HIAS, Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service recently took President Trump to court over his executive order giving state and local officials authority to block refugee resettlement in their jurisdictions.

The three groups are suing the administration “because it is attempting to enact a state-by-state, city-by-city refugee ban,” HIAS noted in a blog post.

In late September, Trump issued the executive order at issue in the lawsuit, CNN reported. The order directed states and localities to provide written consent to resettle refugees in their jurisdictions.

“Refugee resettlement agencies, which are charged with placing refugees in communities across the country, pushed back on the order, arguing that the order had the potential of limiting the places where refugees could eventually be resettled,” CNN reported.

A link to the lawsuit is available here.

President Donald Trump “has signed off on a plan that continues a dramatic drop in the number of refugees taken in by the U.S. to no more than 18,000 in fiscal year 2020,” the Associated Press reported.

The 18,000 figure “is the lowest level on record since the program began more than three decades ago,” the Hill newspaper noted.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert recently wrote a letter to Trump asking that more refugees be sent to Utah to resettle, “saying there is plenty of room and resources for those in need,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported on Nov. 1.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration in October admitted zero refugees for resettlement.

“Reducing the inflow of refugees to a trickle offends on a different level,” writes Scott Martelle, Editorial Writer for the Los Angeles Times.

“It contradicts the fundamental American story, that we are a nation of immigrants and their descendants, many of whom arrived here in flight from violence and deprivation (and yes, many in chains and against their will) in hopes of building a new life,” wrote Martelle in a recent opinion piece.

“An unintended consequence — or maybe it was intended — of the precipitous drop in refugee arrivals is that the nine nonprofit agencies most responsible for resettling new arrivals have seen their budgets collapse, leading to layoffs, closed offices and canceled services,” Martelle notes.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert wrote a letter to President Donald Trump asking that more refugees be sent to Utah to resettle, “saying there is plenty of room and resources for those in need,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported on Nov. 1.

The story notes that the Oct. 24 letter “comes after the Trump administration cut the number of refugees the United States would accept over the next year to 18,000, and as the number of displaced people across the world has reached more than 70 million, according to the United Nations refugee agency.”

A copy of the letter to Trump is available here.