On January 20th, 2025, Trump issued an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Anyone granted entry to the United States through the order would not be allowed in, and any funding to services helping refugees was immediately halted. 

This story follows a refugee resettlement program in Columbus, Ohio, and the last family they were able to help before the order was signed. ETSS, Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services, had to cut their staff by three-quarters overnight, leaving their Resettlement Office empty of the bustling network of volunteers, clients, and community members that worked together to help those in need. Their last clients were a family of five, a mother, her son, and three daughters. They arrived from a refugee camp in Djibouti, where they had been waiting fifteen years for placement in a safer country, fleeing from violence in Somalia. The family stayed in a single hotel room for three months until ETSS was able to find them a two bedroom house and set them up with job training, vaccinations, and school. They landed in Columbus three days before the inauguration, and Trump’s executive order. This project shows their first day moving into their new home.