WASHINGTON — When Mark Hetfield started work on Wednesday morning, he did not know what to tell the staff at HIAS, the Jewish immigration aid and advocacy group where he serves as CEO.

Donald Trump, who reviles much of what the group does and stands for, had just been elected president. Trump’s actions during his first administration had severely curtailed HIAS’ work by dismantling the refugee resettlement program in which HIAS partnered with the federal government.

The structures of modern refugee resettlement came about as the Western world coped with the aftermath of the Holocaust, said Melanie Nezer, a former longtime HIAS staffer who is now the vice president of advocacy and external relations at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

“It’s a program that has historically enjoyed bipartisan support,” she said. “It’s been used to resettle refugees from the former Soviet Union, thousands of refugees from Vietnam, refugees fleeing communism, refugees fleeing authoritarianism. And it was dismantled by the Trump administration.