Last Monday, 59 white South Africans entered the United States after being fast-tracked for receiving refugee status by the Trump administration, which had contentiously declared that they were being subjected to a “genocide.”

Four days later, thousands of Afghanis in California who had been allowed to temporarily settle in the country for fear that they would be persecuted by the Taliban for their support for the U.S. during the war received letters from the Department of Homeland Security telling them to leave within a week. “Don’t attempt to remain in the United States,” the letters read. “The federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”

This juxtaposition — letting in refugees from one country on at least questionable grounds while expelling others — was eminently apparent to Robin Mencher, CEO of Jewish Family and Community Services East Bay, which had worked closely with the Afghan community. 

These moves were the latest in a wider campaign by the White House to limit immigration to the United States and slash grants for related programs, which is upending the refugee resettlement sector, including many Jewish organizations, who have had to make major staffing cuts as a result.

Only days after taking office in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order indefinitely halting all refugee resettlement, stranding thousands of refugees who had been approved to enter the U.S. across the globe, including hundreds of Iranian Jews. HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and other refugee resettlement agencies remain deadlocked in a case against the Trump administration to reinstate funding to resettle tens of thousands of refugees.

While HIAS and some of its affiliates have helped resettle a handful of the South African refugees — including one who has espoused antisemitic beliefs — many human service agencies and religious groups that work with immigrants have declined to work with the Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority who ruled South Africa during apartheid. Earlier this month, the Episcopal Church announced that it would no longer accept federal grants for settling refugees as these would require it to work with the Afrikaners. “In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the church, wrote in a letter to church members.

Even most agencies who criticized the White House for granting refugee status to white South Africans stress that while they don’t support the initiative, if any individual Afrikaner needs help, they will be there for them. 

In general, the feeling within the refugee resettlement community is that this debate is a distraction from the real issues facing the sector, according to Mencher, who referred to it dismissively as “the stunt of Afrikaners,” when she spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy about the matter.

“Bringing more attention to the Afrikaner resettlement situation will contribute to distraction from the real immigration issues,” Mencher said. “It just feeds all of the rest of this craziness, and it doesn’t help our clients.” The organization works with refugees in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in Northern California.

Her agency released a statement about the entry of the Afrikaners stating, “JFCS East Bay will not be diverted by participating in the fulfillment of this Executive Order.” Yet, she added, “if someone lands in the East Bay who came through this and they are in need of support because they don’t have any money, they have high medical need, they need support to sign up for benefits, we’re a humanitarian organization, we will help them.”

Traditionally, the vetting process for refugees is stringent and takes years. That didn’t happen for the Afrikaners who “jumped the line” ahead of others who had been approved and waiting, Reuben Rotman, president and CEO of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, a collective of 170-plus nonprofit Jewish human service organizations, many of whom serve refugees,  told eJP.

“All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the administration decides that they’re going to allow this one narrow population access as refugees,” he said. “They’re going to grant them immediate refugee status.”

Helping the Afrikaners is not seen as essential for most Jewish agencies. “It’s not thousands of people,” Rotman said. “It’s not this pressing, dire emergency because they are sitting in refugee camps and they’re being persecuted and for their own safety, they must get out of their country.”

When a refugee group is approved to enter the U.S., the government contacts resettlement agencies, such as HIAS, to ask if they can accommodate them. In this case, the Afrikaners were spread across nine agencies, with only the one affiliated with the, Episcopal Church refusing. Then these agencies contact local affiliates to ask if they can provide the face-to-face services. Resettlement agencies have no say over who obtains refugee status.

“This all happened at the same time when most, if not all, of our agencies needed to lay off staff because their programs shut down [due to cuts in funding to refugee work],” Rotman said. “Some agencies decided, ‘You know what, ‘No, we don’t have the staffing capacity.’ Others thought about it, and said, ‘Well, wait a minute, no, because are these individuals fleeing persecution? Do they meet the criteria? Did they go through a vetting process?’ This calls into question the integrity of the program. Then there are some who may have said, ‘Yeah, we’ll do it because we want to be the team player.”

Many of Mencher’s staff are first- or second-generation immigrants themselves, often with connections to those waiting to exit Afghanistan. They worry, she said, “if we’re actively not aligning with this administration are we going to make it harder for the real refugees to get here… They don’t want that hanging over them, that they had done something that caused people delay in coming.”

Still, Mencher’s staff are “pros,” and will help anyone in need, she said. “They’re going to do their best job ever, no matter what, and they’re going to take pride in their work, and they’re going to take a humanitarian lens to it.”

Allowing the Afrikaners refugee status while threatening to deport Afghan allies sends a stark message to America’s allies, Mencher said. These Afghans put their lives at risk for the U.S. during the country’s decades of war. “For folks who worked with the U.S. government and specifically the military, who are no longer able to come in and who aren’t safe, there’s a real issue about whether or not anyone will ever help us ever again,” she said.

Still, more Afrikaners are waiting to enter the U.S., with more than 8,000 expressing interest. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said more may be “coming soon.”

If they did come, Rotman said, “I don’t know that that would change the decision-making of any of our agencies.”

A HIAS spokesperson assured eJP that the moment their court case resolves and the Trump administration reopens the Refugee Admissions Program, which HIAS insists he “must” do, HIAS is “ready to provide assistance, compassion and welcome, just as we have done for generations of refugees for over a century.”

If the program reopens, Rotman said, even with agencies’ staff decimated by cuts, they will jump into action. 

“I do believe that the country will return to its roots of being a welcoming safe haven for those fleeing persecution around the globe,” he said. “I couldn’t work in this industry without holding on to hope.”