BRUSSELS (AN) – The U.N. refugee agency has frozen $300 million of its suspended U.S. funding, ending cooperation in a U.S.-led program that had helped give legal options for Latin American refugees and migrants.
The decision impacts 600 jobs and reflects a need "to mitigate liquidity risks should U.S. payments remain delayed," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in an email to his global staff on Wednesday.
"These efforts will encompass just over $300 million of planned activity. I fully recognize the disruption this measure entails, and its impact on the outcomes we seek to achieve. I count on your full commitment in these cost-saving efforts – no efficiency will be too small," Grandi said.
"Activities and positions that are exclusively attributable to United States funding will be immediately suspended," he said, including "activities linked to resettlement to the United States or the Safe Mobility Initiative."
Former U.S. President Joe Biden's administation set up "Safe Mobility Initiative" hub offices in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Guatemala, where people could get legal U.S. immigration options aimed at cutting down on illegal, life-threatening attempts to cross the Mexico-U.S. border.
Their options inclouded family-based visas, an immigration program known as humanitarian parole, the refugee program, and work visas.
The U.S.-led initiative to provide more legal immigration pathways and restrict asylum requests also was being extended to help people fleeing toward the border to resettle in Canada, Greece, Italy and Spain.
President Donald Trump's executive orders that shut down the hub offices, suspending a program that let people fleeing war and persecution to enter the U.S. after passing rounds of interviews and screenings. His orders directed U.S. border agents to deport people without giving them the ability to request legal protection.
The orders also drew legal challenges from groups and plaintiffs that include refugees whose travel to the U.S. was canceled on short notice and families still unable to reunite after years of separation.
“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," said Melissa Keaney, a senior supervising attorney at the New York-based International Refugee Assistance Project.
In a speech last year in Washington, Grandi called the initiative "an impressive feat of collaboration" between the Biden administration, key host countries, the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration, or IOM, and the Geneva-based Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR.
He praised the efforts at "setting up a one-stop-shop mechanism for resettlement and migration pathways in multiple countries in a matter of months. Together, we have achieved a proof of concept! But to reach its full potential, this initiative needs to be broadened to reach further eligible populations and must be part of a comprehensive ecosystem of well-coordinated efforts."
'Sparing no effort' to talk with the Trump administration
The Geneva-based IOM sent dismissal notices to 3,000 staff working on the U.S. resettlement program, Devex reported on Tuesday.
“The loss of funding from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, USRAP, meant we had to notify about 3,000 of our colleagues that their jobs will be ending,” IOM's Director General Amy Pope told staff. Pope, a former senior advisor on migration to Biden, added that further cuts were likely.
Her agency said at the start of the month that it was experiencing "rising demand for return assistance across Latin America and the Caribbean," in countries such as Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Panama, as the U.S. slashes immigration.
"IOM is expanding efforts to help migrants return home, reintegrate, and rebuild their lives," it said. "Working closely with governments and humanitarian partners, IOM ensures that returns are voluntary, sustainable and managed in a safe, orderly, and dignified manner."
On Wednesday, Grandi told his global staff that UNHCR's "financial outlook is particularly uncertain at the moment, given the temporary ‘freeze’ on our ability to spend funds allocated to us by our biggest donor, the United States."
As previously reported by Arete News, the budget freeze is part of almost $700 million that UNHCR already received from the United States. The Trump administration directed UNHCR not to spend any of it while a 90-day pause and review of all U.S. foreign aid is conducted.
"As a result, we must be very cautious in containing our expenditures in the coming weeks to mitigate the impact of this uncertainty on refugees, on our operations, and on our teams," Grandi said in his latest email.
Grandi assured staff, however, that he and his senior managers were "sparing no effort in engaging with the U.S. government, including to follow up on exemption waivers and submit new ones. In the meantime, we continue to advocate for more funding and for faster disbursement from other major donors."
"We are also redoubling efforts to diversify our donor base," he added,
"and we will continue to invest in strengthening refugee self-reliance, work toward making responses to displacement more sustainable, and become less dependent on the unpredictability of humanitarian funding."
