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By Melissa Keaney
Senior Supervising Attorney, International Refugee Assistance Project
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In May, the Trump administration admitted dozens of white Afrikaners into the United States as refugees. In just over three months, the administration created a new program, completed processing, and welcomed this group to the United States. The speed and ease of the admission of these Afrikaners—arriving via chartered plane, no less—was unprecedented. But, more remarkably, it happened at a time when the administration is fighting tooth and nail to close the door to all other populations seeking humanitarian protection, including by stripping protections for 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans already in the United States, a move endorsed by the Supreme Court via its shadow docket on May 30.
This administration launched its attack on humanitarian protection in its very first hours. On January 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the refugee admissions program and barring the entry of refugees from all over the world, including more than 12,000 people who were booked for travel shortly after Inauguration Day. Approximately 600,000 refugees had their applications frozen in place, and 130,000 of them had already been approved to resettle. As a result, families were left in dangerous limbo, in refugee camps, in hiding, separated from their loved ones.
These actions blatantly violate the Refugee Act of 1980, passed with bipartisan support in Congress to create a consistent, predictable system for assisting displaced people based on humanitarian need, not political or ideological concerns. That system can be painfully slow, but it is a lifeline for those fleeing war and persecution. On behalf of eight individual refugees, several refugee resettlement organizations, and an American citizen preparing to sponsor and welcome refugees into her community, my colleagues and I at the International Refugee Assistance Project filed Pacito v. Trump, a class-action suit, in federal court. We're seeking to restore the system Congress built and to give our clients and thousands of others a fair chance to seek safety in the United States.
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Over the past few months, we have secured a series of court victories; decisions from federal judges in the Western District of Washington and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have required the administration to process and provide resettlement support to refugees who were approved and had travel scheduled before the suspension. But as a result of the administration's foot-dragging, very few have been able to enter, and those who have were successful only after enormous effort.
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Take our client Josephine, who fled civil war in Congo. Her mother, a refugee living in Idaho, had petitioned to reunite with Josephine eight years ago. Josephine was finally approved to travel in late January 2025. She, too, was living in South Africa while waiting for approval. "Imagine being kept apart from your family for years," she told me. "Then one day a door opens, only to shut again in your face. I wasn't sure if I was ever going to see my mom again." Josephine was joyfully reunited with her mother in March, but unlike her white Afrikaner neighbors, she needed a federal court order to resettle here.
Our lead plaintiff, Pacito, also a refugee fleeing civil war in Congo, has not been so lucky. After years of processing, he, along with his wife and toddler daughter, was scheduled for travel on January 22. They sold their belongings and gave up their housing, ready for a new life in Tennessee, only to be told on January 21 that they'd been barred from travel. It's impossible not to see the disparity between the smooth processing of white Afrikaners and the lengthy waits and abrupt halts to which the United States has subjected all other refugees.
President Trump has said race was not the motivation for this disparate treatment; he claims he'd admit this group even if they were Black. And yet, his administration's actions have blocked tens of thousands of approved refugees from all over the world, including Black Africans, persecuted Yazidi minorities in Iraq, and Afghan allies in hiding from the Taliban. Congress' refugee program has saved millions of lives over decades. The administration's swift and unlawful attempt to destroy it draws a stark contrast with the equally swift creation of a shadow replacement of it. The arrival of the Afrikaners lays bare the truth: this administration wants to end refugee resettlement for all but a select group.
The United States has a mixed record of living up to its promise as a place of refuge. Trump is not the first president to turn away displaced people and to target nonwhite immigrants. But this administration's weaponization of the immigration system to benefit groups it favors and punish those it does not is novel in its scope and rashness. The chaos and cruelty unleashed over the last four months should remind courts, legislatures, and everyday people that the ideals of American refuge and fairness are worth fighting for.
Melissa Keaney is a Senior Supervising Attorney, U.S. Litigation, at the International Refugee Assistance Project. She represents individual and organizational plaintiffs in federal litigation challenging President Trump's refugee ban.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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