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Refugee Community Feels Effects of Trump Administration Policies Refugee Community Feels Effects of Trump Administration Policies

Refugee families have been separated because of the policies.

By Anthony Dabbundo

Felicien Seruhungu just got an important form for a client in his office at Interfaith Works. Five binders rest on his desk, filled with more than 20 names of refugees that he has helped adjust to America.

He left a Burundi refugee camp in 2009 with just his wife and newborn daughter. Just 26 years old, he didn’t know English.

Seruhungu had an opportunity that many refugees didn’t… He could move to America. After learning English, he decided he was going to pay it forward.

Helping fellow refugees began as a part-time job for Seruhungu. Now, he’s a full-time case manager for Interfaith Works, an organization that serves on the frontlines in refugee resettlement since 1980. Director Olive Sephuma says that she’s seen a drastic change as the number of refugees moving into Syracuse has dropped more than 70% in two years.

Seruhungu’s brother-in-law currently lives in a Kenyan refugee camp, waiting for approval. Two years and counting.

Sephuma said she’s met many families that have been broken up by the executive orders. Parents waiting for their kids, husbands awaiting spouses, children arriving without parents. Stories she says she’s heard way too much.

Sephuma said those two older boys now live with a foster family… in Australia.

Interfath Works was forced to lay off some workers at the start of 2017. But with the help of donors and the Syracuse community, they are now steadily operating, albeit with less refugees resettling each year.

In 2016, the city resettled 14 hundred refugees. Now, InterFaith works resettled just 108 people in the last fiscal year. Syracuse’s population has been steadily decreasing for years, and refugees have often helped to fill the void in the job market. They are active members in the community, working jobs, paying taxes, and starting families.

Seruhungu has five kids himself… four born in the U.S. For now, most refugees trying to come to America will have to wait. And Seruhungu is waitiing too, hoping… that the number of binders on his desk increases… and one of them is his brother-in-law.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – Felicien Seruhungu moved to the United States in 2009 with his wife and newborn daughter. Nine years later, he’s still waiting on his brother-in-law.

Since moving to the U.S., he’s helping his people back home get the same opportunity. But over the last two years, InterFaith works has seen fewer and fewer cases. Since 1980, InterFaith Works has led refugee resettlement in the city.

Budget deficiencies caused InterFaith Works to lay off some of its workers in 2017, due to lower resettlement numbers. It is financially stable now, but that doesn’t tell the complete story of the impact of the Trump administration policies on refugee families.

Across Syracuse and the nation, families have been separated because of the executive orders the President signed that capped the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. at a significantly lower number than that seen under President Obama.

“One of the most disheartening impacts of what is happening is the effect it’s having on families,” said Olive Sephuma, director of resettlement at InterFaith Works.

 

Felicien Seruhungu sits at his desk, taking a call from one of the new Americans that he helps adjust to the U.S.
Felicien Seruhungu moved to the U.S. in 2009 and has helped refugees ever since.
© 2018 Anthony Dabbuindo

Sephuma said many families were separated and broken apart because only some of the family was able to move. One Somalian family Sephuma works with now has four of the six family members in the United States. The other two live with a foster family in Australia. One Iraqi woman is still waiting for her husband.

Seruhungu said that his brother-in-law, who lives in a Kenyan refugee camp, has given up hope of moving here until there is a new federal administration. And while InterFaith Works has tried lobbying federal and local politicians, Sephuma said that progress has stalled.

Reported by

Anthony Dabbundo

Sophomore Broadcast and Digital Journalism Student Staff Writer at the Daily Orange Political Correspondent at Citrus TV

Other stories by Anthony Dabbundo

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