When she was just six years old, Amina Shale and her family moved from Kenya and eventually settled in Louisville. Now, Shale runs a nonprofit to help other refugees, many of whom have families split between the U.S. and refugee camps abroad.
Shale herself has an uncle who has been waiting for 30 years to be resettled. Like others seeking new lives in the U.S., his application process is now paused indefinitely.
“It takes a lot of emotional toll to be told that you're going to be taken to the land of the free and all of these opportunities … to just have them taken away,” Shale said.
In the first days of his second term, President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders on immigration, pausing refugee admissions into the country and cancelling travel for refugees already cleared to enter the country’s resettlement program.
The order pauses admissions for 90 days starting Monday, but flights into the country for approved refugees had already been cancelled by the time Trump signed the order on Jan. 20. The order also suspends all applications for refugee status and requires a reassessment of how local governments can have more say in refugee placements.
The order does not necessarily expire after 90 days — rather, it requires a review every 90 days until Trump deems it appropriate to restart admissions.
Louisville was set to welcome more than 100 people in February, according to Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Bowling Green was set to approve more than 50 people from flights that are now paused.
Roughly 2,000 refugees were scheduled to arrive in the state between January and September this year, the Kentucky Office for Refugees said. With admissions indefinitely paused, it's unclear when or if those individuals will be able to make their way to the state.
Kentucky is the state with the fourth highest numbers of per capita refugee arrivals over the last decade, according to a 2023 report from the Immigration Research Initiative. In the last fiscal year, Kentucky welcomed more than 2,000 refugees, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where conflicts have left 7.2 million people internally displaced and killed millions more.
Trump’s order has caused fear and anxiety about where that leaves not only resettled refugees and the services they rely on, but their friends and loved ones abroad.
The community’s capacity
Colin Triplett is the Catholic Charities of Louisville’s migration and refugee services director. He said he has witnessed an immense capacity for refugees and a community open to accepting them.
“People are coming here to work and live and buy houses and buy cars and contribute to the economy and contribute to our public life,” Triplett said.
He said one of the elements of the U.S. resettlement program is it actively aims to reunite families. He said that is likely one of the biggest challenges of the admissions pause that will be felt by the Kentucky refugee community.
“It most likely will affect people being able to be reunited with their loved ones that went through that refugee admissions program, went through a process that's very well vetted, and also those people have been waiting for a very long time,” Triplett said.
KRM Executive Director John Koehlinger said refugee communities in Kentucky have long found success integrating into the community, contributing to the workforce and quickly becoming self-sufficient.
He said he took umbrage to some of the wording of the executive order, which states that the country “lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.”
Koehlinger said the current admissions process already incorporates hefty security screening processes and opportunities for local input. He says community buy-in is built into the process, which requires quarterly consultations with the local government, public benefits offices, healthcare providers, law enforcement and public schools.
“It's not your usual federally funded program, it's actually a community-based model. We are very considerate of local, local partners and stakeholders,” Koehlinger said.
Koehlinger is concerned about some of the order’s wording including saying that the country should only admit refugees who “can fully and appropriately assimilate.” He said the program has a long history of supporting a humanitarian mission, regardless of a person’s English proficiency or educational attainment.
“Permanent resettlement is an opportunity to build a new life for people who've been persecuted, victims of torture and targeted violence, but there's never been a screening for English proficiency or educational level or work background,” Koehlinger said. “We're very proud of that — that refugees have found success and contributed to the communities here from all backgrounds.”
Koehlinger said when Trump last paused refugee admissions during his first term, relatives expecting long-awaited reunions with loved ones had to wait — and some are still waiting. Koehlinger said one young man who had come as a refugee to Louisville preceded his mother and younger siblings, left in refugee camps in Uganda.
Twice, they had flights booked and their housing and living situations set up by local organizations and churches. Both were canceled. The son is left waiting in the U.S., working two jobs and checking in regularly about his family.
“He would often show me photos of the family, and they have never come to the United States in all these years. They've been stuck overseas,” Koehlinger said.
Kevin Uyisenga is the executive director of Louisville’s See Forward Ministries, which helps refugees and migrants, especially those from African countries. He said the order has left families waiting for loved ones in shock — some of whom were expecting reunions after more than a decade apart.
“You can imagine if someone has been waiting for their loved one for so many years, all the sudden you’re telling them that those opportunities are cancelled? It’s stressful,” Uyisenga said.
He said keeping people informed and helping them understand the firehose of changes to federal immigration policy is challenging and many are scared.
Shale said she is taking hope from the fact that the pause in refugee admissions is not permanent. She said she’s worried about refugees who only recently arrived in the country, who may feel that the government no longer has confidence that they can become a member of the community.
Speaking to recent refugee arrivals, Shale said, “This is just temporary. It's not something that is going to always exist. This can be the land that you were told that you're going to feel a sense of belonging.”
This story has been updated with additional details from Louisville's See Forward Ministries.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
