In late January, the Rev. Milan Homola boarded a 5 a.m. flight from Minnesota to Texas after his church learned that 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 haven’t applied for permanent legal residency.“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 affect Texas’ refugee population. Refugees and advocates argue that the new policy creates impossible deadlines and undermines long-standing legal protections.In a memo issued Feb. 18 by U.S. 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.The 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.Texas refugees in suitTwo 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.The litigation was filed Friday in federal court in Massachusetts and alleges 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 Schwartz, 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,” Schwartz 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.”‘Slowing adjudication’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 now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as defendants.As of this week, the average time to process a green card application is about 12 months for most cases, according to the CIS. 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,” Schwartz 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, though nongovernmental agencies continued to resettle refugees in the state.Mix of nationsOf the approximately 25,500 refugees who resettled in Texas between the 2018 and 2024 fiscal years, 28% were from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has seen steady conflict for decades that has displaced millions. Thirteen percent came from Afghanistan, 13% from Burma, 9% from Venezuela and 9% from Syria.Of the refugees who resettled in Texas, about 20% spoke Spanish, 11% Arabic and 9% Dari.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, Ecuadorians 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.Schwartz said that data was presented in a separate lawsuit filed in Minnesota and that the judge in that case ordered the government to show evidence on its findings, which it 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.”