GEOFF BENNETT: A federal judge in Seattle has blocked President Trump's executive order halting the admission of refugees into the U.S.

The judge said the administration had likely exceeded its authority by freezing the U.S.

Refugee Admissions Program, which was established by Congress back in 1980.

It remains to be seen whether the administration will comply, while a lawsuit challenging the ban filed by some of the country's largest resettlement organizations works its way through the courts.

We're joined now by Mark Hetfield.

He's the president of HIAS.

That's the country's oldest refugee resettlement agency.

And the organization is also a plaintiff in that lawsuit.

Thanks for being with us.

MARK HETFIELD, President, HIAS: Thank you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, first, help us understand what the U.S.

Refugee Admissions Program is,how does the program work, and who does it aim to assist?

MARK HETFIELD: Sure.

So the program was started in 1980 by the Refugee Act of 1980 to provide a safe and legal pathway for people fleeing persecution or war or conflict to come to the United States to either join with family or to meet foreign policy, humanitarian policy priorities of the United States government.

GEOFF BENNETT: So what was the material impact of this suspension?

How were the refugees affected and your employees as well?

MARK HETFIELD: It was devastating.

And this was not just a mere suspension, like it was in the first Trump term.

This was a complete dismantlement of the Refugee Program, because not only did all refugees -- not only were all refugees stopped from arriving, but also all the processing offices were shut down, everything was defunded.

So it's going to be almost impossible to start it back up.

And in terms of the actual impact, for example, my agency had 621 refugees who were vetted by Homeland Security, approved by Homeland Security, had plane tickets in hand, were supposed to arrive in February, but they're not coming.

The plane tickets were literally snatched out of their hands.

GEOFF BENNETT: So when you say it's nearly impossible to restart this work, tell me more about that.

MARK HETFIELD: Well, to resettle refugees, you're going to have to have people that prepare their applications, that assist them overseas, that give them cultural orientation, that book their plane tickets, that then receive them here in the United States, which is what my agency, HIAS, does, along with the other non-resettlement agencies.

All of those things were completely defunded.

GEOFF BENNETT: Your organization is a Jewish organization.

Many of the resettlement organizations are faith organizations.

How does faith inform the work that you do?

MARK HETFIELD: Well, in the Torah, 36 times it's repeated to welcome the stranger, to love the stranger as ourselves, for we were once strangers ourselves.

And so it's really a fundamental part of our history and of our values, and not just going back to the holy books, but also our more recent experience in the 20th century, 21st century.

The Jewish people are a people who know displacement.

And so we are naturally empathetic.

GEOFF BENNETT: I'm sure, as you know, Vice President J.D.

Vance recently accused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops of profiting off its work resettling refugees.

Do you or any of the organizations profit off this work?

Is that even a motive of yours?

MARK HETFIELD: No.

This is a labor of love.

This is something we have to raise money for because we can't possibly do it on the funding that the federal government gives us.

It is a public-private partnership.

And so now we have raised lots of funding to welcome refugees to the United States, and now none of them are coming, including refugees who themselves are fleeing religious persecution.

Like, Iranian religious minorities is one group that HIAS helps.

They can't come.

Afghan -- people who supported us in Afghanistan, people who supported U.S. veterans and risked their lives or who worked for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, they can't come.

People whose families were separated by conflict or war, those parents and children will remain separated indefinitely.

Those kids are essentially being orphaned by this Trump administration policy.

GEOFF BENNETT: The administration, in its executive order, argued that the United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants and in particular refugees into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans.

This is an argument the administration makes fairly often, that resources are finite.

What's your reaction to that?

MARK HETFIELD: My reaction is that that's an argument that the Trump administration made in 2017, and that they themselves proved was fallacious.

In 2017, in the Muslim and refugee ban, President Trump commissioned a study to demonstrate how much resettled refugees cost the American taxpayer.

But they looked at both sides of the ledger when they did that study and they found that, over a 10-year period, resettled refugees contributed 63 billion, with a B, dollars more in federal, state and local taxes than they took in services and assistance.

So, fortunately, for us, while we welcome refugees because it's the right thing to do, it just also happens to be to the benefit of the economy, to the benefit of the country.

Refugees are a blessing.

They're not a burden.

GEOFF BENNETT: I understand you were in Seattle yesterday when the judge issued that ruling.

What comes next?

MARK HETFIELD: It's a good question because, on my way to the studio tonight, I got 10 termination notices that the State Department was terminating a number of our programs, including refugee resettlement, in spite of the fact that yesterday the judge issued a preliminary injunction saying that refugee resettlement was authorized by Congress and could not be dismantled.

GEOFF BENNETT: Mark Hetfield of HIAS, thanks again for coming in.

We appreciate it.

MARK HETFIELD: Thank you, Geoff.