New Haven’s flagship refugee resettlement agency is hustling to raise millions of emergency dollars after the Trump administration suddenly canceled a contract to help up to 800 families start new lives here.The cancelation came in the form of a U.S. State Department ​“stop work order” issued Friday at 5 p.m., effectively immediately.It directed agencies like New Haven’s Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) to stop spending federal money helping to find housing, employment, food and other assistance for families fleeing violence or other threats to their lives. It put an immediate pause on all grants to agencies nationwide.The stop-work order followed a Tuesday presidential executive order suspending U.S. refugee resettlement.IRIS had a contract to receive $3 million this year under the State Department’s Reception and Placement Program to cover the intensive first 90 days of help resettling refugee families, according to IRIS Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem. She said IRIS had a separate $1 million contract to help 15 – 20 organizations in a dozen states nationwide sponsor refugee families under the Welcome Corps program begun in 2023. The Friday stop-work order covers both programs.The plan was to help up to 800 families arriving in New Haven in 2025. Two hundred of those families have arrived between Oct. 1 and Jan. 20, when newly inaugurated President Donald Trump effectively shut the door on any more arrivals.IRIS still intends to help those 200 families, which is why it has issued the emergency appeal. Click here to donate.The families include Afghans who helped the U.S. during the war in their country as well as refugees from Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Syria, Myanmar, and Sudan.“We are continuing to take care of them,” Mitchell told the Independent Saturday night. “These people just arrived here. This isn’t some game. This isn’t a program you would shut down like a computer. These are humans. They are already afraid.”The goal of the emergency appeal is to raise $3 million.IRIS is also rushing to adapt to the federal turnaround on refugee policy. Mitchell expects to have to downsize the 100-member staff. But she also is looking to ​“pivot” to helping more immigrants for a longer period with job-training and placement, English as a Second Language classes and an expanded food pantry. IRIS is still hoping to purchase a building on Fox Street in Fair Haven and move from current rented spaces.