"We welcome this continued relief for tens of thousands of refugees who will now have the opportunity to restart their lives in the United States," said Melissa Keaney, the progressive lawyer for the elite-funded, anti-borders International Refugee Assistance Project.

In a second courtroom in Seattle, another federal judge ordered the Trump administration to keep paying the quasi-government agencies that settle the refugees in Americans' crowded housing, schools, and workplaces, such as in Springfield, Ohio.

The judges' policy preferences are likely to be appealed by Trump's deputies. The decisions contradict his legal claim that presidents have full authority over who gets to cross the U.S. borders. The judges' views also contradict Trump's election mandate to reduce the civic burden of migration.

But the progressives' lawsuits are good news for their allies among the nation's meatpacking companies. Many of the companies rely on the progressives to supply them with cheap, subsidized, and healthy workers to replace prior refugees worn by tough working conditions in the plants, where chains on the disassemply lines often deliver 300 carcasses per hour.

Without the progressive-delivered refugees, the companies would be forced to buy more high-tech robots and hire better-paid Americans to operate the robots.

Biden's deputies imported 197,000 refugees by October 2024 and hoped to import more than 125,000 during the next 12 months via a fast-track process at a cost of more than $2.5 billion.

There may be many refugees approved by Biden but still outside the country. "As of September … more than 40,400 had been approved for U.S. refugee status," the Migration Policy Institute reported in October 2024.

Trump suspended the refugee programs on January 20, saying in Executive Order 14163:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose. Over the last 4 years, the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Cities and small towns alike, from Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio, to Whitewater, Wisconsin, have seen significant influxes of migrants. Even major urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, and Denver have sought Federal aid to manage the burden of new arrivals. Some jurisdictions, like New York and Massachusetts, have even recently declared states of emergency because of increased migration.