Trump administration announces historically low refugee limit
The administration of US President Donald Trump says it plans to allow only 18,000 refugees to resettle in the United States in the 2020 fiscal year, the lowest number in the history of the country’s modern refugee program.
The limit, which was announced on Thursday by the US State Department, is the lowest number since the refugee resettlement program was created in 1980 and was immediately decried by immigrant advocates.
“The current burdens on the US immigration system must be alleviated before it is again possible to resettle large number of refugees,” the State Department said in a statement.
The Trump administration said it had to shift focus to processing a backlog of hundreds of thousands of asylum claims, most of which are filed by migrants from Central America crossing the US-Mexico border.
Of the proposed 18,000 spots, 5,000 would be reserved for those fleeing political persecution, 4,000 for Iraqis and 1,500 for people from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
That leaves 7,500, or roughly 40 percent, for all others.
Trump’s final decision on the cap must include consultation with Congress, which could push for a higher total.
Since taking office, Trump has slashed the number of refugees allowed into the United State.
Last year, the administration capped the program at 30,000 refugees, down from 45,000 people in 2018, which itself was the lowest ceiling since 1980. In his last year of office, former President Barack Obama had set the cap at 110,000 refugees.
The historically low limits have drawn protests from human rights groups as well as government officials.
“To cut the number of refugees the US will accept to this low of a number reflects nothing more than this administration’s attempts to further hate, division and prejudice in a country that once valued dignity, equality and fairness,” said Ryan Mace, Grassroots Advocacy and Refugee Specialist at Amnesty International USA.
The group dismissed arguments that the US lacks the capacity to adequately vet and settle refugees, calling this “a purely political decision.”
Trump has made his hard-line stance on immigration an integral part of his presidency and has promised to build a wall along the US-Mexican border to curb the flow of migrants from Mexico and Central America.
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