A federal judge in Maryland said U.S. states and localities cannot opt out of receiving refugees for now, the latest move in a In this Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019, photo, immigrants waiting for their U.S. court dates live in a refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico, cooks dinner as the sun sets.Texas — one of the major destinations for newly arrived refugees — is thus far the only state to opt out of the program.But the process is not as clear-cut as simply blocking all refugee admissions.Refugees with immediate family members in a state will still be allowed to move there upon first arriving in the U.S., but details on how that reunification will happen are not clear, as Texas became the first state last week to pull out of the federal resettlement program.Before Wednesday’s injunction, Russell Smith, CEO of Refugee Services of Texas, said the state “will still be seeing refugees coming. … It just will look different.”’Preposterous’ rulingFederal officials this week told VOA they were working on a “mechanism” to handle the repercussions of that state’s withdrawal from the program. Details about what the process will look like are not clear. Trump’s order was set to take effect on June 1, however, giving officials more time to work through the changes.Lawyers for the U.S. government are expected to contest Wednesday’s decision.The White House said it was reviewing its options and called the judge’s ruling “preposterous.” A White House statement said millions of Americans have been robbed of having a say in an issue affecting their own communities.
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