Nashville is home to hundreds of refugees from countries around the world, some of which are at war. Refugee status means these people are invitees of the United States and are entitled to a small amount of monetary assistance from the government to help them settle. The method and terms of resettlement and the legal definition of refugee was established in 1980 as the United States Refugee Admissions Program, which until recently, ran uninterrupted, and admitted approximately 3.1 million people.
The federal government tasks local agencies to help with the process of resettling refugees and administering the short-term assistance funding to cover rent, food, and other necessities, and mandated to cover their first 90 days. In Nashville, one such agency is Nashville International Center for Empowerment. To date, NICE is waiting reimbursement for approximately $1.1 million from the federal government. In addition, agencies like NICE are being left without the means to provide any further assistance.
Max Rykov is the former director of development and communications for NICE. He says, “The investment made in this program, in these individuals and families, has not only been a tremendous benefit morally and ethically, and culturally for the United States, but economically, too.”
Rykov says a recent study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found refugees and those seeking asylum have had generated $128.3 billion in net fiscal benefit to U.S. economy. “It’s an incredibly successful program from that perspective.” Meanwhile agencies like NICE are scrambling to continue their assistance for refugees.
A recent emergency fundraiser was organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville in partnership with all the Jewish community’s congregations and agencies to quickly raise the needed funds to help NICE cover the continuing cost. To date, more than $30,000 has been raised, enough to cover rent for the month of April. But the need continues.
Rabbi Michael Danziger, senior rabbi of The Temple, says supporting immigrants and refugees is a core Jewish value. “Helping immigrants is a no-brainer for Jews. Their story is our story - so many of us were in their exact places in recent generations or decades. It has been our story ever since Abraham left his land to start a new life.” He adds that many Jewish families worked hard to build a new life, and they also received important support from more established communities of neighbors and friends.
Nashville’s Jewish community has a long history of helping immigrants. Jewish Family Service has been on the front lines partnering with agencies like NICE and providing support to Jews arriving from around the world. Pam Kelner is executive director of JFS. She says, “I’m always struck by the opening line of the Jewish Family Service's history, written by Annette Ratkin (z’l): ‘The Jewish community in Nashville began with immigrants from Central Europe in the 1840s.’ Each subsequent paragraph details our community’s growth through new waves of immigration—Germany, Poland, Hungary, Israel, Indochina, Iran, and most significantly, Jews from the Former Soviet Union.”
Most recently, JFS partnered with NICE to help support a family fleeing the war in Ukraine. Kelner says, “In 2022, JFS welcomed Ukrainian Jewish refugees Inna Shulkina and Lilya Krasnopolska to Nashville. Their successful resettlement was made possible through our partnership with NICE, which handled the administrative aspects while JFS provided the embrace of the Jewish community as well as crucial support —securing housing, furnishing an apartment, and offering food assistance.”
It is experiences like these that, according to Kelner, informs the work of JFS. “Through our collaboration with NICE, we have seen firsthand the essential services they provide to help refugees adjust to life in Nashville and the U.S.” She says that is why when JFS learned of the abrupt end to government funding for refugees it was clearly a time to act. “Organizing a fundraiser within the Jewish community to support NICE was an easy decision, ensuring that these vulnerable families do not face unnecessary hardship and risk of not integrating into the community successfully.”
The recent funding freezes and dismantling of United States Agency for International Development, USAID, has left agencies like NICE laying off staff and running short of critical funding to administer refugee assistance. So far, NICE has laid off 26 staffers and others have resigned because of the cuts.
Other local agencies are also struggling amidst staff layoffs. Inspiritus is an Atlanta based agency with offices throughout the Southeast providing a variety of social services to immigrants, including refugee resettlement. So far, 75 staff members have been laid off, over half its resettlement staff. Sarah Lonn is director of resettlement services. She says, “All three of our national agencies have been directly targeted to stop funding for programs there isn’t even a stop work order for.”
