‘We owe them’: Iowa resettlement leaders tout progress, urge Congress to act as Trump slashes refugee admissions

Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI) says it turned a crisis into momentum — even as the nation’s refugee infrastructure has been dramatically scaled back.

Nicholas Wuertz, LSI’s director of immigrant and refugee community services, said a federal stop-work order in January abruptly halted funding for newly arrived families across the agency’s Des Moines, Sioux City and Waterloo offices. The freeze affected 191 people — 57 percent of whom where children — including 153 refugees and 38 Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders. Most had just arrived to the country in the prior three weeks.

By June 26, LSI had “placed all families in sustainable employment, connecting 125 individuals to Iowa employers,” Wuertz said, crediting “generous individuals, congregations, organizations and local governments who stood with LSI.”

Those local gains now run headlong into national headwinds. Late last month, the Trump administration set the fiscal year refugee ceiling at 7,500 — the lowest in the modern program’s history — while prioritizing white South Africans for most slots, a move refugee groups condemned as politicizing humanitarian protection and sidelining Afghans and others at acute risk, the Associated Press reported.

  Buy Photo

Iowa advocates push for Afghan Adjustment Act

Iowa service providers and Afghan community members say the Afghan Adjustment Act — reintroduced in August by U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and cosponsored by fellow Iowa Republican Zach Nunn — would provide a conditional path to permanent residency for tens of thousands of evacuees paroled into the United States after the 2021 fall of Kabul, while strengthening vetting and improving government coordination and reporting. A companion Senate bill was introduced Aug. 1.

Laura Thako, LSI’s assistant director of immigrant and refugee community services, said Iowa legal partners estimate roughly half of Afghans in the state still lack a clear path to permanence. In Central Iowa, Thako said the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice has assisted more than 750 Afghan parolees, SIV holders and refugees; 418 have filed for adjustment of status, while 332 are still awaiting asylum or SIV decisions. With other providers also serving Afghans statewide, MMJ estimates roughly half of Afghans in Iowa still lack a clear path to permanent residency.

Wuertz said advocates recently pressed Iowa Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst to join the Senate effort.

Miller-Meeks, a 24-year Army veteran, said she was proud to help lead the renewed bipartisan effort alongside Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado.

  Buy Photo

“These men and women fought beside our troops and served alongside us with courage and loyalty,” Miller-Meeks said in a statement. “President Trump is right to call attention to their sacrifice, and we are answering that call by moving forward on legislation that honors our commitment.”

For more than two decades, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan depended on thousands of Afghan translators, interpreters and civic leaders who risked their lives and families to aid American troops and diplomats — with a promise of safety in return.

The Afghan Adjustment Act seeks to fulfill that commitment by creating a pathway to permanent residency for Afghans brought to the U.S. under temporary humanitarian parole after the 2021 withdrawal. The bipartisan legislation would allow eligible Afghans to undergo additional vetting, including in-person interviews, before adjusting their status — offering long-term stability similar to measures Congress has passed after past U.S. conflicts, from Vietnam to Iraq.

‘There is a debt we owe to these folks’

For many Iowans who supported U.S. missions abroad — and the Afghan allies who stood beside them — the case is moral, strategic and practical.

“There is a debt that we owe to these folks,” Wuertz said. “Whatever needs to be done to pass something to help adjust status here, to continue to protect those abroad and ensure that there’s a more robust refugee resettlement process that allows Afghans to come, I think is needed.”

  Buy Photo

Fazal Moneer Adil, an LSI employment navigator who worked with U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan, addressed recurring objections about vetting.

“Every individual who served with the U.S. military intelligence or diplomatic missions in Afghanistan, they went through extensive security screening,” involving the FBI, CIA and Department of Defense, he said.

He added that keeping families separated compounds danger for relatives still at risk.

Emal Hotak, an LSI interpreter and caseworker who arrived in Iowa in 2015 on a Special Immigrant Visa after serving with U.S. forces, said many Afghans here are working, studying English and raising families while worrying about loved ones abroad and expiring documents.

  Buy Photo

“We need the support here and also back in Afghanistan,” he said, citing clients whose work authorizations lapsed, passports expired or travel documents stalled while relatives face threats or cannot afford to travel to another country for visa processing.

Many still live under temporary humanitarian parole without a path to permanent residency, struggle to reunite with family members abroad, and face expiring work permits, missing documents, and financial insecurity. Others cope with emotional strain as relatives remain in danger overseas, Hotak said.

Adil recounted stories of Afghans trapped in peril or unable to reach safety, and said many fear deportation without congressional action.

Both emphasized the resilience and contributions of Afghan families, but said stability depends on passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act to secure their legal future and keep America’s promise to its allies.

Humanitarian investment pays dividends

LSI leaders emphasize that humanitarian programs also deliver long-term economic returns. A federal study by HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation found that from 2005—2019, refugees and asylees generated a net positive fiscal impact of about $123.8 billion, paying more in taxes than they used in services at federal, state and local levels.

“I always like to remind people that the U.S. humanitarian immigration pathways … are not only important for moral and humanitarian reasons, but they positively impact federal, state and local economies,” Wuertz said.

  Buy Photo

Trump’s refugee cap — paired with earlier orders that paused admissions and froze resettlement funds in January — has already strained Iowa’s network. Local agencies say they can stabilize newly arrived families for a time through donations, but without predictable federal support and a functioning admissions pipeline, caseloads become harder to manage, family reunifications stall, and employers lose access to work-ready newcomers as labor market needs persist.

For Afghans specifically, advocates warn that the new national policy largely shuts them out of refugee admissions even as many eligible family members remain in danger abroad. Operation Allies Welcome brought more than 76,000 Afghan evacuees to the U.S. beginning in 2021, most on temporary humanitarian parole — a status that does not itself lead to a green card.

Against that backdrop, Adil issued a stark warning about the cost of inaction: “If this legislation doesn't get passed, it means that those who are in limbo … will be deported eventually. And I think it will be something that hurts the United States’ future — the future partnership that we will need to make in future with other countries or other people.”

Afghans are building lives here — if policy keeps pace

Despite the uncertainty, Hotak said he sees “a bright future” for his children and for Afghan families learning English, enrolling at Des Moines Area Community College and advancing at work. Adil echoed that hope, pointing to friends studying cybersecurity while supporting families — evidence, he said, that Afghans are “rising” and invested in Iowa’s future.

Wuertz called the Afghan Adjustment Act a practical fix with bipartisan roots.

“People gave up their lives to support our military,” he said. “They've put down roots here, and they're now investing in our U.S. communities and our U.S. economy. They're working for our employers. Their kids are in school, and so they continue to help support the U.S. through their livelihoods here in our country, and yet we are still not doing what we need to do right by them.”

For now, Iowa’s resettlement community keeps doing the work — connecting Iowans to employees, children to classrooms and families to a foothold. But without federal follow-through, advocates say, the state’s successes will be overshadowed by unfinished promises.

“We must remember that America's moral strength is not measured only on the battlefield, but also how we honor those who stood beside us,” Adil said. “Passing this bill will show the world that and ourselves, that America keeps its promises. … If you fail to pass this bill, we fail to keep these people here, and this will be a big distrust in our future partnership in missions like we had in Afghanistan.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com