Dear Friends,

After taking office on January 20, 2025, President Trump signed a sweeping series of executive actions reversing decades of precedent for welcome. These measures go much further than his first presidency when he targeted programs supporting refugees and others with legitimate claims to asylum fleeing torture, persecution, and violence. Startling new executive actions include a ban on refugees, a halt to vital services for refugees who have already been resettled in the U.S., an end to vital humanitarian programs, and the general targeting of all immigrants, regardless of status.

Many of these actions have already been operationalized, causing significant harm to torture survivors and their loved ones across the country and around the world. In response, it is critical that our elected leaders hear our collective opposition as people of faith and conscience.

Take Action: Urge your Members of Congress to stand with refugees!

We invite you to stand up for refugee and immigrant justice today by contacting your Members of Congress through NRCAT's e-advocacy platform and urging them to push back on these harmful executive actions.

Last week, NRCAT joined faith partners at the Interfaith Immigration Coalition in this letter to the Trump Administration and Congress in support of refugee resettlement, signed by 175 faith organizations and more than 1,000 faith leaders.

Help us amplify this call to support refugee resettlement by taking a few minutes to contact your Members of Congress. Join us in standing up to this administration’s harmful actions which include: 

• An indefinite ban on refugee resettlement, stranding tens of thousands of refugees, including survivors of torture, who have gone through years of security screening and remain in danger overseas. 
• A 90-day suspension of all foreign aid to displaced people overseas — followed by stop work orders that have interrupted, if not ended, services to refugees and forcibly displaced people who are already here in the U.S.
• A total ban on access to asylum and other protections for anyone arriving at the border, while also authorizing and mobilizing the military to stop people seeking protection from entering the United States via the southern border.

In community,
The NRCAT team

PS - This week, our colleagues with the We Are All America coalition have called for a national week of action to mobilize for Refugee & Immigrant Justice called Together We Rise. To get your local community involved, check out this list of action ideas. You can also join a webinar with updates on the refugee funding freeze hosted by Interfaith Immigration Coalition and Church World Service on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 12:30pm ET.