Additionally, Lonn says all their agencies have lost reception and placement funding and some have lost even more, including in Nashville. “That means all of our employment and cash assistance programs, our preferred communities’ program, which offers intensive case management for our most vulnerable clients. And the entire Ukrainian, Cuban, and Haitian assistance programs.” She adds that for Inspiritus, all of those programs have ceased, and the staff has been laid off. Like NICE, Inspiritus received a donation to help cover rent and utilities for last month, but overall, they are scrambling from month to month.
One avenue available for relief from the federal government is the courts. Rykov cites a couple of court cases involving refugee organizations, including one that began in Seattle. “That resulted in the ruling that the funding should be unfrozen, and that the president does not have power to just immediately terminate the program.” But he says a couple of days later, the administration circumvented the ruling by terminating all the resettlement agency’s contracts.
Since what is happening could amount to a breach of contract by the government, Lonn says, “Our national agency, Global Refuge, is part of a lawsuit. Catholic Charities and Ethiopian Community Development Council are also a part of the lawsuit. In theory they’re supposed to pay us back, but I don’t think we’re going to see it. But in theory we should be getting it.”
Meanwhile, families are being impacted, some in dramatic ways. Funding streams that help bring refugees into the country has also dried up. Lonn says Inspiritus had several flights for February and March that were booked and then canceled, meaning no additional refugees are coming. One family is faced with a particularly harsh reality. “A family we are working with from Syria had a daughter who was supposed to be arriving in the United States two weeks after the stop work order, and they are just devastated that she won’t be able to come.”
Also impacted is Catholic Charities which had 125 people qualify for the 90-day assistance beginning in January. As of March, the organization was still working its way through funding for those people. But as with the other agencies, Catholic Charities relies on private donations and grants and churches and congregations are helping to “adopt” families and help with expenses. Still, the need is overwhelming. Judy Orr is the executive director of Catholic Charities for the diocese of Nashville. She says, “For us, March rent for all the people we are taking care of was $42,000 in aggregate. That just gives you a sense of what $30,000 can’t do. And then you multiply that by all the other agencies.”
Like the other agencies, Catholic Charities is laying off staff and eliminating positions one by one. “We’re on pins and needs to see if the remainder of funding for our operations will dry up,” says Orr. And legally, much like the other resettlement agencies, Catholic Charities is waiting for reimbursement for money already spent.
Resettlement agencies each receive funding from a voluntary agency, or VOLAG. In this case that is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Orr says USCCB did sue the federal government for reimbursement, but to no avail. And she says in the absence of reimbursement, they were told by USCCB they are not legally obligated to provide services. “I don’t really care. We’re going to take care of these people. You can’t leave people who don’t speak the language and don’t know the culture, and don’t know the city, and don’t have transportation to just fend for themselves.”
The cuts, layoffs, and lack of reimbursements mean agencies like Catholic Charities, Inspiritus, and NICE will not be able to continue resettlement efforts in the future. Orr says she is not even including a line item for it in next year’s budget.
Orr believes the resettlement program’s method for vetting immigrants is a good one and questions whether the administration’s remaking of it will meet the needs of the country. “It would make sense to me that after a pause, you would rethink, ‘What can we do with this resettlement program so that we’re attracting a workforce that we want and need for this era as opposed to when this was written back in 1980?’”
Orr adds that layoffs in industries like hospitality, cleaning and adult care will leave many jobs available for people who are victims of government and corporate layoffs. But she says most Americans are not interested. “What we all know culturally is that Americans don’t want to do that work. That’s why immigrants are so valuable. They’re willing to just get their foot in the door and get started.”
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The irony of the situation is not lost on resettlement workers. Rykov says the current situation basically amounts to a bait and switch. “The concept of allowing people to come into the country legally and then stripping them of their legal immigration status is completely unconscionable.” And Lonn says, “The immigrant story is the American story and that’s what is so disappointing. It just feels like a total discarding of American values.”
