Aid groups sue over Trump’s order suspending federal refugee programme

Major refugee aid groups sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president’s executive order suspending the federal refugee resettlement programme and funding for resettlement agencies.

The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Seattle asks the court to declare Mr Trump’s executive order illegal, stop the order’s implementation and restore refugee-related funding.

“President Trump cannot override the will of Congress with the stroke of a pen,” Melissa Keaney, a lawyer at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a news release.

“The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect refugees, and the longer this illegal suspension continues, the more dire the consequences will be.”

President Donald Trump’s recent order said the refugee programme — a form of legal migration to the US — would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by “record levels of migration” and did not have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees.”

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and individuals, including refugees.

The organisations say their ability to provide critical services to refugees in the US and abroad has been severely inhibited by Mr Trump’s order.

It already has impacted refugees who had been approved to come to the US by having their travel cancelled on short notice and kept families hoping to reunite apart, the lawsuit says.

It argues that the refugee suspension is unlawful and violates Congress’ authority to make immigration laws.

The federal refugee programme has been in place for decades and helps people who have escaped war, natural disaster or persecution. Despite longstanding support for accepting refugees, the program has become politicised in recent years.

Refugees undergo an extensive vetting process that can take years. They are usually referred to the US State Department by the United Nations.

While the resettlement program has historically enjoyed bipartisan support, the first Trump administration also temporarily halted it and then dramatically lowered the number of refugees who could enter the US each year.

Seven of the 10 federally funded national agencies that resettle refugees are faith-based.

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to Mr Trump’s immigration policies, including his order to end automatic citizenship for children born to people in the country illegally and his order to shut down asylum access at the southern border.