In October, Burlington School District employees learned that student enrollment had declined yet again.
The district lost almost 100 students from the previous year, a trend that is expected to continue. Budget cuts were announced, and 10 staff positions will be eliminated.
For years, the city’s high cost of housing has been a challenge for the district. But it’s now contending with a new problem: the Trump administration’s abrupt halt of a refugee resettlement program that accounted for many of the city’s incoming students.
“If this keeps going, we’re going to keep losing full-time employees; we’re going to keep losing programs; we’re going to keep losing money,” said Miriam Ehtesham-Cating, the district’s director of programs for multilingual learners. “In the long run, I’m worried. But we can’t get around what the federal government is doing.”
Amid Vermont’s troubling demographic outlook — an aging population, declining birth rate and lack of young workers — a steady influx of international arrivals has been a relative bright spot. Since the 1980s, thousands of refugees from Bosnia, Vietnam, Somalia and elsewhere have settled in waves, filling desperately needed jobs, boosting the growth of local schools in places such as Burlington and Winooski, and transforming Chittenden County into the state’s main immigrant hub.
By 2024, Vermont had the nation’s third-highest number of refugees per capita, behind just Nebraska and Iowa. Refugee families tend to be younger and larger than the average Vermont family; nearly half of refugee arrivals are under age 18. Students of color make up more than half of Winooski’s 834 students — a singular distinction in an overwhelmingly white state.
But since Trump took office in January 2025 and launched a widespread immigration crackdown, census data show that international migration to Vermont has plummeted. The refugee resettlement program, which previously drew hundreds of people to the state each year, has been cut off to all but a small number of South African Afrikaners. The drop in international arrivals has already put school leaders and employers on edge and now threatens to exacerbate one of Vermont’s biggest challenges.
“We have been told about a demographic cliff for years,” said Pablo Bose, a professor at the University of Vermont who studies migration. “I think it’s much worse than people really realize. That’s the real challenge: If you don’t get new people, what do you do?”
The drop has already led to several changes in Burlington’s schools.
We have been told about a demographic cliff for years. I think it’s much worse than people really realize.
Pablo Bose
For more than a decade, Ehtesham-Cating ran a program for new students who arrived unable to speak English. At times, some 30 students were enrolled, and many more were on a wait list.
This year, she did away with the program.
“There was always a need because we had new families arriving,” she said. “Now we don’t have new families.”
Budget cuts will also force her to reduce her team next year by two full-time teachers for English learners.
Ehtesham-Cating stressed that her staff is plenty busy supporting the students who are already here, and the drop in newcomers has allowed them some breathing room. But she is concerned about the long-term impacts.
“I am worried that the whole texture of Vermont will change because we will only have the people who are here now, and Vermont had been on a growth trajectory in terms of welcoming immigrants and refugees,” she said.
Employers are also feeling the effects.
Vermont’s health care and manufacturing sectors are especially reliant on immigrant workers, according to Tracy Dolan, director of Vermont’s State Refugee Office. The immigration squeeze threatens that supply.
“We have employers reaching out saying, ‘We’re really looking for people,’” Dolan said.
Before the current administration, the annual number of refugees coming to the state had been steadily rising, Dolan said. In fiscal year 2024, which ended in October of that year, 600 refugees were resettled in the state, a record high in recent years. This year, only about 50 refugees have come so far, all from South Africa.
At Twincraft Skincare, which has sites in Winooski and Williston, about a quarter of the company’s 450 employees are new American, said Michele Asch, Twincraft’s chief people officer. The company manufactures skin care products for about 150 different brands and has been based in Vermont since 1978.
Surging demand has allowed the company to grow significantly, adding 180 new staff members over the past two years and doubling its manufacturing capacity.
On a recent morning at the new Williston facility, workers assembled bars of Lume deodorant as it moved along a conveyer belt. Wearing a hairnet and blue smock, Crystal Wallace, the line lead, checked that each order was packed correctly. Wallace, 53, said she came to Vermont in 1998 as a refugee from Vietnam.
Her father had worked for the American army, putting their family at risk of retribution when the war ended. They resettled in Winooski, and Wallace has worked at Twincraft ever since.
“The company is like a family,” Wallace said. “That’s why I’ve been here so long.”
Workers come from such varied religious and cultural backgrounds that the company offers a floating holiday so people can take off a day of their choice. The factory also has a room for employees who need a private place to pray during their shift.
But as the company grows, Asch said she worries that she won’t be able to hire enough people locally. The combined effects of stricter immigration policies and the cost of living in Chittenden County have narrowed the pool of potential workers, Asch said.
“Without our new American immigrant community, it would be really hard for us to be sustainable and growing in Vermont, which is what we’re committed to doing,” Asch said. “If we could have that valve open up again and have more options for the immigrants and new Americans coming into the country, I think it’s a win-win.”
Vermont is also losing immigrant families who move out of state in search of a lower cost of living or to be closer to more established immigrant populations.
Many of the Somali friends Mukhtar Abdullahi grew up with have relocated to Ohio or Minneapolis, where there are bigger communities and more mosques, Islamic schools and culturally familiar food, he said.
Abdullahi, 30, came to Vermont in late 2008 as a 12-year-old refugee. He now works as a multilingual liaison in the Winooski School District, where he acts as a bridge between the district and immigrant parents.
Up until a few years ago, there were enough young Somalis to fill rival soccer teams in Winooski and Burlington, Abdullahi said. The two teams played each other several times a week and traveled around the state.
“Most of those people in the club left, and we only have one club now,” Abdullahi said.
Abdullahi wants to make Winooski a desirable place for Muslim families to stay. As a board member of the Islamic Community Center of Vermont in Winooski, he is helping to establish a new mosque and community center in Burlington, which will offer lessons on the Quran and more programming and events for young people.
The group has already raised more than $200,000 to buy a property on Riverside Avenue that will replace the current center in Winooski, which he said is too small. They need another $65,000 to close the deal.
“Many people leave because we don’t have a bigger mosque to do activities for youth,” Abdullahi said. The state’s other mosque — in South Burlington — is great, he said, but too far for some Winooski families to attend regularly.
“That’s why we’re trying to make sure this place is up and running,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re keeping our Somali youth in the state.”
It’s an investment he hopes will outlast him.
“We believe three things stay behind after you die,” he said. “Your children, good deeds you did and building a mosque.” ➆
About the Series
Seven Days is delving into the far-reaching ramifications of the declining number of young Vermonters.
Got a tip or feedback? Write to us at genzero@sevendaysvt.com.
The original print version of this article was headlined “‘We Don’t Have New Families’ | Schools and employers are feeling the impact of Trump’s crackdown on refugee resettlement”
This article appears in April 22 • 2026.
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