Afghanistan Peace CampaignLAUREL, Md. (AP) — The rent is due, but Rahmani has no money to pay it.
The Afghan father of two worked for a U.S.-backed organization in Kabul, which put him at risk of Taliban retribution. Now he is among thousands of newly arrived refugees who lost financial assistance when the Trump administration cut off funding for the federal refugee program in January.
His family’s monthly rent and utilities total nearly $1,850, an unfathomable amount compared to what he once paid in Kabul.
He has spent weeks looking for work, walking along the suburban highway across from his family’s apartment, inquiring at small markets and big box stores. So far, there are no job leads.
He moved here in November with the federal refugee program, a vetted form of legal migration to the U.S. for those fleeing persecution. To fast-track self-sufficiency, it provides refugees with wraparound services for three months — help with housing, food and job placement — while other federal grants support their first five years.
Instead, Rahmani’s relocation services were largely halted after only two months, when the Trump administration upended the refugee program. He otherwise would have qualified for extended rental assistance for up to six months. Still jobless and unable to make ends meet, his anxiety mounts by the day.
Rahmani is a client of Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, a local faith-based resettlement agency also in disarray. The organization is waiting on $3.7 million in federal reimbursements for work it has already provided.
LSSNCA has struggled to make payroll, and its support services have fallen like dominoes after it was forced to lay off 75 people and furlough seven others. Nearly a third of its staff is now gone, with its case management team hit the hardest, leaving many refugees without a steady presence as they navigate their new lives.
Two-thirds of its clients are Afghan allies, who were offered visas and protection in the United States after the Taliban returned to power. These Afghans worked alongside U.S. troops or, like Rahmani, were employed by U.S.-backed organizations.
Rahmani worked in information technology in Afghanistan for a large Afghan media organization, which the U.S. helped fund as part of its democracy-building efforts. He is identified using only one of his names because he still fears for his family’s safety.
Sitting in his spartan apartment, he gestured to his daughter, a bright-eyed, dark-haired toddler in Hello Kitty leggings. She just turned 2; a “happy birthday” banner still hangs on the wall.
Rahmani came here for the futures of both his daughter and 7-year-old son. “Because in my own country, girls are not allowed to go to school.”
Now he wonders if coming here was a mistake.
“If they kick me out from the apartment, where should I stay?” he asked. “Should I stay with my family in the road?”
The risk of widespread evictions
Covering the rental assistance promised to new refugees is LSSNCA’s most pressing concern. By early March, at least 42 households under its care had received eviction notices, putting nearly 170 people in Virginia and Maryland on the edge of homelessness, with more — like Rahmani’s family — at risk. The staff has been negotiating with landlords and fundraising to stave off evictions.
“It is like a daily conversation about how much money came in today,” said Kristyn Peck, CEO of LSSNCA. “OK, who’s most at risk of eviction out of all these people? … Whose rent can we pay first? And they’re just kind of impossible choices.”
The organization raised $500,000 in six weeks, but that doesn’t fill the gap left by frozen government funds. LSSNCA had expected President Donald Trump to lower refugee admissions, as he did during his first term, but they didn’t anticipate losing funds for refugees already in the U.S.
The Rev. Rachel Vaagenes, pastor of Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., started a GoFundMe for LSSNCA in February and quickly raised $25,000 to cover rent for three families in Maryland for three months.
“It’s a drop in the bucket, right? Even if there were a thousand churches doing this, we still couldn’t do what the U.S. government does,” Vaagenes said. “We cannot make up the gap, no matter how much we want to as individual congregations.”
Global Refuge is the parent organization of LSSNCA and has long served as one of 10 national agencies partnering with the federal government to resettle refugees. The vast majority of Global Refuge’s funding comes from state and federal dollars, which accounted for more than 95% of its 2023 budget. It has received no federal reimbursements for work done since Inauguration Day and has laid off hundreds of staff. Nearly 6,000 refugees in its care were within 90 days of arrival, the initial aid window, when it received a stop-work order from the Trump administration.
Across resettlement agencies nationwide, support for at least 30,000 recent arrivals was affected. At LSSNCA, 369 people were within their first 90 days in the U.S.; 850 more clients were eligible for longer-term services.
“We’re seeing the de facto wholesale destruction of a longstanding bipartisan program that saved millions of lives,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge.
Refugees fled instability, only to find more of it in the U.S.
LSSNCA’s capacity has been stretched thin before. The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 led to a surge of Afghans being resettled in the U.S.
LSSNCA went from serving 500 people a year to 500 a month. They staffed up to deal with the influx of Afghans, with case managers working late into the night. The quality of their work suffered: Federal reimbursements were often delayed, and they struggled to provide services. The difference then was they knew the federal government backed their work.
Marjila Badakhsh came to the U.S. in December of 2021. A journalist who worked for a U.S.-funded Afghan media organization, she was evacuated from Kabul, eventually landing at a military base in New Jersey before LSSNCA took her case and she was resettled in Virginia.
She was later hired at LSSNCA, putting her language skills to use with Afghan clients. Though recently promoted, she was among those laid off in January when the agency received its stop-work order.
“I was thinking that I’m stable at this job, and I’m building my career here,” she said. “But right now, after three years, with one policy I’m thinking that I’m back to the day that I came to the United States for the first time, and I should start again.”
She stays busy applying to jobs in Virginia and California, where her brother — who worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Afghanistan — was recently resettled. But her dreams of one day welcoming their parents and sister to the U.S. are on hold after Trump suspended most of the refugee program.
Other LSSNCA clients remain in limbo. Anastasiia De Zoysa fled war-torn Ukraine and received temporary legal status in the U.S. She and her family settled near relatives in Frederick, Maryland, where her husband got a job in his field. But now she worries their status will be revoked.
“I’m willing to go home when it’s safe,” she said, noting her former city is under Russian control. “I have nothing in Ukraine now if I go back.”
The courts are still weighing in
Lawsuits against the Trump administration have been filed over its immigration policies, with one judge ruling in favor of three faith-based resettlement agencies. In a recent court filing, administration lawyers argued that initial refugee benefits are “not required by law.” They indicated it would take months to comply with a court order to restart the program.
This week, Global Refuge received some federal reimbursements for its work during the Biden administration. Those funds came through the Department of Health and Human Services. Global Refuge has not received federal payments for work done since late January, and it has not received reimbursements for the 90-day aid offered through the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Resettlement can be difficult under any circumstances. Rahmani remembers the first lonely weeks in his new town, when he spotted another Afghan man. He called out to him in Dari, his own language, and cried when they hugged.
He now knows of at least 10 recently arrived Afghan families living nearby, and many are also struggling. With his English skills, he often serves as their translator, helping them at appointments.
More and more, Rahmani thinks he will have to go back to Afghanistan, despite the danger.
“If I don’t have the home rent, then I don’t have any other choice,” he said.
At least if something happened to him in Afghanistan, his relatives would be there to care for his wife and children.
“But in the United States,” he said, “there is nobody who would take care of my family.”
Associated Press journalist Gary Fields contributed from Washington.