Record 499 Syrian Refugees Admitted to US So Far in May

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Granny says dat's 45,000 too many...

U.S. plans to cap refugees at 45,000 in coming fiscal year, according to State Department report
September 27,`17 - The United States plans to accept a maximum of 45,000 refugees in the coming fiscal year, according to a report obtained by The Washington Post, a figure that represents the lowest cap in decades and one that human rights groups quickly condemned.

The State Department and Department of Homeland Security briefed members of Congress on the plan Wednesday. The cap, previously reported by the Wall Street Journal and others, is the lowest since a 1980 law created an organized refu*gee program. “It’s a devastating blow to the U.S. refugee admissions program and this country’s sense of self and history of compassion in welcoming refugees,” said Naureen Shah, campaign director for the U.S. arm of Amnesty International, which had recommended a ceiling of 75,000. “It feels like a sharp betrayal, pouring gas on the fire that is engulfing the world. We see all over the world, ordinary people are being treated worse than cattle. For the Trump administration to become an accomplice to that is heartbreaking.”

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said authorities had “every plan to process as many refugees as we can under this ceiling.” A White House official said: “The president’s strategy on refugees is guided first and foremost by the safety and security of the American people. The United States can also help a larger number of refugees by resettling them in their home region and enabling their eventual safe return home.” The cap is for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30, 2018. It calls for the United States to accept 19,000 people from Africa; 5,000 from East Asia; 2,000 from Europe and Central Asia; 1,500 from Latin America and the Caribbean; and 17,500 from the Near East and South Asia.

Religious leaders and activists from the Church World Service hold up a door symbolically closed to refugees during a protest urging Congress to pressure President Trump to allow more refugees to enter.

To the alarm of some advocates, the report said that when making decisions on whether to admit refugees, U.S. officials would “take into account certain criteria that enhance a refugee’s likelihood of successful assimilation and contribution to the United States.” “I find that really troubling,” said Melanie Nezer, an official with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one of the nine agencies working with the government to acclimate and resettle refugees. Bill Frelick, director of the refugee program at Human Rights Watch, said that criteria was “completely irrelevant.” “Refugees are often traumatized and would not at first glance appear to be good candidates for immigration because they were selected not based on their immigration criteria, but on refugee needs,” Frelick said. “And yet many of them have proven resilient over time and become very productive members of society.”

A State Department official said: “This is not an additional requirement. Instead, it is an area of discussion that State and [the Department of Homeland Security] are exploring this coming year.” While the cap is low — it represents far less than 1 percent of the 22.5 million people counted as refugees — it does not necessarily reflect the actual number of refugees who are admitted to the United States in a year. That figure fell below 45,000 during several years after the terrorist attacks in 2001. In 2002, refugee admissions plunged to 27,000 from 70,000, and to 28,000 the next year. But since the law that let the president establish the cap, the ceiling has never gone below 67,000, set by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. The annual ceiling has fluctuated between 70,000 and 80,000 in recent years, until growing to 110,000 under President Barack Obama. Trump cut it to 50,000 midway through the current fiscal year.

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Latest travel ban will probably affect tens of thousands, and it could short-circuit the court battle
President Trump’s latest travel ban could block the issuance of tens of thousands of visas each year to people who want to immigrate to the United States or come on business or as tourists, according to a Washington Post review of State Department data, and it is threatening to short-circuit the impending Supreme Court showdown over whether Trump can lawfully impose such wide-ranging travel restrictions.

On Monday, the Supreme Court put off — at least for now — a hearing on Trump’s previous travel ban, asking instead for briefs on whether the latest restrictions mean there is nothing left for the justices to decide. Opponents of the ban, meanwhile, vowed to fight on — asserting that the new measure inflicted some of the same harms of the first and that it was driven by the same discriminatory intent. “For us, this was a Muslim ban, and it remains a Muslim ban,” said Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The newest ban is in some ways even more expansive than the last — remaining in effect indefinitely and imposing restrictions on eight, rather than six, countries. But unlike the last ban, the restrictions vary from place to place, and countries that increase their cooperation and information-sharing with the United States might be able to find their way off the list. For Syria and North Korea, the president’s proclamation blocks immigrants wanting to relocate to the United States and non-immigrants wishing to visit in some capacity. For Iran, the proclamation blocks both immigrants and non-immigrants, though it exempts students and those participating in a cultural exchange.

The proclamation blocks people from Chad, Libya and Yemen from coming to the United States as immigrants or on business or tourist visas, and it blocks people from Somalia from coming as immigrants. The proclamation names Venezuela, but it only blocks certain government officials. A Washington Post review of State Department data found that more than 65,000 visas were issued in fiscal 2016 that would now likely fall under the ban. The ban, though, contains a robust list of people who might qualify for a case-by-case exception, including those with significant U.S. contacts or those wanting to visit close family members.

