President Donald Trump’s executive order severely limiting immigration and refugee travel to the United States has left local organizations grappling to communicate with and respond to the international populations they serve.
The Republican president’s order, which prompted protests at airports and elsewhere across the nation over the weekend, restricts immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Those countries are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen, with Syrian refugee admission suspended indefinitely.
The order also suspends all refugee admission from any country for 120 days. It’s that part of the order that has the Vancouver office of Lutheran Community Services Northwest busy responding to what that means for the area’s large Slavic population. The nonprofit helps resettle and provides support for refugees. Last year, the organization resettled 400 refugees in Clark County.
Mindy Johnston, community director for the Vancouver office, said families who planned to have relatives join them here in Clark County this month through the family reunification process for refugees have now been forced to cancel their travel plans. Families affected include residents of the former Soviet Union, Moldova and Belarus.
That can be a logistical nightmare for families who risk having medical exams — a requirement for resettlement — expire after years of waiting for appointments and approval.
“We have applications from 2011, 2012,” Johnston said. “This is years and years, and it could set them back years again.”
Johnston said there is a small population of Iraqi refugees in Clark County as well.
Local colleges also responded to the order. Kirk Schulz, president of Washington State University, issued a statement pledging support for the university’s international student population and advising non-U.S. citizens and from the seven Muslim majority countries to not travel abroad.
“For decades, Washington State University has invited and welcomed faculty, staff, and students from around the globe to study, teach, and conduct research here,” Schulz wrote. “We are proud of that legacy.”
Clark College spokeswoman Hannah Erickson said there are students on campus from at least one of the listed countries or who have family in those countries. However, students do not have to disclose their country of origin to be admitted to the community college, so there is no exact count on just how many Clark students might be affected.
The college, meanwhile, is posting signs that pledge support for building an inclusive community and opposing discrimination and harassment on campus.
45,000 foreign-born
As of 2015, Clark County had a foreign-born population of about 45,000 people, including about 500 people from the countries included in Trump’s immigration and travel ban, according to Census data.
The total population of the county was estimated as 459,495, so about 10 percent of the community is foreign-born.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey’s five-year estimates, there are 423 people from Iran, 11 from Iraq, 65 from Syria, 0 from Yemen and Somalia and 12 from Sudan living here. The data does not provide numbers from Libya specifically, but there are 16 from “other North African countries” including Libya, Tunisia and Algeria.
The state of Washington, in the last three months of 2016, resettled 1,278 refugees, according to the U.S. State Department. Of those, 189 were Iraqi, 171 were Somalian, 78 were Iranian, 37 were Syrians and seven were Sudanese.
John Hill and Patty Hastings of The Columbian contributed to this report.
