Federal Agencies Blocked From Implementing Trump’s Refugee Order

Federal agencies that pulled funding for a group of refugee organizations in response to President Donald Trump’s order to suspend a key resettlement program went beyond their statutory authority, a federal judge said.

A nationwide preliminary injunction is warranted since the refugee resettlement program “functions as an integrated whole, with interconnected processes spanning international borders and domestic agencies,” Judge Jamal N. Whitehead of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington wrote in a Feb. 28 order, which outlined the details of a preliminary injunction he granted on Feb. 25.

The plaintiffs—which include individual refugee applicants and organizations that aid in implementing the US Refugee Assistance Program—are also facing irreparable harms that “compound daily and cannot be remedied after the fact,” the judge said.

Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order to suspend the US Refugee Assistance Program “effectively nullifies a congressionally established program” and oversteps the president’s authority to suspend refugee admissions, Whitehead said.

The agencies responsible for administering the USRAP—including departments of State and Homeland Security—notified groups within days of Trump’s order that they were indefinitely pausing the processing of refugee applicants, terminating already-planned travel, and withholding funding for the organizations.

Whitehead’s order prohibits top agency officials from withholding funding and reimbursements for resettlement organizations and suspending any USRAP procedures, including applicant processing.

The agencies’ actions “contradict the clear intent of Congress” to provide a domestic system for the admission of refugees into the US and “represent substantive expansions of the Executive Order they purport to carry out,” Whitehead said.

The International Refugee Assistance Project and Perkins Coie LLP represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Pacito v. Trump, W.D. Wash., No. 2:25-cv-00255, 2/28/25.