President Trump’s halt of U.S. refugee program was lawful, appeals court rules

President Donald Trump acted within his authority when he indefinitely suspended the U.S. refugee admissions program last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

A three-judge panel largely reversed a series of preliminary injunctions issued by a federal judge in Seattle last year that blocked Trump’s executive order suspending admissions and directed the federal government to release funds for refugee resettlement agencies.

In Thursday's opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Jay Bybee wrote, “We recognize the enormous practical implications of this decision.” Trump signed the order halting admissions the same day he took office. At the time, more than 128,000 people were conditionally approved for refugee status.

“There are over one hundred thousand vetted and conditionally approved refugees, many of whom may have spent years completing the USRAP process in a third country only to be turned away on the tarmac,” wrote Bybee, a George W. Bush appointee, referring to the United States Refugee Admissions Program.

But, he continued, that is a result of Congress granting the president the power to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“Whether that consequence reflects prudent policy is not a question for this court,” Bybee wrote.

The ruling is disappointing for immigration advocates and refugee resettlement agencies and a blow to families who followed every rule, checked every box and waited years to come to the United States at our country’s invitation,” said David Duea, CEO of the Tacoma-based resettlement agency Lutheran Community Services Northwest.

“We are saddened by how quickly and carelessly the invitation was revoked, Duea said in a statement Thursday.

Hours after starting his second term on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump suspended the refugee admissions program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration, barring entry for all refugees and halting refugee application processing indefinitely. Shortly after, federal funding to resettlement agencies was frozen when the U.S. Department of State issued a stop-work order.

The sudden halt left thousands of refugees stranded abroad, including some who had plane tickets in hand and were on their way to the airport. Resettlement agencies were left scrambling to pay for basic necessities for those already in the U.S. and to fund their organizations' payrolls.

The following month, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, along with two other agencies and nine individuals, sued the Trump administration over the program’s admissions halt and funding freeze.

When Trump suspended the program, about 1,135 refugees had already been approved to travel to and resettle in Washington state in the coming weeks, according to the state’s office of refugee and immigrant assistance.

In his executive order, Trump said the U.S. lacked the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees,” and that allowing them to enter “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead ruled in May that the U.S. government should, at a minimum, admit the 160 refugees who had travel plans to enter the country within two weeks of Jan. 20. Soon after, Trump issued a ban on travelers from a dozen countries, reviving a similar measure from his first term targeting Muslim-majority countries. Whitehead later ordered in July that refugees should be excluded from the travel ban.

But after a motion by the U.S. government, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay blocking the judge’s preliminary injunctions pertaining to refugees as the case continued. Under a narrow carve-out for certain refugees already approved, 77 people were admitted.

While the three-judge panel Thursday overturned the federal judge’s previous rulings on the refugee admissions, it upheld his injunction blocking the funding freeze. They concluded the federal government must reinstate the cooperative agreements needed to continue funding agencies for domestic services for refugees already in the U.S.

“While we welcome the Court’s decision to uphold the government’s obligation to provide critical services to newly resettled refugees, it is deeply disappointing that the 9th Circuit cut the lifeline provided by the District Court’s previous order,” said Mevlüde Akay Alp, senior litigation attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Project, which filed the lawsuit.

Under the Biden administration, up to 125,000 refugees were approved for resettlement in the U.S. during the federal fiscal year 2025, which ran from October 2024 to September 2025. In October, the Trump administration set the cap on refugee admissions to 7,500, the lowest level since the program was established in 1980. Those slots will primarily be allocated to Afrikaners from South Africa.

Refugees must prove they face persecution in their home countries and are among the most vetted immigrants into the United States. The process often takes years, including interviews, background checks, health screenings and more, before they receive formal clearance to enter the country.

Refugees are distinct from people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum. They must be living outside of the U.S. and outside their home country to be considered for resettlement, and are usually referred to the U.S. State Department by the United Nations.

The first Trump administration also temporarily halted the country's refugee resettlement program in 2017. Resettlement agencies say it took years for organizations to rebuild the infrastructure needed to process applications overseas and ramp up services for refugees domestically under the Biden administration.

Material from The Seattle Times archives was used in this report.

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