Farhiyo Ahmed looked forward to going for a walk.
The pregnant Somali refugee would let her parents watch her four kids, under age 8, while she took a little time for herself. But now they’re not coming from a refugee camp in Kenya where they have spent much of their lives and where the 24-year-old Ahmed and her 26-year-old husband, Ali Aden, were both born.
On his first day in office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump suspended all refugee resettlements within the U.S. for at least 90 days.
Ahmed’s parents and brother were scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Jan. 16 but the devastating Southern California wildfires canceled their flight. Four days later, Trump issued his executive order. They sold or gave away everything they owned, including their goats, in anticipation of coming to America. They bought winter clothes that they can’t wear in the heat of Kenya. They’re back at the refugee camp trying to make do.
Through her Catholic Community Services of Utah case manager Abdifatah Wanow, a Somali refugee himself, Ahmed said the bad news left her stressed and with a headache. She’s still feeling that way now.
Ahmed and Aden and their four children, ages 7, 6, 5 and 2, resettled in Utah last June. The kids were excited to see their grandparents again. Ahmed hoped they could live in the same apartment complex. She made a traditional Somali meat dish that takes weeks to prepare that she wasn’t able to share with them.
“I miss all the happiness,” Ahmed said in Somali, with translation from Wanow.
Empty spaces
They weren’t the only refugee family in Utah that had their hopes for reuniting with their loved ones dashed because of Trump’s order.
Catholic Community Services, one of the two refugee resettlement agencies in the state, had rented an apartment and notified family members of their relatives' arrival only to learn their flight was abruptly canceled the day after Trump took office.
“We had to break that heartbreaking news to their loved ones who were waiting. We even bought some of the family food for that evening they were going to come,” said Aden Batar, director of immigration and refugee services for Catholic Community Services of Utah.
Batar said Community Catholic Services lost “several thousand dollars” paying first and last month’s rent and buying furniture for a family that didn’t come. The resettlement pause has created “a lot of chaos,” he said.
“We don’t know at this point when the refugee arrivals will resume. Many of the families that are here are so scared. A lot of them don’t want to talk to the media because they’re afraid ICE will come and knock on their doors,” Batar said.
One of the program’s clients was recently stopped by ICE and didn’t have his identification documents, he said. Agents let him go but told him to keep his papers with him from now on.
“There’s a lot of fear the people are facing,” Batar said of refugees. “The ICE agents that are going out in the community, they don’t know the difference. Anyone who looks different they’re stopping and asking for their legal status.”
How many refugees were coming to the U.S.?
During his first term, Trump cut annual refugee admittance caps to a historic low of about 15,000. That led to funding cuts that crippled or closed some U.S. resettlement organizations. Former President Joe Biden restored the program that resettled more than 100,000 refugees in fiscal year 2024, reaching a 30-year high, USA Today reported.
Last September, Biden signed the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2025, with a goal to admit 125,000 resettled refugees to the United States starting Oct. 1. About 44,000 entered the country before the executive order, according to HIAS, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees, per USA Today.
From last October until January, Utah had resettled about 250 refugees and was expecting another 300 to 400 through the end of September, Batar said.
“The program is well-coordinated and well-organized. We’ve been doing this for many years. It’s not overwhelming the system. It’s not overwhelming the community,” he said.
“But now the (Trump) administration is saying the refugee resettlement is not aligning with American interests. I don’t know where that is coming from because we’ve been doing this program since the ’80s.”
This week, several individuals and refugee resettlement organizations, including Church World Service, HIAS and Lutheran Community Services Northwest asked a federal judge in Washington state to restore the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, per USA Today. They allege the indefinite suspension is unlawful and is causing irreparable harm.
Batar said Catholic Community Services intends to care for refugees, which includes transportation, housing, food, health care and job training, even if the federal government doesn’t reimburse the organization.
“This is going to be creating a lot of disruption of our services but we’ll continue serving people because the refugees don’t know where else to go,” he said.
Waiting is the hardest part
Ahmed and Aden and their four — soon to be five — children arrived in Utah after a seven-year wait. Trump’s first-term caps on refugees kept them from moving in 2017 and it was another three years into the Biden administration before they resettled in 2024.
The family lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Millcreek. Worn leather sofas covered in blankets and a large screen TV on a table are the only living room furniture. A bicycle rests in a corner. The kitchen table only has a couple of chairs. The white walls are bare.
Aden works at a refugee center where he is also learning a trade. He called Utah “nice” and doesn’t mind the snow. The three oldest children attend the local elementary school. They’re learning English and practicing writing the alphabet.
During our visit, Ahmed called her younger brother, Shuri Ahmed, who lives in Logan, on a video chat.
“I’m so sad because I miss all my family,” he said, through the fractured screen on his sister’s cellphone.
Ahmed said through Wanow that she’s new in the country and doesn’t understand how things work when it comes to refugee resettlement. She doesn’t know if her parents will ever make it to Utah.
Maybe she’ll find out in 90 days.
