SERVICES FOR SAN ANTONIO REFUGEES IN LIMBO AFTER FOREIGN AID PAUSE
By the numbers: Between October 2023 and September 2024, RAICES resettled 631 people in San Antonio, Girela says — the highest number for the nonprofit since it began resettling refugees in 2017.
From October 2024 through mid-January, RAICES resettled 325 refugees in San Antonio.
Caveat: Hundreds more recently arrived refugees in San Antonio are likely impacted by the freeze on foreign aid as there are several other organizations that resettle people, including Catholic Charities.
Zoom in: More than 9,300 immigrants in San Antonio were likely refugees in 2017, per the most recent San Antonio Welcoming Plan.
Many refugees in San Antonio are from Afghanistan, Girela says. Others come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Venezuela, Honduras and Colombia.
The city recently dubbed a stretch of Wurzbach Road on the Northwest Side a cultural heritage district. The area is home to many refugees from around the globe and features international markets and restaurants.
Zoom out: RAICES paused refugee arrivals on its own before Trump's inauguration in anticipation that the new president might suspend the program, Girela says.
But the agency was expecting about 70 refugees in February who no longer have immediate plans to resettle in San Antonio.
The big picture: More than 2,600 refugees arrived across Texas in the last three months of 2024, per the Refugee Processing Center — more arrivals than in other U.S. states in that timeframe.
The bottom line: "When someone enters this process, your hope is just to find a safe place to live," Girela says. "So they continue to wait."
