Refugee families waiting to be reunited in Bowling Green area

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.-When refugees arrive in South-Central Kentucky, many of them leave behind sisters, uncles, cousins and other family members. It can take years for these families to be reunited. Now that a federal cap for resettling refugees has been met, it could take even longer for some families to be together again.

Family members who had been approved to resettle in Bowling Green, and reunite with their families, have now had their plans cancelled.

In total it’s about 48 people, all African refugees, who may now have to wait years for another chance to come here. It’s because the federal cap for resettling refugees from Africa has already been met for this fiscal year.

According to the International Center of Kentucky,  the United States has repeatedly reduced it’s cap on the amount refugees accepted into the country.

The executive director at the International Center calls it a tragedy.

“We have hundreds of thousands of people who’ve already been cleared worldwide, and they want come into the United States right now. There are still a ton of them in the pipeline being processed. So I don’t know what the difficulty is. We don’t have enough land to receive more people? We have more virgin areas in the United States than people,” said Albert Mbanfu.

The Trump Administration has plans to accept 18,000 refugees during the next 12 months, which is down from the current cap of 30,000.