This article originally appeared on kut.org on March 23, 2017
By ASHLEY LOPEZ
The federal refugee resettlement program has faced a lot of uncertainties in the past several weeks, and folks who work with refugees here in Austin say it’s making their work more complicated than usual.
The Trump administration’s second iteration of its travel ban was stopped several days ago from going into effect. However, officials have vowed to continue to defend the ban in court.
Simone Talma Flowers, the executive director of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, says this uncertainty has put her group in an uncomfortable position.
For now, she says, the organization is telling refugees not to travel.
“Which is really hard because they are here legally, and we want them to roam free,” Flowers says. “But at the same time [we want] to let them know what their rights are, so that they could be informed, because many of them have come from nations where they have had no rights.”
Interfaith Action of Central Texas teaches English to refugees here in Austin. It also provides cultural information. But mostly, Flowers says, it is a resource. She says it answers questions about what refugees should expect here.
“This is the first time, really, that we have been in a situation where it’s like, ‘Well we don’t know,’” she says. “There is such uncertainty… We are in a different space right now that we have never experienced before.”
