FEDERAL FUNDING HALT PROMPTS JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE TO CLOSE REFUGEE SHELTER
Image
By Chris Jennewein, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
Photo: a child at Jewish Family Service of San Diego’s refugee shelter. (File photo by Chris Stone/Times of San Diego)
February 17, 2025 (San Diego) - Faced with a halt in federal funding and and the closing of the border to refugees, Jewish Family Service of San Diego is shutting down its shelter and shifting focus to legal support of asylum seekers.
CEO Michael Hopkins said in a statement received Saturday that following the Trump administration’s suspension of the CBP One smartphone asylum-filing application on Jan. 20, no refugee individuals or families have been released to the shelter.
In addition, $22 million in promised federal funding has not been received, leading to future layoffs of the shelter staff.
“As a result of this change in federal funding and policy, on Feb. 10, we provided shelter services staff with 60 days’ notice,” Hopkins said. “We are working to identify any potential opportunities for re-engagement with our valued shelter services staff in other departments in the future.”
Since October 2018, JFS has assisted more than 248,000 people seeking asylum — providing temporary shelter, food, case management, medical and legal services, and travel coordination to reunite people with their loved ones across the United States. The shelter and associated services were considered a national model.
“We are proud of our dedicated staff’s tremendous, round-the-clock work to welcome people with dignity every day and of what we accomplished — centering humanity, prioritizing public health and keeping hundreds of thousands of new people to our community from becoming homeless on the streets of San Diego,” Hopkins said.
He said JFS would pivot to providing legal services for refugees, the Dreamers brought to the U.S. as children, and other immigrants.
“While there are no longer individuals or families seeking asylum released from short term federal immigration custody to our shelter services, we are seeing increased needs for immigration legal assistance and other social service supports to vulnerable San Diegans,” he said.
The agency was founded in 1918 to help Jewish refugees stuck in Mexico after World War I migrate to the United Sates. It now assists individuals of all faiths with a variety of social services, in addition to helping immigrants.