President Trump plans to allow no more than 45,000 refugees into the United States in the next fiscal year, which would be the lowest influx in 37 years.
In 2016, under rules set by then-President Barack Obama in a unilateral executive order, the U.S. allowed nearly 85,000 refugees into the country — many from war-torn nations in the Middle East. Obama set up guidelines that would have allowed some 110,000 refugees to be admitted in 2017.
But Trump lowered that cap to just 50,000 for fiscal year 2017 — which ended yesterday, September 30. That number was surpassed by mid-July, according to the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.
The new 45,000 cap for fiscal year 2018 “is the lowest that any White House has sought since the president began setting the ceiling on refugee admissions in 1980,” NPR reports.
And the cap is just a limit on the maximum number of refugees allowed. The Trump administration could admit far fewer than that if it chooses.
Trump, who ran on the motto “Make America Great Again,” has been clear on his stance, vowing during the 2016 campaign to “stop the massive influx of refugees.” He did so again last month in a speech at the United Nations, saying: “For the cost of resettling one refugee in the U.S., we can assist more than 10 in their home region.”
Once refugees arrive in the U.S., they “qualify for many social services, including health care, food stamps and cash assistance. Many of those costs fall on state and local governments, and some states are pushing back,” NPR said.
Earlier this year, Tennessee took the federal government to court over refugee resettlement.
“The bottom line is the federal government is coercing the state of Tennessee to spend Tennessee taxpayers monies in ways that some individual Tennesseans disagree with,” Republican state Sen. John Stevens told member station WPLN in March.
Trump has followed through on his campaign pledges, first enacting a travel ban on refugees from seven terrorist hotbeds, which, after a lengthy court battle, was allowed to stand. He is also moving forward with plans to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
The president announced last month that he would end Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program within six months, forcing Congress to take up the issue.
While Trump said at the U.N. that America is a “compassionate nation,” he added that refugees should remain in nations closer to their homes, not permanently settle in the U.S.
“We seek an approach to refugee resettlement that is designed to help these horribly treated people, and which enables their eventual return to their home countries to be part of the rebuilding process,” Trump said.