SEATTLE: Major refugee aid groups sued the Trump administration on Monday (Feb 10) over the president’s executive order suspending the federal refugee resettlement program and funding for resettlement agencies.
The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Seattle asks the court to declare Trump’s executive order illegal, stop the order’s implementation and restore refugee-related funding.
“President Trump cannot override the will of Congress with the stroke of a pen,” Melissa Keaney, an attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a news release. “The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect refugees, and the longer this illegal suspension continues, the more dire the consequences will be.”
President Donald Trump’s recent order said the refugee program – a form of legal migration to the US – would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by “record levels of migration” and did not have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees”.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and individuals including refugees.
The organisations say their ability to provide critical services to refugees in the US and abroad has been severely inhibited by Trump’s order. It already has impacted refugees who had been approved to come to the US by having their travel cancelled on short notice and kept families hoping to reunite apart, the lawsuit says.
It argues that the refugee suspension is unlawful and violates Congress’ authority to make immigration laws.
