship amid increasing restrictions for programs like SNAP and Medicaid. Resettlement agencies are relying more on private funds to help meet those needs while navigating a shifting legal landscape.

*graphic showing NE resettlement trends since 2012*

“It’s almost like pulling the rug from underneath them,” said Yang, CIRA’s director of refugee services. “When we agreed to resettle them, we had promised them safety. They were leaving war-torn countries and really unsafe places … Now, with all the policy changes, they’re going to be without food. They’re going to be without health insurance. There’s even talk about them being without housing.”

The Trump administration has said the freeze is necessary to stem increasing migration to the U.S. In his executive order, Trump wrote that the U.S. doesn’t have the ability to welcome large numbers of refugees into its communities.

But for Nebraska’s refugee communities, the federal changes feel alienating.

“Refugees want to be here,” Yang said. “They have accepted that this is home. So the policy changes and the current political climate that we live in makes them feel unwelcome and unsafe.”

***

Two years ago, Nebraska’s resettlement agencies had a clear focus.

Staff were the first to greet refugees when they stepped off the plane and helped get them settled into apartments. They tried to teach newcomers how to use the U.S. banking system and how to catch a bus. They signed them up for ESL classes and helped them find job opportunities.

Agencies received one-time payments from the federal government for each refugee they took on. Getting newcomers self-sufficient was the priority, said Poe Dee, director of refugee and immigrant services at Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska.

Over the course of 10 years starting in 2013, Nebraska welcomed the most refugees per capita in the nation, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Immigration Research Initiative.

But after Trump’s inauguration, the agencies’ resettlement work came to a screeching halt. Days after the resettlement freeze, the federal government also suspended funding for support services for newly arrived refugees. The agencies had to shoulder the costs themselves or stop offering them.

“Thousands and thousands of people were left under the care of entities that were actually operating on fumes,” said Dekow Sagar, CEO and founder of Omaha-based International Council for Refugees and Immigrants. “I knew (Trump) would probably freeze resettlement … but I thought the refugees that they already brought here, they’d make sure that they got (resources).”

Chris Tonniges, president and CEO of Lutheran Family Services, ran through scenarios with his staff before the freeze hit. They’d seen cuts during Trump’s first term and were braced for similar reductions in his second. While the organization was budgeting to accept 1,600 refugees, Tonniges knew the chances of that being pared back were high. But no one expected a complete shutdown.

In March 2025, LFS laid off 13 employees as a result of the freeze. The organization cut 60 positions, Tonniges said, though they were able to reassign many employees.

The International Council for Refugees and Immigrants in Omaha had to lay off six employees and make several full-time staff members part time, said Samira Sarwary, ICRI’s finance manager.

Sarwary said ICRI lost almost $825,000 as a result of the freeze — about 25% of its total budget.

Erik Omar, executive director of CIRA, said the organization lost roughly $5 million, including funds lost because of the resettlement freeze and subsequent funds lost as a result of closing four programs for newly arrived refugees.

Agencies have relied more on private contracts and philanthropy to maintain refugee support services over the past year. Private funding means they have a greater ability to pivot and change services as needed, Yang said.

“However, funding is limited, and so we can’t make up for a federal program that has been taken away,” Yang said, “but we’re really trying our best.”

***

Sebit Deng smiled and gestured to the small, quiet boy sitting beside him at the Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska conference room table.

“He is not my son,” Deng said.

It was late February, and Deng was looking after the child while his mother, a South Sudanese refugee, went to apply for her driver’s license. She hoped a license would open up new job opportunities, Deng said. After losing SNAP benefits, her current pay stopped being enough to cover her family’s expenses.

“Her children, she doesn’t want them to be stressed,” Deng said. “So that’s why now she is fighting to try to help herself, and we’ll try to help her.”

As a member of Catholic Social Services’ immigration legal services team and a former South Sudanese refugee, Deng knows refugee assistance takes many shapes. Sometimes, it’s child care. Other times, it’s helping someone apply for housing assistance or find a new job. More and more, it’s making sure people have food in their bellies.

It also has become a game of misinformation whack-a-mole as fears and rumors spread through refugee communities.

“You see things on TV, you hear things on the radio,” said Katie Patrick, executive director of Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska. “You heard from a friend, from a friend of a friend. As much as we can be a reliable source of information, it’s very important, because we don’t want people making choices or reacting to hearsay.”

This has been complicated by constant changes to federal immigration policy. In February, DHS issued a memo authorizing the detention of refugees who haven’t applied for a green card within one year of arriving in the U.S. A federal judge in Massachusetts has since temporarily blocked the policy from being enforced.

In March, CIRA hosted know-your-rights-trainings to help refugees understand what the memo means for them. Among the suggestions: If an eligible refugee hasn’t yet applied for a green card, they should consult with an attorney about starting the process.

On a Thursday afternoon in March, Erika Abrahan stepped into the CSS office to take that next step. The Venezuelan refugee arrived in Nebraska in January 2025 and had been working with CSS’ immigration team to get the green card application process started. Now, she was back to pay CSS an administrative fee for their assistance.

Before the federal cuts, Dee said, CSS could offer green card application help for free.

“Now we have to charge them to make the program run,” Dee said. “It’s hard. You know their situation, you know their income status … you just have to do what is best for the program, for everyone.”

***

The U.S. refugee program has remained dormant since January 2025. But one group — white South Africans — was granted an exemption and prioritized for resettlement by Trump. The president has amplified false claims that white South African farmers are experiencing genocide, and has accused the South African government of subjecting them to racial discrimination.

Since May 2025, more than 3,000 white South Africans, known as Afrikaners, have entered the country as refugees.

As of mid-March, 41 South Africans had been resettled in Nebraska by Lutheran Family Services.

*graphic showing top countries of origin for refugees in NE*

For CIRA and ICRI, the federal government’s decision to prioritize one group for resettlement was a deciding factor whether they would participate in resettlement work.

Yang, the director of refugee services at CIRA, said if resettlement remained open to everyone, CIRA would continue doing the work. For Sagar, who came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee, the decision presented a moral dilemma.

“I don’t think they really meet the criteria of a refugee,” Sagar said. “I think it would be morally wrong for me to say we’re working with people who might be coming here for other reasons.”

Catholic Social Services’ national affiliate, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, announced it would end its 40-year refugee resettlement contract with the federal government last April.

This fiscal year, the Trump administration set another record-low refugee admissions cap of 7,500 — and announced plans to continue prioritizing Afrikaners.

Advocates predict future administrations will work to restore the resettlement program. But with three of four agencies in the state having stopped resettlement, it’s hard to tell how many will be in a position to resume three years from now.

“I think rebuilding the infrastructure is going to take a long time, because everything has been demolished,” said Sagar, the ICRI director. “…Will we be able to actually join that again? I hope so, but I think it’s gonna be quite some time.”

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