Maia Nehme, Contributing Photographer

New Haven’s Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS, touts itself as helping thousands of immigrants acclimate to life in New England. But recent changes in federal policy have left the organization’s future uncertain.

Prior to the Trump administration’s Jan. 24 stop-work order to refugee resettlement agencies, IRIS was set to receive $3 million from the State Department’s Reception and Placement Program, which reimburses resettlement agencies for the first three months after a refugee’s arrival. IRIS was also counting on a $1 million contract to help a couple dozen nationwide organizations sponsor refugees through the federally-funded Welcome Corps program. 

Now, the agency is relying on volunteer work, support from local community sponsor groups and private donations — which rake in $2 to $3 million each year, IRIS’s Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem estimated — in order to stay afloat, changes that Salem deemed “gutting.” 

When IRIS set its budget for 2025, the agency planned to resettle over 800 refugees and individuals with Special Immigrant Visas, or SIVs, according to Salem. Before the stop-work order, IRIS received 210 refugees and SIVs, spending over $1 million.

Salem explained that the agency has been forced to downsize since the stop-work order went into effect. As of last Friday, 20 percent of the approximately 100-person team has been laid off, spanning the case management, health, employment, education and team operations departments. The remaining staff have continued to provide services to the 210 recent arrivals.

“We’re used to … having more demand than we have the financial or human resources to meet,” Salem said. “[We’re] making sure that those who are newly arrived are receiving the most support, and prioritizing that and really asking others to just be patient with us.”

Salem joined a group of local politicians and advocates on Friday to speak about IRIS’s present operations and plans to continue its work despite discouragement from the federal government.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents New Haven, emphatically voiced her support for IRIS’s resettlement program. She emphasized that the refugees helped by IRIS had come to the United States legally, often with federal assistance.

“These are Afghan citizens who helped the U.S. during the war,” DeLauro said. “You’ve got refugees from famine, Sudan, Somalia, Congo, etc. This has been a bipartisan priority in the past.”

DeLauro, a ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, which determines how much funding federal agencies receive, has been a vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s efforts to halt federal funding.

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal echoed DeLauro’s sentiment.

“IRIS is, in effect, protecting the people who protected our troops,” Blumenthal said. “Their families and others now have targets on their backs in Afghanistan, Ukrainians are coming here because their families are at risk as their country seeks to preserve this freedom.”

The stop-work order sent to refugee resettlement agencies cited President Donald Trump’s 90-day review of foreign assistance programs. At the end of the three-month period, the letter stated, the federal funding will be restored, axed or modified.

Salem described herself as “not very optimistic” about the fate of federal funding for refugee resettlement agencies. She anticipates that IRIS will require more layoffs in the coming weeks.

“We have lost, and will continue to lose, really, really dedicated, caring, compassionate, team members,” Salem said, explaining that many IRIS staff are immigrants and refugees themselves. “[They’re] doing this work not because of a significant paycheck, but because [they] really believe that people who are some of the most vulnerable in the world, and also the most capable, deserve to have their lives rebuilt.”

At Friday’s round table, both Blumenthal and Salem encouraged New Haveners to attend IRIS’s annual Run for Refugees fundraising 5K race, which was this year rebranded as a Run with Refugees and All Immigrants.

The race will be held at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 9.