SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The apartment was rented and decorated, schools found for the children and food had even been purchased for a special reunion meal, as Sacramento families prepared to welcome relatives set to arrive this week as refugees from Afghanistan and other foreign homelands.

Some may have even been at airports ready to board when an executive order from President Donald Trump abruptly shut down the U.S. refugee admissions program. And while the order banning most refugee admissions was not set to take effect until Monday, Sacramento-area resettlement agencies say the shutdown has already started.

“Initially we expected people to continue to arrive this week, but then we got word yesterday that the suspension of the program had gone into effect immediately,” said Tara Winter, executive director for the Northern California programs of the International Rescue Committee resettlement agency.

The move left people from Afghanistan, Syria and other war-torn nations stranded in their home countries or in refugee camps, she said, “holding tickets that no longer had value.”

Six families and individuals working with the Opening Doors resettlement agency had their travel to the capital region canceled with just three days’ notice, while another 10 were given notice of about a week, said Jessie Mabry, the organization’s chief executive officer.

“Families have already started buying groceries for the meal they’re going to make to celebrate being reunited,” Mabry said. “It’s really heartbreaking.”

As of Thursday, airline tickets and other travel plans were canceled for 20 of the 98 refugees and holders of special immigrant visas that the resettlement agency Opening Doors had expected to work with over the next few weeks, Mabry said.

The Sacramento area is key to California’s efforts to absorb and resettle refugees. Of 2,100 refugees who came to California in 2022, Sacramento found homes for a third of them, according to the University of Southern California’s immigration data portal. Thousands more came through programs aimed at helping people whose work for the U.S. government in their home countries may have placed them in danger, including many from Afghanistan.

Trump’s Inauguration Day order shutting down the main U.S. refugee program came along with dozens of others signed hours into his second non-consecutive term.

The refugee order was one of several aimed at curtailing the arrival and migration of people from other countries to the United States. It takes aim at people who are in other countries but certified as refugees by the United Nations.

But it differs from Trump’s other immigration-related actions in that it focuses on people seeking legal admission to the United States, rather than those who enter illegally, said Kevin Johnson, dean of the U.C. Davis School of Law. This shows a broader effort to curtail immigration beyond illegal entry at the border, he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the order also applied to people in the pipeline to receive special immigrant visas, which are generally reserved for those whose work for the U.S. government may have put them in danger. These immigrants are not considered the same type of refugees, but their travel and resettlement are also handled by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Winter said her agency was told by the Trump administration that people coming from Afghanistan on special immigrant visas would not be affected, but the details of how that would work were not released.

The order ends the refugee program as of Monday, although exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis by the State Department or Department of Homeland Security to report back every 90 days with recommendations on whether to restart the program.

Unlike Trump’s order attempting to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, the refugee order has not yet been challenged in court, Johnson said.

It may violate international agreements under which the U.S. has promised to absorb refugees, and refugees holding worthless plane tickets might be able to argue in court that ordinary procedures were not being followed in their cases, Johnson said.

But, under U.S. law, the president does have the power to limit the number of refugees arriving each year, he said.

In 2024, the Biden administration admitted more than 100,000 refugees, data from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute shows.

“Every year the president has to make a proposal to Congress on how many refugees to admit,” he said. “This year it sounds like President Trump wants to admit zero.”

The shutdown has also meant the agencies have had to pivot in their work with refugees who are already here.

Many clients are anxious and disturbed, not only because relatives’ flights have been canceled, but because of other actions the administration has already taken to clamp down on immigration.

The International Rescue Committee, for example, has tried to make itself a resource for clients who are trying to understand the new executive orders and how they might apply to them. The organization is also planning to update its website with information about the orders and immigrants’ status in the U.S.

Opening Doors has been modeling scenarios for what its work would look like to support existing families through changes in laws and services, and also analyzing the possible financial impact if government referrals to help new refugees do dry up for a long period, said Mabry.

Members of refugee communities in Sacramento are anxious and afraid for their loved ones as the U.S. shuts its doors, said Vickee Moy, founder and director of the agency Starting Point for Refugee Children. One of her volunteers said he had heard of families whose loved ones were at the airport ready to leave when the order came down.

In the wake of the executive order and a likely slowdown in the arrival of new refugees, the organization plans to develop ways to build community. Among the ideas in the planning stages is a family soccer program.

“Our hearts are really heavy, but we’re going to pivot and we’re just going to focus more on helping those who are already here,” she said.

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