Are refugees still welcome in Iowa?

When the Trump administration issued a “stop work order” in January, cutting funding to support refugees the federal government invited to legally come to the United States, 11 agencies in Iowa were serving 839 refugees. Of those, more than half (425) were children.

The now-suspended “Reception and Placement Program” in the Department of State has been one of few lines that migrants can stand in to be vetted and accepted into this country. Nonprofit resettlement agencies work in Des Moines, Sioux City, Waterloo, Council Bluffs, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities.

The agencies are being forced to lay off employees helping with interpreting, transportation and connecting refugees with employment, education, housing, health care, grocery stores, language, and other community services. At the same time, the refugees already in Iowa are cut off from the direct assistance they receive to pay for food, housing and other basic needs for their first 90 days in the United States. Their clocks are ticking. Once the 90 days are up, they are on their own.

As of Jan. 24, the 839 refugees in Iowa were due to receive $1.2 million in direct assistance over the following 90 days. The agencies are owed another $1.1 million to provide indirect assistance. State Sen. Sarah Trone-Garriott and others have offered emergency legislation to cover the shortfall from the state General Fund.

Here is another step Iowa can take: The governor (with the Legislature’s permission, if needed) can lend $2.3 million to the 11 agencies so they can fulfill their responsibilities, allowing the people we invited into this country to have the resources they were promised before their time runs out. The agencies can repay the loans when the impounded funds are released by the federal government. I have forwarded this suggestion to a Republican member of the House of Representatives who once told me he has a “passion” for supporting refugees.

The loans need not be ‘forgivable” loans. In the spirit of Iowa’s welcoming history, our community foundations can work to demonstrate the support of grassroots Iowans by committing to backstop the loans (if for some strange reason the courts decide that the federal government was free to abrogate the contracts). If the Iowa Community Foundations do this, I will write the first check. Let’s show the governor we have her back on this.

Because here’s the deal: 90 days is nowhere near enough time for immigrant families to integrate into a new country and community. It could take many a year or more. That requires “wraparound” services to continue community support after 90 days are up.

In 2023, as the world was emerging from the COVID pandemic and the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services granted $5 million in federal funding to 20 agencies for some of these services: English proficiency, digital literacy, banking and financial planning, transportation, health and wellness, services for older refugees and youth supports. Then-State Representative (now Sen.) Art Staed and I engaged with a couple of interested Republicans (Christian ministers), the Iowa Catholic Conference and others to help identify the unmet needs. The proposal (that was never entertained by the Iowa House) was to provide supplementary state funding.

The needs still exist. Not surprising, many of them are unmet even for Iowa citizens: Job skills, child care, housing. Regrettably, with tax cuts and “status quo” budgets the priority, these investments are not being made, much less extended to our refugee friends on a consistent basis.

Who knows, maybe some of the newcomers bolting for other states (while the Department of Economic Development buys billboards in other states to entice people to move here) would decide to stay and help reverse the depopulation of rural Iowa. Many refugees come from rural, agrarian communities in their homelands. Iowa could be taking advantage of (now suspended) initiatives like the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program to help them grow roots in our state.

The World Food Prize Foundation based in Des Moines (new president: former Iowa governor and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack) gets $1 million in annual state funding. Maybe the World Food Prize could help with some pilot projects. After all, Iowa is part of the world, no?

In Fiscal Year 2024, separate from the Reception and Placement Program, Iowa’s Bureau of Refugee Services received $9.5 million from the Office of Refugee Settlement (part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families). Those resources could be used to foster some of these partnerships.

But first, Iowa needs to send a couple of strong messages: 1) Refugees we invited to legally come to Iowa are still welcome here. 2) Community-based nonprofit organizations will continue to have the resources they need to support them.

How little time can it take us to say so?

Chuck Isenhart is a recovering Iowa state legislator offering research, analysis, education and public affairs advocacy and is a volunteer for Presentation Lantern Center in Dubuque, which tutors immigrants in English as a second language. His writing can be found at Chuck Isenhart | Substack