The Trump administration’s aggressive and highly publicized campaign to deport “undocumented criminal aliens” has swept up non-criminals and fully vetted refugees and documented temporary residents in its dragnet.

Meanwhile dramatic headlines about ICE raids and, increasingly, protests against those raids, have taken attention away from a simultaneous, systematic effort to destroy seemingly almost all sanctioned pathways to legal residency by folks seeking a better life here.

The entire federal U.S. Refugee Admissions Program established by an act of Congress 45 years ago has been put on hold, so there are no new admissions. Thousands of refugees in foreign countries cleared for arrival are now stranded. There are lawsuits in process challenging this “pause.”

Catholic Charities in Springfield, which for eight years coordinated dozens of volunteer “circles of care” for support of refugees in Hampshire County, has had to close its resettlement program. The agency’s case managers who assisted refugees with housing, accessing public benefits and school enrollments, among other things, have been laid off.

Meanwhile two other federally supported resettlement agencies in the area — the Lutheran Ascentria Care Alliance and Jewish Family Service of Western Mass, have also had their federal funds cut off. Ascentria has been struggling for some time, perhaps not yet recovered from the ratcheting down of refugee admissions during the previous Trump administration.

Jewish Family Service, blessed with a strong base of private, philanthropic support, is soldiering on, and last week they held a virtual conference to assess the situation not only with respect to duly vetted refugees with a traditional pathway to green cards and citizenship, but to a host of other people who have come to the States under one form or another of legal protection.

There are people in the middle of a process to be accepted for asylum, people from countries in crisis who came here under what is called “temporary protected status” (TPS), Afghanis who worked for the U.S. back in the day in their own country now legally here on “special immigrant visas,” many “humanitarian parolees” from Ukraine, from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (the so-called CHNV group), and the list goes on.

The resettlement agencies traditionally have had no dedicated funding stream to serve these immigrants who fit the profile of refugees in many aspects but lack the official status and with it a sure path to citizenship. Under the Biden administration, the agencies, even as they were starting to recover from the depredations of Trump 1, were stretching themselves to serve these groups over and above their refugee charges.

Staff at JFS are picking up the pieces as best they can, trying to provide some measure of guidance and support and make up for what one staffer referred to as the “profound loss” of the Catholic Charities resettlement program.

It’s easy to say “pick up the pieces,” but almost every piece of a system that is being actively hammered at and undermined by a xenophobic federal government is deeply complicated and problematic.

Critical work permits, access to Medicaid and Food Stamps are all under threat as the Trump regime seeks to strip down the social safety net for all persons, and threatens to deport any immigrant deemed a “public charge.” No work and no benefits mean, even short of deportation, “their situation is getting worse and worse and that they effectively have no future,” said on one of the JFS staffers who has been focused on the Haitian community.

Stories were recounted of parents being wary of attending ESL classes — where one of the lessons was learning to read simple sentences on a Know Your Rights card – for fear of being surveilled by ICE agents.

There was a heartbreaking story told of a refugee family that has been here seven years and for all of those seven years anticipating that their son would be able to join them here under a well-established program of “family unification.” He was ready to board a flight for the US, when the reunification program was put on ice.

The JFSWM conference, “Beyond the Headlines: The Human Impact of the First 100 Days,” ended with a list of recommendations on how people might volunteer to help and/or keep informed and advocate for just and humane treatment of all immigrant residents.

One step is to get better informed, and on the national picture one of the best sources of information is Church World Service’s “Daily State of Play” at CWSGlobal.org. There are a variety of lawsuits moving forward in a range of issues and this site tracks them.

The Immigration Justice Network of Massachusetts at lucemass.org operates a hotline which activates volunteers in support and witness when an ICE raid is suspected. Locally, the Pioneer Valley Workers Center is part of that network and can be reached at pvworkerscenter.org.

The town of Amherst website has an excellent list of “immigration resources” at amherstma.gov. The Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Program (MIRA) at MIRACoalition.org is another source of updates and background and advocacy.

The Center for New Americans in Northampton has a variety of programs in support of immigrants and refugees, from language and citizenship classes to legal representation, and can be reached at cnam.org.

The Ascentria Care Alliance in West Springfield can be reached at 413-787-0725 and Catholic Charities in Springfield at 413-732-3175. Although the resettlement program is shuttered at Catholic Charities, the social service agency continues.

And finally, Jewish Family Services of Western Mass offers multiple avenues for volunteers and contributors to get involved at jfswm.org or at 413- 737-2601.

Judson Brown of Northampton is a retired journalist, a writer and amateur photographer, and former member of the St. John’s (Episcopal) Church “Circle of Care” supporting refugees.