This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
Saw Ba, who had been living in a migrant camp on the Thai-Myanmar boundary for 16 years, learned last month that he and his family may be taking a helicopter to America to relocate.
It had been a longer delay. Sap Ba, who is in his 40s and whose brand has been changed for safety reasons, had lodged an application for relocation shortly after entering the tent in 2008.
With many excitement, staff from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, brought his family and 22 other persons from Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp to a resort in the Thai border village of Mae Sot in mid-January.
They were waiting there to board a airfare to Bangkok and then travel to the United States.
Flexibility and a new lifestyle awaited.
The IOM staff then received bad news three days later: All 26 people would have to go back to the migrant camp because the incoming Trump administration was about to end all migrants ‘ entry into the United States.
A few days after, after his Jan. 20 opening,  , U. S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order , suspending refugee relocation as part of a broader efforts to , “immediately ending the immigrant conquest of America”.
The , professional order , said the United States “lacks the ability to process large numbers of refugees, and in particular, immigrants, into its populations in a manner that does not sacrifice the availability of resources for American, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate integration of immigrants”.
Back in his family’s barren, ramshackle hut in the camp, Saw Ba was crestfallen.
” We have lost our hope now”, he said.
Left in Limbo
Saw Ba’s family is one of hundreds, if not thousands of refugees who were held back on the cusp of entering the United States.
According to the , Associated Press, a little more than 10, 000 refugees worldwide had already been vetted and had scheduled travel to the United States ahead of the Jan. 20 deadline. How many people actually entered the country before that time was unknown.
Around 400 refugees had been waiting for resettlement in the Umpiem Mai camp for resettlement in the United States.
Now they will have to wait longer.
Saw Ba and his family had been so confident in their relocation that they had given all of their belongings, including their clothes, to neighbors and friends, while their children had left their classes and returned their books.
” When we arrived back here ]at Umpiem], we had many difficulties”, he told RFA Burmese, particularly with their children’s education.
” Our children have been out of school for a month, and now they’re back, and their final exams are coming up”, he said. When our kids return to school, they won’t have any books. I don’t know whether they’ll pass or fail this year’s exams”.
Missionary work
Saw Ba fled to the refugee camp because of his persecution for his Christian missionary work.
Originally from Pathein township, in western Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region, he was approached by an official with the country’s military junta in 2009 and told to stop his activities.
When he informed the police that he was not engaged in politics and refused to do so, they were called to make an arrest.
He fled to Thailand, where he ended up in the Umpiem Mai camp. There he met his wife and had a son and daughter, now in seventh and second grade, respectively.
Another camp woman, Thin Min Soe, claimed that her husband and their two children had been given a list of medical tests and had received an acceptance letter for resettlement, which made it possible for them to join a waitlist to travel.
She had fled her home in the central Bago region of Myanmar because she had participated in the country’s 2007 Saffron Revolution, which violently resisted widespread anti-government demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.
Due to the threat of persecution, refugees at the camp, including Thin Min Soe, have told RFA that they are afraid to go back to Myanmar. After the military dissolved the 2021 elected government, the nation has been plunged into civil war. Many people claimed that even if they did want to go back, they no longer have any homes or villages to call home.
With the U. S. refugee program suspended,” we are now seriously concerned about our livelihood because we have to support our two children’s education and livelihoods”, she said.
When RFA contacted the camp manager and the refugee affairs office, they responded by saying they were not permitted to comment on the situation.
US has resettled 3 million refugees
Since 1980, more than , 3 million refugees , — people fearing persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a social group — have been resettled in the United States.
During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the United States , resettled 100, 034 refugees, the highest number in 30 years. The most came from the Republic of the Congo, followed by Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria. Myanmar was fifth, accounting for 7.3 %, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Over the past 30 years, the United States accepted the highest number of refugees from Myanmar — about 76, 000 — followed by Canada and Australia, according to the U. S. Embassy in Thailand.
Before the end of former President Joe Biden’s term, hundreds of Thai refugees from Myanmar were flown to the United States.
RFA requests for comment on the situation were not immediately returned to the IOM, the U.S. Embassy in Thailand, and The Border Consortium, which provide the largest amount of food, shelter, and other forms of support to the roughly 120, 000 refugees from Myanmar living in nine camps in western Thailand.
However, a local aid worker in the area claimed that returning refugees from Umpiem Mai were certain to face difficulties in reintegrating into the camp.
” When they return, they will have difficulty getting food and finding accommodations”, said the aid worker, who also declined to be named. ” They have already given their belongings to relatives, and some have been sold”.
Thai medical services
Meanwhile, Thai officials are attempting to provide medical care to Myanmar refugees in camps whose health services have been impacted by Trump’s recent suspension of foreign aid, which was also activated by him in an executive order.
A Feb. 3 meeting of Thai authorities, hospital staff, and officials from the nine camps for Myanmar refugees along the border was prompted by the suspension.
According to Saw Pwe Say, the secretary of the ethnic Karen Refugee Committee, they both agreed that the camps would continue to use clinics and equipment provided by the U.S.-based humanitarian aid provider International Rescue Committee, or IRC, to treat camp residents.
They informed me that the IRC had approved the camps to continue using their clinics and equipment for medical care, he said, and I felt relieved.
Refugee camp health professionals will be on duty at night and on weekends, while Thai health workers will provide healthcare from Monday through Friday during the day.
According to officials, the U.S. freeze on foreign aid has had an impact on the work of other humanitarian organizations along the Thai-Myanmar border, including the Mae Tao Clinic, which provides free medical care to those in need as well as health education and social services, according to officials.
