Facing These Hardships Together
We don’t need to tell you that this is a brutal time for refugees and asylum seekers in the United States. The news about the attacks of the federal administration against all immigrants is constant and overwhelming. We want to share the issues to date and the expected impacts for those in Vermont, as well as what CVRAN is doing to try to mitigate the impacts.
The most obvious and terrifying threat is monumental growth of the size, scope, and power of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). (NPR interview). We see the news daily of farm and workplace raids and detentions of legal permanent residents, asylum seekers, visa holders, and undocumented immigrants. These detentions are happening in Vermont– arrests here have increased 126% this year compared with last year– and many of the individuals and families we work with are impacted.
The fear of detention and deportation creates problems on all levels for New Vermonters–from the practical to the emotional. Daily, immigrants have to make choices about how to stay safe–where to go or avoid going. They are scared to go to their regularly scheduled immigration appointments, to go to work, to gather with friends, to leave their homes. They are scared to be separated from their family members.
The stress of this kind of fear and the isolation it can create is profound. It may be even more difficult for those who have already experienced trauma in their home countries and on their journey to Vermont. We provide as much support as possible–through information, friendship, and referrals to mental health support. We have also worked hard to create rapid response emergency preparedness plans for our organization and with each family and family friends.
In addition to the seemingly indiscriminate arrests, new ICE directives are specifically targeting the people we work with. Most asylum seekers enter the country without documentation, then apply for asylum upon arrival. The asylum process usually takes years, and during that time, most asylum seekers get work permission, find housing and jobs, and begin to build a life here while they wait. Now, people who entered the US without authorization within the past two years are subject to detention, even if they have applied for asylum while here. So instead of living freely and contributing to our communities while their asylum claims are being decided in immigration court, they would populate detention centers. Further, bonds will be granted to asylum seekers on an exception basis, making it more difficult to obtain release if someone is detained. CVRAN worked with our regional collaborative to create a grant-funded network-wide bond fund, pooling resources to ensure funds are available to post bonds when needed. We also collaborate with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, VT Law School’s Center for Justice Reform Clinic, as well as lawyers in private practice around the country to make sure that our New Vermonters have access to excellent representation.
New policies are raising the costs of applying for asylum and waiting for asylum. There are now fees for filing asylum applications, plus an annual asylum fee each year that the asylum application remains pending—even though applicants have no control over the backlogs and interview scheduling. There is now a fee for a first time work permit application, and an increased fee to renew the permit (VAAP fee info). CVRAN received a grant from Ben & Jerry’s to help cover the cost of these increased fees for the next year.
The recent budget bill is cutting health care coverage for millions of Americans, including refugees. Medicaid has been available to refugees (not to asylum seekers), and many of our families benefit from its coverage. Reportedly in October 2026, Medicaid will be cut for most refugees, as well as many other low income Vermonters. (Stateline article) These cuts will decrease health care access and increase costs to immigrants and to Vermonters. VT Digger has just written a good article on how the federal policy changes will affect health care access for noncitizens in VT (VT Digger article). There are also changes to SNAP eligibility which are likely to limit ‘food stamp’ access to many refugee families (SNAP changes).
The federal administration is freezing funding and dismantling programs in the Department of Education. In the past few weeks, they withheld millions of dollars in federal funding from Vermont, impacting adult learning centers across the state, institutions which offer residents a path to earn a high school diploma or GED, as well as offer English language classes and workforce development programs. CVRAN collaborates regularly with Central Vermont Adult Education. If they are diminished, New Vermonters will have less access to these vital programs. (VT Digger article) The CVRAN Board sent letters to our Federal Delegation to describe the impacts these cuts will have on immigrants in VT. We received encouraging responses, including a letter Senator Welch sent to the Dept of Education with multiple senators. VT’s attorney general joined a multi-state lawsuit to fight the funding freezes (Seven Days article). In this case, the funding was fully restored last week, solving the immediate crisis. Nevertheless, this episode signals the administration’s intentions for future funding and is consistent with the all out assault on institutions and programs that provide support for immigrants.
All of these new policies and efforts to dismantle programs dramatically drive up the costs of supporting refugees and asylum seekers. Of course this is by design, adding strain and stress on immigrants and on the entire network of community groups trying to assist and support them. CVRAN is doing what we can to plan ahead for these cascading waves of increased financial burden on our families and our organization. We are working to systematize our spending, minimizing any costs we can manage. Ultimately, we will need to raise more money from all potential funding sources–private and public grants and individual donors. We are already having some very positive experiences applying for familiar and new grants and even being sought out by grantors who are interested in supporting us. Our fundraising committee is just barely one year old now, and we are expanding our efforts. We will be sending out monthly fundraising emails via Givebutter, a new fundraising platform we are trying. (You can unsubscribe if you don’t want to receive them!) They also highlight interesting work we are doing, like our July focus on children’s enrichment programming–the Summer Reading Program and Summer camps. In September we will launch our Second annual Fall Fundraiser with an ambitious goal. More on that soon!
The community support for CVRAN gives us courage and resilience to keep our focus on our vision– to build, in partnership with others, a vibrant, inclusive global community in Central Vermont, where refugees and asylum seekers find hope, engagement, empowerment, and a strong sense of belonging. We aim to help our new neighbors do more than just meet basic needs; we seek full, rich lives of thriving and joy amidst the undeniable hardships.
