JFCS pledges to keeping working for Pittsburgh’s refugee and immigrant community
Some of JFCS’ clients were in the country for less than two weeks when the agency received the government’s stop work order.
In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Tarfon famously wrote, “It is not your responsibility to finish the task, yet you are not free to withdraw from it.”
It’s a lesson JFCS has learned well.
The Pittsburgh social service organization is one of only about 10 national refugee resettlement agencies that contract with the U.S. Department of State to bring refugees into the country.
Refugee status is a form of protection granted to people who are designated by the United Nations as unable to stay or return to their home country because of fear of prosecution based on political affiliation or demographic criteria, JFCS President and CEO Jordan Golin explained.
The United States, he said, determines how many people with refugee status will be admitted into the country. Extensive screening is conducted by several different government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
“People who enter the U.S. with the status of refugee are the most vetted individuals allowed into the country,” Golin said. “The process typically takes several years.”
When they reach the United States and start working with JFCS, or another agency, the clock has already begun ticking. Refugees are given 90 days of intensive assistance — someone from an agency like JFCS meets them at the airport, finds them a place to live, enrolls their children in school, helps the adults find employment and ensures that they have health insurance. The assistance agencies also provide cultural orientation to teach acceptable behavioral norms that might differ from the refugees’ home country.
Support continues after that initial period. The agency brings in about 300 refugees a year and continues to provide assistance, working with refugees until they are successfully integrated into the community and are able to thrive on their own.
When Donald Trump was elected in November 2024, JFCS knew there would be changes to the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Organizational leaders were surprised, however, when, in January 2025, they were told they could no longer assist those already in the United States.
“The president has completely shut the door on refugees,” Golin said. “No refugees are coming in and through the executive order that cut off aid to foreign countries — that order means that any refugees who arrived in the States — we were told we can no longer provide services for them.”
Some of JFCS’ clients were in the country for less than two weeks when the agency received the government’s stop work order.
“It literally said, ‘stop work,’” Golin said, “meaning that those refugees, these newly arrived refugees, who are like deer in the headlights trying to figure out what’s going on, no longer receive services from refugee resettlement agencies and if they need help, I don’t know, call 911.”
Golin said that every resettlement agency was forced to decide how it would react to the government’s stop work order. JFCS, he said, has deemed it to be immoral and unethical to abandon refugees and will continue to work with them, despite not getting paid.
Not every agency has made the same decision, something Golin understands given the limited resources available.
The government’s long-term plans are unknown, Golin said, and may have long-reaching implications for more than just refugee resettlement. JFCS also provides immigrant legal services, food assistance, counseling, guardianship services, youth and senior services and career assistance.
“We’re prioritizing everything that’s happening at the moment,” he said. “We are very concerned about the policy of halting all federal grants and loans because that would create a huge financial impact on our organization and it would have a huge financial impact across the country, in multiple places, on various levels of the government, for for-profit entities and nonprofit entities.”
JFCS, he said, has begun additional fundraising to continue its services.
Ivonne Smith-Tapia, director of JFCS’ Refugee and Immigration Services, said it’s the policies, not the politics, that matter to the agency.
“We talk about how different decisions made by the federal government, state government, local government impact the work we do and impact the lives of the people that we serve,” she said.
She said JFCS leaders were “shocked” by the policies announced in January.
“It was very distressing for us,” she said.
That distress wasn’t simply because of the stress it caused JFCS’ clients.
“Many of our staff are part of immigrant communities,” she said, “so we felt all these decisions not only professionally but personally. The decisions impact concrete things and services. They sent a message.”
It’s as if the government is saying immigrants are no longer welcome here, Smith-Tapia said. Suddenly, she and her staff, who feel like the United States is their home, are worried.
“They’re not only thinking, ‘How am I going to continue to provide services to the population we serve,’ but are also thinking, ‘Am I safe here? Am I going to have a job?’ It’s added to the stress and anxiety,” she said.
If there’s a silver lining, Smith-Tapia said, it’s JFCS’ commitment to its work.
“We made the commitment, not just to the federal government, but to the families when we picked them up at the airport that we would provide services,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where the funding comes from.”
For Golin, JFCS’ commitment is existential.
“We literally couldn’t live with ourselves if we abandoned these people who are so vulnerable,” he said. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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