Trump administration to cut refugee admissions to 30K for 2019
Trump administration to cut refugee admissions to 30K for 2019
By Morgan Chalfant - 09/17/18 05:27 PM EDT
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday that Trump administration will cap the number of refugees that can be resettled in the United States at 30,000 for fiscal year 2019.
The new figure represents another dramatic reduction in the count of refugees that the U.S. plans to admit. Trump slashed the cap to a historic low of 45,000 in September (2017).
In remarks at the State Department, Pompeo announced that the U.S. expects to process up to 30,000 refugees and 280,000 asylum seekers in fiscal year 2019.
Developing ....
https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...o-30k-for-2019
Democrat: Trump’s refugee decision ‘will lead to innocent people dying’
by Joel Gehrke
| September 18, 2018 11:06 AM
President Trump’s decision to lower the annual cap for refugee admissions “will lead to innocent people dying,” according to a senior House Democrat.
“Quite simply, this decision will lead to innocent people dying,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said Monday evening.
Engel, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which oversees the State Department, was responding to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that the administration would admit no more than 30,000 refugees in fiscal year 2019. But the top diplomat paired that figure with the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers also seeking protection in the United States — 280,000 new claimants expected over the next year, along with another 800,000 asylum-seekers in the country waiting to have their cases heard — to maintain that the administration’s policy remains “the most generous nation in the world.”
“This year’s refugee ceiling reflects the substantial increase in the number of individuals seeking asylum in our country, leading to a massive backlog of outstanding asylum cases and greater public expense,” Pompeo said. “The daunting operational reality of addressing the over 800,000 individuals in pending asylum cases demands renewed focus and prioritization. The magnitude of this challenge is unequaled in any other country.”
Official review of those requests for protection is slowed by a background check process that the administration regards as more comprehensive than the one conducted in previous years. “We must continue to responsibly vet applicants to prevent the entry of those who might do harm to our country,” he said.
The refugee cap was set at 45,000 people for fiscal 2018, which concludes at the end of September, but the administration is well below that figure. “Thus far in fiscal year 2018, the United States has resettled 20,918 refugees and granted asylum to more than 15,000 individuals,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
Democratic critics believe the administration is hamstringing a vital aid program. “Our refugee resettlement program plays a critical role not only in promoting stability around the world, but in elevating our moral leadership on the global stage,” Sen. Bob Menendez, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, said later Monday evening. “For decades, refugee resettlement was a point of pride for both Republican and Democratic alike.”
Both Engel and Menendez accused the administration of adopting a “cruel” posture. “Consider Syria. We’re denying Syrian refugees a safe haven and doing nothing to support other countries to which Syrians are fleeing,” Engel said.
Pompeo defended the background check process as a necessary improvement over the previous system, which “allowed a foreign national to slip through who was later discovered to be a member of ISIS” into the country. And he argued that refugee resettlement, whether under a higher or lower cap, is an insufficient remedy.
“A focus on helping refugees overseas also allows us to maximize our resources,” he said. "We can house, feed, and provide medical care for hundreds of thousands more refugees closer to their homes and do so more rapidly than we could possibly do here in the United States. The ultimate goal is the best possible care and safety of these people in need, and our approach is designed to achieve this noble objective.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/p...t-people-dying
