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Stephen Miller and Trump Admin Cut Refugee Cap Again to Historic Low of 30,000
Republicans' fabricated war on "illegal" immigration is a proxy for their broader mission to eliminate as much immigration as possible, specifically the legal types. Under our Immigration page you will find numerous examples of this, the most heinous of which relates to our refugee program which used to admit 100,000+ a year and should have been double or tripled but instead is being effectively eliminated.
The Trump administration is cutting to a record low the maximum number of refugees the U.S. will accept next year.....reduced the maximum number of refugees it will accept in the next fiscal year from 45,000 to 30,000, the lowest level since the current refugee-resettlement program went into effect more than three decades ago.
Humanitarian groups that work with refugees in the United States criticized the decision. “It’s awful,” Mark Hetfield, the president and CEO of HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, told me. “It’s a total abdication of American leadership.” He said the Trump administration’s decision would have a chilling effect for refugees worldwide...."
Koch-funded Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the guy who got run over by North Korea and should be crawling back into the hole he came from, was all too proud to announce this. While doing so, he showed a lack of understanding of what the refugee program is and essentially said there's too many people who need help, so we need to help less.
Pompeo added that the decision was being made because of the backlog of asylum seekers currently in the United States, conflating two separate systems that have existed side by side. Indeed, an asylum seeker whose case is rejected by an immigration court will ultimately be deported. Refugees are those asylum seekers whose cases have been approved.
The 30,000 figure is the lowest refugee cap announced since President Ronald Reagan signed the Refugee Act in 1980. It beat the record set by the Trump administration last year of a ceiling of 45,000 refugees. U.S. presidents have, on average, set a ceiling of 95,000 refugees for a fiscal year.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior adviser who supports decreasing immigration, and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, are reported to have urged a lower number.
Even the 30,000 figure won't be met as Trump's xenophobic, hate-filled administration have shown this year:
The maximum number of refugees admitted into the U.S.—the so-called refugee ceiling—is the maximum number of refugees admitted into the country; it is not necessarily the number of refugees actually resettled in the United States. For instance, for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30, the refugee ceiling was 45,000, but the U.S. has so far admitted 18,214 people.
The Obama administration had set a cap of 85,000 refugee admissions in its last year in office.
This is the ultimate humanitarian crisis and the United States is turning its back for no reason besides evil men with power.
The decision coincides with the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. More than 68 million people have been displaced by conflict around the world, according to the United Nations. Refugees who have fled their country to escape war and persecution number 25.4 million, the UN data say. A small fraction of these refugees—less than 1 percent—are resettled overseas in countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia, as well as across Europe. These refugees typically cannot return to their home country.
Criticism hasn’t come solely from the usual opponents of Trump’s immigration policies. In August, seven evangelical Christian groups sent a letter to Pompeo and other officials urging them to restore refugee admissions to historic levels, starting with a target of 75,000 for 2019.
Pompeo’s “announcement of a refugee ceiling of 30,000 is appalling, and it continues this administration’s rapid flight from the proud U.S. tradition of providing refuge to those fleeing persecution around the world,” Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, said in a statement.
Sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/us-refugees/570523/