A Michiana nonprofit that’s helped resettle refugees has reluctantly decided to stop that work. It’s because the Trump Administration is only allowing white South African refugees into the country.
United Religious Community has decided that for the federal fiscal year starting Thursday, they’ll no longer work to help new refugees resettle locally.
“We’re sad about that," says John Pinter, the group's executive director. "If it’s only going to be one population we just feel there’s a real missing element to that.”
From 2021 to last year they helped Afghanis and Ukrainians resettle in South Bend and Elkhart.
Two years ago the U.S. helped 125,000 refugees resettle from all countries. The administration will allow just 17,500 refugees in the coming fiscal year and only white South Africans.
Pinter says the URC hopes to do the work again if the next administration holds a different view.
“It’s a welcoming community so I would hope that the community, if in fact resettlement returns to something closer to what it used to be, that the community would be open to do that but at the moment we just don’t see that happening.”
Pinter says the group this year has helped about 70 white South Africans settle in Michiana, and they’ll help a few more of their relatives coming to join them.
