116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Cedar Rapids agency to resettle fewer refugees than planned
CEDAR RAPIDS - The number of refugees to be resettled by a Cedar Rapids social service agency this year has been cut in half, following an executive order signed in January by President Donald Trump.
Paula Land, executive director of the Catherine McAuley Center, 866 Fourth Ave. SE, said her organization - which provides services to the homeless in the Cedar Rapids area - committed in January to working with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants to become a primary refugee settlement organization.
The center had agreed to help about 10 families, or 75 individuals.
On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, which put a hold on refugee settlement in the United States for 120 days and reduced the cap for refugees admitted to the country in 2017 from 110,000 to 50,000.
Because of that change, Land said the Committee for Refugees and Immigrants informed the center last week that the number of individuals they are to resettle has decreased from 75 to 38 refugees.
'We anticipated it given what the president wants,” Land said. 'We're grateful for every life we're able to save and give opportunity and hope to. We're very sad for those families who aren't being reunited.”
Land said the majority of refugees the center is going to work with are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Africa, or Burma, in Southeast Asia. Most of the refugee families are to be settled near Iowa City, she added.
Though Land said she still doesn't have a definitive timeline as to when the refugees are to arrive in Eastern Iowa, she hopes to settle the individuals by October.
'There's no real understanding of who is going to be prioritized,” Land said. 'There have been many people who are assured, but we don't know when they will be able to come.”
Land said she's seen an significant response from volunteers offering to help refugees settle in Eastern Iowa when they arrive.
'We've exceeded the number of volunteers we would have had enquire in a year's time,” she said.
l Comments: (319) 368-8516; makayla.tendall@thegazette.com
Mushabah Alfani and tutor Alice McCabe, both of Cedar Rapids, find Morocco on a world map during a language lesson at the Catherine McAuley Center in Cedar Rapids on Monday, Jan. 30, 2017. Alfani fled the Democratic Republic of Congo during the Congolese Civil Wars and was at a refugee camp in Zambia for several years before being settled in Columbus, Ohio, as a refugee. He moved to Cedar Rapids in 2014. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
Paula Land is executive director of the Catherine McAuley Center.
Colors, cardinal directions and continents are bomvined in one lesson for Mushabah Alfani of Cedar Rapids during a language lesson with tutor Alice McCabe of Cedar Rapids at the Catherine McAuley Center in Cedar Rapids on Monday, Jan. 30, 2017. Alfani fled the Democratic Republic of Congo during the Congolese Civil Wars and was at a refugee camp in Zambia for several years before being settled in Columbus, Ohio, as a refugee. He moved to Cedar Rapids in 2014. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
The Catherine McAuley Center is located at 866 Fourth Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
Mushabah Alfani of Cedar Rapids studies a world map during a language lesson with tutor Alice McCabe of Cedar Rapids at the Catherine McAuley Center in Cedar Rapids on Monday, Jan. 30, 2017. Alfani fled the Democratic Republic of Congo during the Congolese Civil Wars and was at a refugee camp in Zambia for several years before being settled in Columbus, Ohio, as a refugee. He moved to Cedar Rapids in 2014. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
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