Indiana refugee, immigrant advocacy groups respond to Trump travel ban

INDIANAPOLIS — Months after President Trump signed an executive order banning new refugee admissions, his latest travel ban has since gone into effect, indefinitely prolonging when residents of 12 countries (and some residents of seven other countries) can enter the U.S.

According to the Trump Administration, these nations are deficient with regard to screening and vetting travelers and pose a high risk to U.S. security.

“These are folks trying to leave their country for a better life,” Cole Varga, the CEO of Exodus Refugee Immigration, said.

According to Varga, his organization was supposed to have 80 refugees arrive earlier this year, many with loved ones already here in Indiana.

“So adding another travel ban on top of that, as some of those arrivals were about to resume in the coming weeks, doesn’t seem like too much of a coincidence to us,” Varga said.

In Northeastern Indiana, Catholic Charities Fort Wayne has worked with several clients from Afghanistan who fled following the fall of Kabul. According to Nicole Kurut, the organization’s marketing manager, many had worked to reunite with loved ones they left behind.  

“So a lot of those people were getting fairly close to maybe being reunited, but all of that has been halted at this point,” Kurut said. “Some of them already had plane tickets bought and had made it through the whole refugee process, which can take two years to two decades long.”

But some advocacy groups argue it’s not only about those who are trying to enter the country.

“Travel bans like this have an impact on so many different levels,” Gurinder Kaur, the CEO of the Immigrant Welcome Center in Indianapolis, said.

According to Kaur, the ban also affects people who want to visit loved ones back home, especially students from abroad who may find themselves stranded until further notice.

“Now they want to go back home for the summer, and they can’t reunite with their families,” Kaur said. “That feeling has to be very, very hard for them, that they are just left alone.”

FOX59/CBS4 reached out to the FSSA regarding how the ban could affect its refugee services. The agency told us it had no comment.