The ban also exempts those already admitted to the United States on the effective date of the proclamation — which, for those not affected by the previous travel ban, is Oct. 18. The Supreme Court had been set to hear arguments on Trump’s previous travel ban, inked in March, but on Monday, it removed that hearing from the calendar and asked for briefs on whether the case was now moot. One significant piece of the previous executive order — the 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States — remains in effect until Oct. 24. The latest ban leaves unclear what will happen after that. U.S. officials have been discussing possibly lowering the refu*gee cap for fiscal 2018 to below 50,000. The fiscal year begins Sunday.

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The Donald keepin' our country safe...

Refugee Admissions to U.S. Down 83% So Far in FY18
December 4, 2017 – Refugee admissions to the United States were down 83 percent in the first two months of fiscal 2018 (October and November) compared to the first two months of fiscal 2017.

A total of only 3,108 refugees were admitted in October and November down from the 18,300 refugees who were admitted in October and November of last year. Meanwhile, fourteen months after the Obama administration backed a push at the U.N. for global responsibility-sharing for refugees and migrants, the Trump Administration has pulled out of the intitiative. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said it “is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.” The weekend announcement comes amid a sharp drop in the number of refugees admitted to the United States during the first two months of fiscal year 2018. The most striking change between the refugee admissions in the initial two-month period of this fiscal year and last fiscal year was the relative differences in size of the contingents from Syria, Somalia and Iraq. In Oct.-Nov. 2016, 2,259 Syrians (97.6 percent Muslim, 1.7 percent Christian), 2,463 Somalis (99.9 percent Muslim) and 2,262 Iraqis (75 percent Muslim, 17.3 percent Christian, 7.4 percent Yazidi) were resettled.

In Oct.-Nov. 2017 the numbers had dropped to 33 Syrians (66.6 percent Muslim, 33.3 percent Christian), 126 Somalis (100 percent Muslim) and 76 Iraqis (84.2 percent Muslim, 10.5 percent Christian, 3.9 percent Yazidi). Among the 3,108 refugees admitted since FY 2018 began, the five largest contingents came from Bhutan (805), the Democratic Republic of Congo (627), Burma (347), Ukraine (290) and Eritrea (281). The religious breakdown of those 3,108 refugees was: 59.6 percent Christian, 15.4 percent Muslim, 9.6 percent Buddhist, 7.6 percent Hindu, 4.7 percent Kirat and 0.9 percent Jewish. By contrast, the five countries represented most strongly among the 18,300 refugees resettled by the Obama administration in the U.S. during the first two months of FY 2017 were the DRC (4,236), Somalia (2,463), Iraq (2,262), Syria (2,259) and Burma (1,509). The religious breakdown of those 18,300 refugees was: 48.1 percent Christian, 43.6 percent Muslim, 2.4 percent Buddhist, 1.7 percent Hindu, 0.9 percent Kirat and 0.3 percent Jewish.

The figures reflect clearly the differences in the two administrations’ approach on refugees. The last full fiscal year of the Obama administration saw 84,994 refugees admitted. President Trump has proposed a refugee admission ceiling of 45,000 for FY 2018, the lowest ceiling set by an administration since the Refugee Act was passed in 1980. Now the administration is also withdrawing from a U.N. initiative called the Global Compact on Migration. In a statement Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. would continue to engage at the U.N. but in this case it “simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.” “The United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal.”

In September last year, a summit at the U.N. adopted a consensus declaration – the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants – expressing countries’ political will to protect the rights of refugees and migrants and share the responsibility for doing so. Although they stopped short of making any binding commitments, the leaders undertook to work by 2018 towards consensus on a global compact on sharing the refugee burden. Haley said Sunday the New York declaration “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies and the Trump administration’s immigration principles.” She said no country has done more that the U.S. in providing support for migrant and refugee populations across the globe, “and our generosity will continue.” “But our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone,” she said. “We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country.”

Miroslav Laják, the president of the U.N. General Assembly – who received the formal notification of withdrawal – said he regretted the decision. “The role of the United States in this process is critical as it has historically and generously welcomed people from all across the globe and remains home to the largest number of international migrants in the world,” the Slovak diplomat said in a statement released by his spokesman on Sunday. “As such, it has the experience and expertise to help ensure that this process leads to a successful outcome.” The U.S. withdrawal from the initiative came on the eve of a three-day global gathering beginning in Mexico on Monday to take stock of how and where the process is going.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...s-un-migration