Biden has rebuilt the refugee system after Trump-era cuts. What comes next in an election year?

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A church volunteer stood at an apartment door and beckoned a Congolese family in for a first look at where they would live in America.

“Your new home!” volunteer Dan Davidson exclaimed as the couple and the woman’s brother stepped into the two-bedroom apartment in South Carolina’s capital, smiling hesitantly at what would happen next.

Inside, church volunteers had made quilts for the beds and set up an orange and yellow plastic dump truck and other toys for the couple’s son. The family watched closely as an interpreter showed them the key features of their apartment: which knob went with which burner on the stove, how the garbage disposal and window blinds worked. They practiced working the thermostat and checking the water in the shower.

“We are so happy that we got this place,” Kaaskile Kashindi said through a translator.

Kashindi, now 28, was born in Congo and fled with his family at the age of three to a refugee camp in Tanzania, where he lived until this spring. Then he, his wife, son and brother-in-law moved to Columbia, a university city with 140,000 residents.

“We are still new. We just need help now,” Kashindi said.

Scenes like these are becoming increasingly common as the U.S. refugee program, long a haven for people fleeing violence around the world, recovers from years of budget cuts under Donald Trump’s administration. The Biden administration has worked to streamline the process of screening and placing people in America, while refugee resettlement agencies have opened new sites across the country.

If President Joe Biden meets his target of 125,000 refugees this year, it would be the highest number of arrivals in more than three decades.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in a 2020 rematch with Biden this fall, has pledged to ban refugees from Gaza and reinstate his Muslim ban if elected, while also introducing “ideological screening” for all immigrants. Trump’s website highlights his first-term decision to temporarily suspend the refugee program.

Even as immigration — legal or not — is a divisive campaign issue, many who help refugees settle in the United States say the growing number of refugees has generally been welcomed by communities and employers in need of workers.

The word refugee is sometimes used broadly to refer to anyone fleeing war or persecution. It is often confused with asylum seekers coming straight to the US-Mexico border. People like the family from Congo go through a different process, starting with an application abroad and a thorough vetting that can take years.

Typically, they are referred to U.S. officials by the U.N. refugee agency and then interviewed by U.S. immigration officials. There are background checks and medical screening.

The lucky few who are approved fly to cities across America to start a new life with the help of a nationwide network of resettlement agencies. They are eligible to eventually become citizens.

For decades, America led the world in admitting refugees, with a program that received broad bipartisan support. Trump cut the program to the hilt. By the time he left office in January 2021, he had set a record level of 15,000 refugees per year. But even that goal was not achieved: Only 11,814 refugees came to the US during Trump’s last year, compared to 84,994 at the end of the Obama administration.

Biden said he would restore the US as a place of refuge for refugees. It took a while.

His administration is now admitting more refugees and has added about 150 new resettlement sites nationwide, said Sarah Cross, deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

To reach a goal of 125,000 refugees this year — the highest number since 1992 — the department has ramped up overseas processing and made changes that will streamline all checks refugees undergo while keeping screening strict, Cross said. It has hired more staff and is making more trips to interview potential refugees abroad.

In 2020, Lutheran Services Carolinas resettled approximately 40 refugees in Columbia. This year, the organization expects to welcome about 440 people, said Seth Hershberger, the nonprofit’s director of refugee resettlement and immigration. It has opened new locations in Charleston, Greenville and Myrtle Beach.

“It’s chaotic at times,” Hershberger said from the organization’s office, tucked into a Lutheran church. “But with the support we’ve had … it’s been a good, good journey.”

The office is bustling with case managers, employment experts and other staffers; some were once refugees themselves. These staff and volunteers usually meet arriving refugees and arrange for a meal to be prepared for them.

From there it’s a whirlwind of medical appointments, registering at government offices, opening a bank account, enrolling children in school and finally moving into permanent housing, like the Kashindi family’s apartment. They take classes in what’s called “survival English” — like how to call 911 when someone is sick, or how to remember your address so you can tell someone if you get lost.

In a recent lesson, five refugees sat at desks in a local church. Down the hall, a volunteer watched their children so they could work on learning a new language.

The lesson focused on calendars and days of the week, interspersed with a bit of American culture.

“In America the calendar is very important. … There are a lot of dates you need to know,” says teacher Sarah Lewis, such as their children’s birthdays, doctor’s appointments and more.

Two students were sisters from Honduras who had fled their homes and traveled to Mexico, where they lived for about a year until they learned they had been allowed to come to South Carolina.

Leliz Bonilla Castro said she didn’t know much about Columbia when she arrived, but she loved the warm weather and hospitable people. She said the refugee program had given her and her three children a future.

“For those who want and have the opportunity to come (to this country), this is the best way to save your life and have a better future for your children, which is what we as parents think about most,” she says . said through a translator.

Not long ago, South Carolina was one of several Republican-leaning states opposing efforts to bring in Syrian refugees.

Hershberger, head of resettlement for Lutheran Services, pointed to another event — the U.S. evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans from Kabul during the 2021 troop withdrawal — as a game-changer. It led to a flood of Americans wanting to help.

“When they saw people getting on the plane and fleeing for their lives, I think it struck a chord with a lot of people,” he said.

The nonprofit also hears from employers who would like workers, Hershberger said.

One of them is Jordan Loewen, whose Columbia-based company cleans facilities or fleets like large garbage trucks. It’s “dirty, hard work,” he said.

During the pandemic, when it was difficult to find workers, someone suggested hiring refugees. Loewen tried, and now refugees make up almost half of his workforce. He also recommends the resettlement program to other employers.

In addition to recruiting employees, he said, “It’s amazing to hear where these guys have come from and the struggles they’ve gone through in their lives to get to this point in America.”

Global Refuge, one of 10 national resettlement agencies working with local networks like the one in Columbia, is preparing for what a Trump presidency could mean for its work.

“It’s a huge cloud. We feel like we are reaching a cliff here,” said Megan Bracy, the organization’s resettlement director.

Cross, from the State Department, said the focus is on the momentum to bring in more refugees and the nationwide support that will follow.

“It’s also a program that we see so many Americans eager to continue,” she said.