NEW MILFORD, Conn. — Rogers Lopez knows just how lucky his family is as they settle into their furnished two-bedroom apartment in suburban Connecticut, just before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Lopez, his wife Karina Cañizarez and their 5-year-old son Jesus are refugees from Venezuela and Colombia who were embraced by a team of supportive volunteers when they arrived in December. Similar encounters happened nationwide as resettlement groups scrambled in the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration to find homes for refugees before Trump sharply limits, if not closes, this path to safety and citizenship.
“Always, the refugee process is very difficult,” said Lopez, 29, who said “political problems” forced him from Venezuela. “But it will be more difficult in the future.”
The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has brought in more than 3 million people since Congress created it in 1980 for refugees fearing persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion.
Trump, who put tight limits on refugees in his first term, has vowed to “suspend refugee resettlement” as part of a broader effort to “immediately end the migrant invasion of America.”
Presidents set targets and Biden ramped them up, citing “the generosity that has always been at the core of the American spirit,” and the billions of dollars refugees have contributed to the U.S. economy.
Nearly 30,000 refugees arrived during the final three months of 2024, coming close to meeting Biden’s annual cap of 125,000. Trump admitted about 11,000 during the final year of his first term, the fewest since the U.S. began resettlements.
“People are desperate to do the work right now because we have a pretty good idea that all immigration is going to cease, at least for a while, when he takes office,” said Michele Shackelford, president of the New Milford Refugee Resettlement group that’s helping Lopez and his family.
Often conflated with asylum-seekers who come directly to the U.S.-Mexico border, these refugees face a much more rigorous process. If the U.N. refugee agency determines they qualify, they are interviewed by U.S. immigration officials and must pass criminal background checks and medical screening. It can take years.
Aware that Trump can close the doors almost immediately, Maria Mostajo, a former Manhattan prosecutor, and Carolyn Setlow, a retired business executive, have been working furiously to settle families in Connecticut through a project they founded in their small town of Washington.
“If Trump comes in and either puts the kibosh on these entries or, as he’s done in the past, reduces the number of people that can enter per year, then that basically means all these people that are in the pipeline, fewer and fewer of them are actually going to get in,” Mostajo said.
During the fall of the U.S.-supported government in Afghanistan, Mostajo and Setlow held a community meeting, appealing for volunteers and funds to help settle one Afghan family of six. Through various fundraising efforts, including a GoFundMe campaign and a party donated by a local distillery, they raised $80,000, as well as donations of furniture, and clothing, free legal help, English tutoring and other assistance.
She and Setlow realized that their Washington Resettlement Project could leverage support for more refugees by providing grants of up to $10,000 to other volunteers. Since the election, they have awarded grants to the New Milford group and three others, with two more in the pipeline, Mostajo said.
After Trump’s victory, global charities such as Church World Service urged volunteers across the U.S. to quickly create more private sponsorship groups as part of Welcome Corps, a U.S. State Department initiative launched in 2023 to encourage teams of citizens to take responsibility for incoming refugees. Groups need to raise a minimum of $2,425 per refugee to cover their initial 90 days of living expenses.
Larger resettlement organizations make the matches. For Connecticut, federal officials told Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services in New Haven to expect about 130 arrivals between late November and January. IRIS, which receives $2,375 per refugee from the State Department, reached out to around 50 community groups to resettle as many as possible before Inauguration Day, according to Mohammad Daad Serweri, who manages the sponsorships at IRIS.
In just two weeks, the New Milford volunteers managed to find an apartment and fill it with food, toys and thrift store furniture. They hope the Lopez-Cañizarez family will be integrated into the community, find jobs and be ready to fully take over their living expenses within a year.
The couple didn’t realize they’d receive such help, and never dreamed they could live in a place where they would feel so safe.
“We had no idea,” Cañizarez said in Spanish. “This has been marvelous for us because these are excellent people … they took us in like we are family.”