Refugees who had been approved to come to the United States before a deadline next week suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration, the Associated Press reports. Thousands of refugees who fled war and persecution and had gone through a sometimes yearslong vetting process to start new lives in America are now stranded at various locations worldwide. That includes more than 1,600 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort, as well as relatives of active-duty U.S. military personnel. President Donald Trump paused the program this week as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration. His move had left open the possibility that refugees who had been screened to come to the U.S. and had flights booked before Monday’s deadline might be able to get in under the wire. But in an email dated Tuesday, the U.S. agency overseeing refugee processing and arrivals told staff and stakeholders that “refugee arrivals to the United States have been suspended until further notice.”
A little more than 10,000 refugees from around the world had already gone through the lengthy vetting process to come to the U.S. and had travel scheduled over the next few weeks, according to a document obtained by the AP. It was not immediately clear how many of those had been set to arrive by the upcoming deadline. Gabriela had been preparing for the arrival of her parents, her brother and other relatives who had tickets to fly to Los Angeles from Guatemala in early February after their refugee status was approved in November. The family had to flee Guatemala because Gabriela refused to let her children be part of violent gangs and the family started getting death threats. Once her family got their plane tickets, they sold their house and all their belongings, and she had taken out an $800 loan to buy them furniture for their new home, said Gabriela, who requested to be identified only by her first name for fear that something would happen to her parents in Guatemala. Then on Tuesday, their flight was canceled. “We are still in shock. We don’t know what we can do, we don’t know what will happen,” said Gabriela, who came to the U.S. through the refugee program last year. “I hope something changes, and they can come.”
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