(Radio Iowa) – Hundreds of new Iowa residents face more challenges as the Trump administration has ordered all resettlement agencies in the U-S to stop providing services to refugees.
Agencies are no longer allowed to access federal funding to find homes for those fleeing persecution. Nick Wuertz, director of refugee services for Lutheran Services in Iowa, says more than 800 individuals have now lost access to this transitional program, and more than half of them are children.
Wuertz says L-S-I covers basic living expenses for the refugees’ first 90 days in the U-S, adding, it’s “the only way families have an opportunity to understand their new community, get on their feet, find jobs and get settled.” Wuertz says roughly 80 percent of L-S-I’s funding comes from the federal government.
