10/08/2026
Advocacy for Refugee and Immigrant Services for Empowerment ARISE denounces the Trump administration's Fiscal Year 2027 refugee resettlement ceiling, which basically caps refugee admissions at 17,500. We have no doubt that they will primarily go to the White South Africans like last year. The cap basically stays the same as last year, which is the lowest in the program's 46-year history and insulting to the real refugees languishing in the refugee camps for decades.
The U.S. refugee program was built to rescue people facing persecution and death, wherever they are. It has averaged about 92,000 admissions a year. The administration has now rewritten it to put one group, selected by race and nationality, at the front of the line, at a projected cost of roughly $500 million. Meanwhile, families who fled war, genocide, and persecution are awaiting their turn and still are being told to keep waiting after decades of waiting.
This is not a refugee policy. It is a political preference dressed up as humanitarianism. Refugee status has always meant one thing: You are in danger, and you cannot go home. Every one of those slots handed out by ethnicity is a slot denied to a family in a camp who has waited years in refugee camps in hopes of bringing their family to safety.
We work with refugee families in central and western MA every day and we have hear thosestories of struggle and success every day. Through our Refugee Advocate Program with our trained 100 plus advocates we have seen them in action. They come to the US, learn English, take jobs, raise children, and build their lives. The administration is not just taking control of the narrative on who refugee are but shutting the door on people who are real refugees, and calling it national interest... Nothing can be farther from the truth.
ARISE demands that:
1) The administration rescind the determination and restore admissions based on persecution and need, as the Refugee Act of 1980 requires
2) Congress use its oversight and appropriations authority to stop the dismantling of the resettlement system
3) Elected officials at every level publicly say what this is, and stand with the refugee families and communities they represent.
ARISE will keep serving and advocating for refugee and immigrant families in Central and Western Massachusetts, and will keep fighting for a program that protects them. Lastly we wish all those refugee resettlement organizations better backbones and knees so they can stand up against the Trump administration this year and stop resettelling whoever is classified as refugees by the administration going against the entire UN protocol. Remember, the world is watching us all!
