Exodus Refugee Immigration reacts to Trump's immigration orders

President Donald Trump’s first day in office included taking action on some of his immigration campaign promises.

Shortly after being sworn into office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders. The orders include declaring a national emergency at the southern border and suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

“To demonize them just because they’re a different color, they speak a different language, or from a different country, is absurd, because if we go back far enough in each of our own individual ancestries, we will find a moment where one of our ancestors went through that very thing too,” said Cole Varga, CEO of Exodus Refugee Immigration.

Exodus works to bring refugees and asylees to Indiana. In 2024, the organization’s teams in Indianapolis and Bloomington together welcomed more than 800 new refugees to Indiana in 2024.

Varga described the last few months as busy for his team trying to get as many refugees to Indiana as possible. Now he said they have to wait and see what happens, leaving some refugees in limbo.

“We have 114 people scheduled on the books for February, and now, at this point, it looks like those folks likely will not be able to resettle anymore,” Varga said. “We hope that changes.”

Varga said that includes families here that were awaiting to be reunited and are now separated with the rest of the family unable to arrive. Despite the actions elected officials are taking, he said he has found people in Indiana are welcoming to refugees, some even helping move furniture into an arriving family's apartment.

Varga said that was seen during President Trump’s first term in office, and while the administration put in place refugee restrictions, he found the national policy did not reflect Hoosiers opinions.

“Overwhelmingly, people are actually very supportive of refugee resettlement and of the policy of asylum, which is both baked into international and federal law,” Varga said.

Contact WFYI All Things Considered newscaster and reporter Samantha Horton at shorton@wfyi.org.