Kentucky’s refugee agencies are losing their capacity to resettle refugees amid lower-than-normal refugee arrivals and lower expectations about how many they’ll be authorized to process next year.

Maria Koerner, assistant director for the Kentucky Office for Refugees, said the development “means that agencies are having to make hard decisions of laying off staff. …

“The capacity is going down in refugee agencies, which is just really sad,” she said. “If things are able to ramp back up, there’s a policy change, the infrastructure wouldn’t be there the same way it was before.”

Koerner spoke Tuesday at the International Center of Kentucky in Bowling Green to update its community resettlement partners on the state of refugee resettlement.

Albert Mbanfu, executive director of the Bowling Green center, called the loss of capacity “the greatest fear with all the resettlement agencies right now and those who are refugee advocates. …

“The greatest fear is not even the reduction in numbers but the erosion of the structure,” he said. “If nothing is done it will take quite a while for that structure to come back again.”

Mbanfu said the Bowling Green center hasn’t been spared from the trend. It has let go of four or five employees because “we didn’t have any work for them,” he said.

The change follows President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting travel to the U.S. from six mostly Muslim countries. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the order Monday. The administration has appealed another ruling opposing the order to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will likely consider the cases in tandem, according to The Washington Post.

In an interview after the meeting, Mbanfu called Monday’s court ruling “welcome news to us.”

Kentucky refugee agencies have seen a decline in refugee arrivals this year, Koerner said. Ultimately, the State Department decides refugee resettlement totals.

“Originally, for this fiscal year which ends Sept. 30, we had proposed or were approved to resettle 2,431 refugees statewide,” Koerner said during the meeting. “As of May, we received 1,307 statewide, which is 55 percent of what we proposed.”

For the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, Koerner said the state’s agencies are proposing 1,805 refugees.

That decision is influenced by the anticipated cap that will be set on refugee arrivals next year. That hinges on the president’s determination in September, Koerner said.

“The signs point to they’re thinking 50,000, which I do like to say is the lowest number a president has ever set since the Refugee Act was signed in 1980,” she said. “The need worldwide is the greatest it’s ever been also.”

The anticipated number is down from 110,000 that then-President Barack Obama had set for the next fiscal year, she said.

The Bowling Green center has also seen its numbers decline.

The center planned to resettle 440 refugees, including 40 Syrians, in Bowling Green this year. That had to be adjusted, and no Syrians were resettled at all following a cut from the Trump administration, bringing the total number down to 291, Mbanfu said.

“A week and a half ago, we got information from Washington that our numbers have been adjusted again to 375,” Mbanfu said during the meeting. “So we are working now on the assumption that by Sept. 30 of this fiscal year we will resettle 375.”

The center plans to resettle 350 refugees next fiscal year, he said, stressing that the number is not set in stone. “The numbers may be less than 350,” he said.

Despite the uncertainty in refugee resettlement, Mbanfu said the Bowling Green center has received a record level of donations in its 30-year history.

The center has received more than $20,000 since February and an “astronomical” level of in-kind donations, Mbanfu said.

Mbanfu thanked the community for its support and offered hope for its future.

“I just hope that we continue to be the welcoming community that we are,” he said.

– Follow reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.