Refugee resettlement pause will keep some Alaskans separated from family members

For months, Rebecca Chol anticipated the Anchorage arrival of her cousin and his family from a refugee camp in Ethiopia — the same one she left them at 17 years ago. They are South Sudanese, and have lived for more than two decades at the Sherkole Refugee Camp after fleeing civil war in their country.

In late 2024, Chol received a call from Catholic Social Services, the nonprofit that houses Alaska’s lone refugee resettlement program, telling her that her extended family was finally set for arrival in June 2025. When she heard the news, she went out to purchase shelf-stable East African ingredients, like yellow cornflower, to make a feast for their arrival.

Last week, that feast was put on hold.

President Donald Trump abruptly suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, beginning Jan. 27. The order canceled the flights of 22 refugees who had already been approved to resettle in Alaska in February from overseas refugee camps, said Issa Spatrisano, the Alaska State Refugee Coordinator.

It also indefinitely defers immigration plans for 180 additional refugees were expected to come to Alaska later this year, according to Spatrisano. Many of them would be reuniting with family members, including Chol, who have previously settled here.

The order attributes the suspension to “record levels of migration,” and says that the U.S. “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 refugee.”

It does not say when, or if, the program will resume. The order directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to prepare a report within 90 days on whether or not resumption of entry of refugees in the country “would be in the interests of the United States.”

Chol said she is “heartbroken.”

“When Catholic Social Services called me, I was so happy to receive my family in June,” she said.

She was resettled in Alaska as a widow in 2008 with her five children. She has since become a U.S. citizen herself, and brought over three more family members through the refugee family unification process, which prioritizes eligible refugees to resettle where they have family. Most recently, her cousin’s oldest son arrived from Ethiopia last June to live with her while they await his parents and siblings.

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Chol’s Fairview living room tells a story of a life divided. It’s decorated with relics from back home, including South Sudan’s flag of independence, and beaded chandeliers in black, red, white and green. It’s also adorned with a certain type of American pride: Each of her five children’s Anchorage West High School diplomas hang on the wall, beside an award from Catholic Social Services recognizing Chol as a community liaison who leads with “compassion, advocacy and support of refugees and their families as they build their lives in the U.S. and join the Anchorage community.”

She wants the same opportunities for her family. Living conditions were poor in the refugee camp, she said.

If it weren’t for America, Chol said she would be dead. Shortly after arriving in the States, she was able to receive medical care for a blocked artery.

“I’m alive. My kids survived, and they graduate(d) from high school and (went) to college and got jobs. That’s the reason I want my cousin to come here ... for a better life. I hope it’s going to be soon.”

Repeated delays

Sofia Omar, a community organizer for Somali refugees in Anchorage, has spent more than half of her adult daughters’ lives apart from them. Now, she said, their dream of reunification is dimming.

The Somalian family was split up due to the war in their country: In 2008, Omar and her five younger children went to a refugee camp in Kenya, but her two older daughters were brought to Ethiopia by their father’s family. They later ended up in the same refugee camp.

When Omar and five of her children were approved for resettlement in the United States in 2013, her other two children were left behind.

“We’ve been trying to get reunified with them since we got here,” said Omar who has since become a U.S. citizen.

She said her daughters have gotten close three times — they had passed the interview and background check processes and were awaiting flight confirmation. But administrative delays led to expired applications, which sent the young women — now 22 and 23 years old — back to the drawing board each time, Omar said.

The average refugee spends 17 years in displacement, or the period between fleeing their home country and awaiting resettlement in a third country, according to Spatrisano.

Omar’s daughters have spent the last 12 years in a camp where basic safety is severely lacking, she said. She said she’s worried that Trump’s indefinite halt on refugee resettlement means she’ll never be able to provide safety for them.

“(The president) threw away our hope,” she said.

Historic lows, historic highs

Historically, the U.S. has received an average of 85,000 refugees annually. Alaska resettles a small fraction of incoming refugees, about 150 annually since the state program opened in 2003, Spatrisano said.

Although the number of admitted refugees fluctuates with global events and U.S. priorities, it has remained relatively consistent over the years, Spatrisano said. That changed in 2016.

Under Trump’s first administration, the program saw historic lows, admitting about 11,800 refugees in 2020 and about 11,400 in 2021, data shows. The trend was sharply reversed under the following Biden administration, where more than 100,000 refugees were welcomed in 2024 alone, the most in 30 years.

During Trump’s last year in office in 2021, Spatrisano said, her office resettled 18 refugees in Alaska. That’s compared to 151 under Biden’s last year in office, plus an additional 245 Ukrainian humanitarian parolees, a special status granted during a specific time period for Ukrainians fleeing war.

While nobody knows the future of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, Spatrisano said that Alaska’s resettlement office will continue to serve the more than 1,000 refugees and other immigrant groups who have arrived to Alaska in the last five years.

Catholic Social Services also delivers employment, health and youth services to refugees and certain immigrant groups under the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

That population includes people who have received asylum, foreign-born victims of trafficking, special humanitarian parolees and refugees.

“This is certainly something we’re devastated about, because people are waiting for their families to join them, and life in refugee camps is not easy. For some people, these could be real dangerous situations,” Spatrisano said of Trump’s order. “But the work doesn’t end because new arrivals aren’t coming.”