Refugee Resettlement Update

January 28, 2025

Refugee Resettlement Update

We are still working through the implications of the executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), issued last week, followed by the stop-work orders sent to government agencies this week. These unprecedented orders could potentially lead to a complete shutdown of refugee operations, including the provision of services for refugees who are already here.


Established by the Refugee Act of 1980, USRAP embodies the U.S.'s commitment to international humanitarian principles, rooted in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. USRAP is a legal and highly vetted process by which to enter the US. These frameworks guarantee the rights of refugees to seek safety, work, and rebuild their lives. You can read more about this program, and our obligations under it, here.


Here at the JCA, we were approved to resettle 225 refugees in this fiscal year. We resettled 101 before these orders came through; it is unclear if we will be able to resettle any others. The new order took effect on January 27, and will be reviewed every 90 days, though there is no guaranteed end date. During this period, no refugees will be permitted to enter the country except under special visas. This will largely shut down our resettlement program. We had been working closely with HIAS National to adapt our operations and expand services for individuals who have already been resettled; however, the stop work orders and freezing of grants issued this week now makes that work unlikely as well. You can read more information from HIAS on these orders here.


When asked about the uncertainty and its potential impact on the community, JCA employee Rachel Kim said, “I feel deeply for the families who were so close to entering the United States. Coming to America should be a joyful and exciting experience, but now it has become something incredibly heartbreaking.” Several refugees expected to arrive next month have had their travel plans canceled, leaving their future uncertain. One family of seven, whose travel was originally planned over the summer, was set to arrive in January to reunite with the husband’s sister, whom he hasn’t seen in decades. Now, that long-awaited reunion is not happening.


Additionally, Inna Cherednichenko, Preferred Communities Program Manager at the JCA, said, "Clients in the Preferred Communities Program are a unique group, including individuals with chronic and incurable diseases, victims of domestic violence, single parents, youth without parental support, people experiencing depression, and those isolated due to language and other barriers. In my opinion, the actions being taken by the government toward refugees are inhumane. Even if funding was intended to be discontinued, it should have been phased out gradually to allow clients and agencies time to prepare. Since it was done abruptly, it will likely lead to serious consequences for everyone involved."


There is no way to make assumptions right now. We’re simply trying to gather all the information and make decisions based on what we know,” said Refugee Resettlement Director Siobhan Whalen. To read more from Siobhan and learn how resettlement groups in Maine are adapting to the uncertainty of the executive orders, visit: Resettlement Groups in Maine Adapt to Uncertainty After Trump Suspends Refugee Admissions.


We are still working with our national resettlement contacts to unpack these new orders and explore what is possible. We will continue to share updates as they become available. HIAS has provided an excellent article on refugees and how they strengthen our country here. As mentioned above, our refugee resettlement team has settled 101 people so far this fiscal year. They’ve been working incredibly hard and we’re very proud of their efforts. And we’re grateful to all the community support that enables that work. 


