Twelve-year-old Rozan Munir Arafat, center in wheelchair, a Palestinian refugee from Gaza who lost her entire family and her left leg in the Israel-Hamas war, is swarmed for photos with the throng of nearly 100 supporters gathered to welcome her arrival from Turkey at George Bush Intercontinental Airport Sunday, Sep. 1, 2024 in Houston.Michael Wyke/ContributorIn late January, the Rev. Milan Homola boarded a 5 a.m. flight from Minnesota to Texas after his church learned a refugee was stranded in Houston following his arrest by immigration agents in Minneapolis.The refugee was swept up in the Trump administration’s Operation PARRIS, an effort the Department of Homeland Security described as an anti-fraud campaign that is reexamining the status of thousands of refugees who hadn’t applied for permanent legal residency. Article continues below this ad“We got a call that he is just out on the street in Houston. They let a group out … and literally told them to find their own way home,” said Homola, a pastor at a bilingual church in the Twin Cities. “He couldn't fly because they didn't give them back passports or papers or anything like that.” The Trump administration has since expanded the “reexamination” effort beyond Minnesota — a move that could significantly impact Texas’ refugee population. Refugees and advocates argue the new policy creates impossible deadlines and undermines long-standing legal protections. Houston Chronicle LogoMake us a Preferred Source on Google to see more of us when you search.Add Preferred SourceIn a memo issued Feb. 18 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency said a refugee must “return or be returned” to custody after one year of being admitted into the country and be vetted for permanent residency, also called a green card. If they don’t return voluntarily, ICE will arrest and detain them.Article continues below this adThe guidance replaces a 2010 memorandum that said failure to apply for or adjust to green card status was not a deportable offense on its own. Under that policy, a refugee who was detained by ICE would be released within 48 hours unless removal proceedings were initiated. The new guidance does not state a time limit for how long someone can be detained. “We have never seen anything like this,” said Eskinder Negash, the president and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. “Refugees go through a very extensive vetting process. Refugees are more vetted than any other people who come into the country. So, we're quite concerned, but we don't know what the process is going to be.” From October 2017 through September 2024, nearly 289,000 refugees had resettled in the United States, with Texas home to more than any other state at about 25,500, according to data from the American Immigration Council. About 3,900 arrived in Texas during the 2025 fiscal year. Donald Trump speaks to a crowd as he makes a campaign stop on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, in Houston.Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographerTexas refugees join lawsuit Two refugees who settled in Texas are part of a lawsuit that seeks to halt the mandatory arrest and indefinite detention provisions of the new guidance. Article continues below this adThe litigation was filed Friday in federal court in Massachusetts and alleges that the policy “flouts fundamental constitutional principles,” including the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of warrantless seizure and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantees of due process.One of the refugees from Texas, identified in court documents as Hamad B., was detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint and held for three weeks, despite furnishing documentation attesting to his refugee status. The other, identified as Jasmine, is married to a refugee who was arrested and detained with Hamad B. The couple’s documents were taken and not returned. Ghita Schwarz, the senior director of U.S. litigation at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the Trump administration’s new policy makes it impossible for refugees to comply because they can’t be considered for a green card until after their first year. “You're only eligible (to apply) on the 365th day,” Schwarz said. “And on the 366th day, they better have approved that application, or you are subject to arrest and mandatory detention. That's an impossibility.”Protesters gather to demonstrate against the deaths of Keith Porter and Renee Nicole Goode during ICE raids targeting undocumented immigrants and U.S. President Donald Trump’s military actions in Venezuela in front of City Hall in Houston, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle‘It’s an impossibility’ The International Refugee Assistance Project represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which includes six refugees, Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts and the International Institute of New England. It names Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as defendants. Article continues below this adAs of this week, the average time to process a green card application is about 12 months for most cases, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency warns, however, that the timeline “should be used as a reference point, not an absolute measure of how long (a) case will take to be completed.”Approximately 100,000 refugees hadn’t adjusted their status at the time the lawsuit was filed, according to court documents. Tens of thousands more have green card applications that were paused after the Trump administration announced in November that it would reexamine green card applications of more than 200,000 refugees who were lawfully admitted into the country under the Biden administration.“It's not just that it's an impossibility that you apply on day 365 and become a lawful permanent resident on day 366. It’s also that the government itself has been slowing adjudication of those applications,” Schwarz said. Texas remains a major hub for refugees despite past efforts by state Republicans to limit the number of immigrants who want to settle in the state. In 2016 and 2020, Gov. Greg Abbott withdrew Texas from the national refugee resettlement program, although non-governmental agencies continued to resettle refugees in the state. Of the approximately 25,500 refugees who resettled in Texas between the 2018 and 2024 fiscal years, about 28% were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has seen steady conflict for decades that has displaced millions. About 13% of refugees came from Afghanistan, 13% from Burma, and about 9% coming from Venezuela and the same number from Syria. Article continues below this adOf the refugees who resettled in Texas, about 20% spoke Spanish, about 11% spoke Arabic and about 9% Dari. Why did the Trump administration change the policy? The ICE memo states that reexamining refugees after one year is necessary to “protect national security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system” and to prevent immigration fraud through the use of false documents or “the use of false identities.”The agency concedes that refugees could have believed that under the Biden administration, failure to apply for a green card would be met “without consequence.” That belief is misguided, the memo states, and national security and public safety outweigh those interests.The guidance also cites results from a partial review of refugee applications from Venezuelans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Ecuadorans and Hondurans submitted during the Biden era. Of those, 10% had “evidence of public safety concerns” that were not addressed, and about 40% had been insufficiently vetted. Schwarz said that data was presented in a separate lawsuit filed in Minnesota, and the judge in that case ordered the government to show evidence on its findings, which they declined to do.“We do not know what they mean by that,” she said. “But we think it's telling that we requested it, the court granted our request, and they did not produce it.”March 9, 2026Immigration ReporterJulián Aguilar is an immigration reporter for the Houston Chronicle. An El Paso native, Aguilar’s journalism career began in 2007 at the Laredo Morning Times. He joined the Texas Tribune in 2009 and extensively reported on immigration, border security and the drug trade for the nonprofit news organization until 2021. His stories on immigration took him from El Paso to border towns in the Rio Grande Valley. Aguilar was part of a team of Tribune journalists who wrote a series of stories about “the reality and the rhetoric” about immigration in Texas. He journeyed by raft with smugglers who ferry people from Guatemala to Mexico, and rode with police officers patrolling the gang-controlled streets of El Salvador. After leaving the Tribune, Aguilar worked at KERA News from 2022 to 2024, then became a freelance reporter. He attended the University of Texas and earned his master's degree in journalism at the University of North Texas.