Global Refuge Condemns Arrest and Detention of Lawfully Resettled Refugees in Minnesota

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 14, 2025

Baltimore, Md. — Global Refuge strongly condemns the Trump administration’s arrest and detention of lawfully resettled refugees in Minnesota as an unprecedented and deeply alarming escalation, upending decades of U.S. refugee policy and inflicting needless harm on families who were invited to rebuild their lives in safety.

The enforcement actions are part of Operation PARRIS, focused on refugees who have already been admitted to the U.S. after an intensive vetting process, but who remain on refugee status while awaiting adjudication of their applications for lawful permanent residency. Under longstanding law, refugees are required to apply for lawful permanent residency one year after arrival, but approval is contingent on government processing, much of which has been delayed or suspended by the Trump administration.

Additionally, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) previously announced its intention to review and potentially re-interview the cases of more than 200,000 refugees who were lawfully admitted to the United States between 2021 and early 2025.

“By reopening settled refugee cases and treating lawful residents as perpetual suspects, the administration is deliberately injecting fear and instability into communities that have already been subjected to extraordinary trauma,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Global Refuge. “Arresting them months or years later, often because their green card applications are stalled by government backlogs, is not about security or integrity. It is about rewriting the rules after the fact and making families pay the price for a system the administration itself has frozen.”

Global Refuge has helped resettle refugees in Minnesota for decades alongside its community and faith-based partners. Sweeping enforcement actions there — paired with inflammatory rhetoric, the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, and the mass redeployment of federal agents — risk stigmatizing an entire community while doing nothing to address legitimate concerns about fraud through targeted, lawful means.

“If the administration has concerns about fraud, the answer is precision and due process, not dragnet enforcement that ensnares children, parents, and long-standing community members,” Vignarajah said. “A government that terrorizes refugee families to score a political point is revealing a profound moral collapse, not a commitment to the law.”

Global Refuge calls on the administration to immediately halt arrests, out-of-state transfers, and detentions of resettled refugees; provide transparency regarding the legal authority and scope of Operation PARRIS; and ensure that no refugee is deprived of liberty without meaningful due process. We also urge Congress to exercise robust oversight and reaffirm that refugee protection is a promise that cannot be suddenly revoked through administrative fiat.

“For more than 85 years, Global Refuge has helped refugees and immigrants rebuild their lives and contribute to the communities they now call home,” concluded Vignarajah. “We stand with Minnesota’s refugee families and with all those who believe that America’s strength lies not in fear, but in fairness, the rule of law, and the dignity of every person seeking safety.”