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July 18, 2025
Nation’s Largest Teacher’s Union Votes to Sever Ties with ADL, JCA Responds This month, the US’s largest teacher’s union, the National Education Association (NEA)—which is also the teacher’s union of Maine—voted to cut all ties with the ADL: banning their lessons on antisemitism, Holocaust education, and Jewish-American history. According to the proposal, the “NEA will not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics…NEA will not participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.” This vote will now head to the Executive Committee of the NEA for final approval. This is an incredibly disconcerting development. While the ADL does not represent the views of the entire Jewish community, it has built widely respected anti-bias and Holocaust education curricula that are acclaimed for their effectiveness in progressive, centrist, and right-leaning spaces. Banning the ADL will eradicate a pillar of Jewish-American education and handicap the American Jewish community’s ability to fight rising antisemitism in schools. We here at Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine joined 378 other Jewish organizations last week in a joint letter to the NEA’s Executive Committee, strongly urging them to veto this resolution. Along with our friends at the Jewish Federations of North America and Jewish Council for Public Affairs, we are closely monitoring this situation so we can best support Jewish parents and educators in Maine. You can read the communal letter with our organization’s name on it here , and learn more about the situation on Axios . New Polish Plaques Deny Complicity With Nazis When Jews gathered this week for the anniversary of a World War II massacre in the Polish town of Jedwabne, they saw a new installation—one that denied a historical consensus about the grievous events that unfolded there. At the same time, a far-right lawmaker interrupted the memorial gathering — and triggered a police investigation by calling the gas chambers at Auschwitz “fake.” Thursday marked 84 years since the crimes in Jedwabne, a town of less than 2,000 people northeast of Warsaw. In 1941, local residents killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors, most of them in a barn where they were burned alive. An official investigation by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance confirmed in 2002 that the murder was carried out by Poles. But Jedwabne has become a flashpoint in Polish politics, with some far-right politicians claiming it was Germans who perpetrated the massacre and characterizing research on Polish complicity as part of an effort to slander their nation. Read more about this disturbing controversy at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency . Five Hebron Sheikhs Break Away from Palestinian Authority and Call for Peace With Israel Five leading Hebron sheikhs, headed by Sheikh Wadee’ al‑Jaabari, have asked Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat to let Hebron break from the Palestinian Authority and form an “Emirate of Hebron” that would fully recognize Israel as the Jewish state and join the Abraham Accords. The clan leaders have pledged zero tolerance for terror and proposed a joint economic zone that could employ tens of thousands of Palestinians inside Israel. The initiative has drawn cautious interest in Jerusalem, underscoring mounting frustration with the Palestinian Authority among many West Bank Palestinians. If it moves forward, Hebron could become the first Palestinian‑led experiment in clan‑based self‑rule and economic partnership under the wider Abraham Accords umbrella. Read more at The Times of Israel.
July 15, 2025
Honoring the Legacy of Norman I. Godfrey
July 9, 2025
Last month, the Jewish Community Alliance here in Portland, as well as another synagogue in Portland, received a letter. Its typewritten message was simple: “I will kill all at this location for Palestine for Russia.” It hurts to admit that I wasn’t surprised. Since I began my role a few months ago, there has been what feels like at times a firehose of Jew-hatred: on my very first day of work, a white nationalist emailed hundreds of staff members at Portland schools a vile article with racist drawings of Jews lifted straight from Nazi Germany. I have learned of Jewish children finding swastikas scribbled on their belongings at Southern Maine schools. I’ve corresponded with a Jewish woman who was told on a Portland bus that she “belonged in a cemetery” for wearing a Star of David. This isn’t just inflamed rhetoric. In the last two months, there have been two deadly terrorist attacks against the American Jewish community: a firebombing in Boulder, Colorado which killed an elderly Holocaust survivor, and a shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in which a gunman yelling “Free Palestine” shot and killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgram. The irony is that both Yaron and Sarah were peacemakers: Sarah volunteered at an advocacy group which trains young Palestinians and Israelis to work together, and Yaron worked at the Israeli embassy, with a focus on building bridges with the Arab world. Our CEO, Leslie Kirby, and I were at the very same Capital Jewish Museum last month for a conference. In a sad reminder of our new norm, we were told to hide our presence there—no posting, no pictures—until after the event had concluded. There at the museum where the makeshift sidewalk memorial to Yaron and Sarah still gathered fresh flowers, we bowed our heads for a long moment of silence. I looked up to see faces filled with glistening tears—people who knew Yaron and Sarah personally. With these events playing in my mind, I recently went to the synagogue in Portland which had also received a death threat letter. An armed guard greeted us at the door. Sitting there, I wished that modern antisemites could see the room. It was a beautiful, diverse gathering of people, simply thanking God for giving us the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament). We prayed for peace, we read from the Torah, we sang the songs of our ancestors. Grandparents, parents, children, babies. I wish that these Jew-haters could see the works of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, and all the good deeds it does in the community. Every day, I am awed by my coworkers at the JCA, who in the last year alone have distributed over 46,000 diapers, 11,000 menstrual pads, and 500 pairs of winter boots to Mainers in need; they’ve helped hundreds of refugees secure life-saving medical care, housing, and first jobs; they’ve created “Mitzvah Days” where Jewish volunteers package meals for the needy and clean up Maine trails; they lend our space out to diverse cultural groups, including hosting last month’s World Refugee Day. It is incredible what the people on our staff do on a daily basis. It is fully in line with the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam—the practice of repairing our broken world. And yet, there are groups that not only wish for Jewish death, but celebrate it. After the Capital Jewish Museum shooting, the DSA Liberation Caucus, which is a subgroup of the Democratic Socialists of America but does not speak for the organization as a whole, posted a picture of the shooter, Elias Rodriguez, with the words “Build the International Popular Cradle of Resistance!” underneath him. Their statement read: “Rodriguez’ targeted attack on two Israeli diplomatic staff on May 21, 2025 was a legitimate act of resistance…[his] act was fully justified.” They might as well have continued: slaughter anyone associated with Israel or Judaism, and you will be glorified. I have no doubt that were a terrible attack to happen to the Maine Jewish community, those same people would gleefully celebrate it. But we know this is absolutely not true of the Portland or Maine community at large. Just like we as a Jewish community condemn prejudice and hatred, just as we as a society can condemn racism and homophobia and Islamophobia, so too should we identify and condemn Jew-hatred—whether it emerges from bigots who wrongfully exploit the Palestinian cause to kill, threaten, or bully Jewish people, or from losers who drape themselves in the fetid symbols of Neo-Nazism. We very much look forward to tackling this issue of antisemitism together as a community. Please continue to read for an update of what we’ve done so far, and an invitation to join our work.
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