US hits Trump’s 50,000 refugee cap

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BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 07/12/17 07:53 PM EDT 64

© Getty Images
The U.S. hit the Trump administration’s cap of 50,000 refugees as of Wednesday for the budget year that began in October, according to The Associated Press.

According to the report, 50,086 refugees have entered the U.S. this year. However, the State Department said anyone currently traveling to the U.S. will still be allowed in, according to the AP.



Additional refugees are still required to take part in the traditional screening process, but now will need to prove a close relationship with an individual or entity in the U.S.

If the refugees looking to be admitted into the U.S. can prove a “bona fide relationship” with an entity or individual in the U.S., the 50,000 cap must be exceeded, according to the Supreme Court.

That was part of the June ruling by the high court granting the administration's request to reinstate part of the travel ban meant to temporarily block people from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

A new cap will be put in place at the beginning of the new budget year in October, the same month when the Supreme Court could hear arguments on the legality of the ban.


US hits Trump’s 50,000 refugee cap

 

[88m3]

Esther Yu Hsi Lee
Immigration Reporter at ThinkProgress. Interests: Migration. Refugees. Contact me: EYLEE@thinkprogress.org
Jul 12
The U.S. just shut the door on refugees
The number of refugee admissions hit 50,000, the annual cap set by the Trump administration.

Ali Said, of Somalia, center, is pushed by refugee caseworker Mohamed Yassin, behind, as he makes his way into an elevator with his two sons Thursday, July 6, 2017, in San Diego. CREDIT: AP Photo/Gregory Bull

The U.S. Department of State announced Wednesday that it had reached the annual cap on refugee admissions, with future arrivals facing an uphill battle to enter the country.

On Wednesday, the United States hit the annual cutoff of 50,000 refugee admissions for the fiscal year as set by the Trump administration in an executive order that set a low admission numbers cap and stopped refugee resettlement for 120 days.

“After we reach 50,000 refugee arrivals for FY2017, only those individuals who have a credible claim to a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States will be eligible for admission through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” a State Department spokeswoman told HuffPost.

In practical terms, this means refugees who have been approved after the months-long vetting process but are not in the United States by July 12, will see their flights cancelled.


President Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail and into his presidency that he would restrict admission by refugees and immigrants. He fulfilled that promise — which he tied to claims of national security and terrorism concerns — when he signed an executive order restricting travel from six Muslim-majority countries and imposed a halt to refugee admissions once it hit 50,000 people in the 2017 fiscal year. Last year, the Obama administration said it would accept 110,000 refugees to respond to the growing global refugee crisis, including Central American children fleeing gang violence.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed parts of Trump’s order to stand, upholding a provision that bars refugees from entering the country for 120 days unless they have a “bona fide relationship” with someone already in the United States. That relationship would exclude relatives like grandparents, aunts and uncles, and grandchildren.

The president has claimed that the vetting process for refugees isn’t stringent enough. But would-be refugees to the United States also undergo one of the most arduous screening process, which takes upwards of 24 months and requires background checks with various federal agencies. What’s more, refugees are more often victims of terrorism than its perpetrators.

Advocates are concerned that Trump’s executive order could come at a heavy cost for people living in vulnerable and volatile situations abroad.

“We’ve reached a low point in U.S. history today with the Trump administration setting and enforcing a refugee admission ceiling which is lower than it’s been in history,” HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield told ThinkProgress in a phone interview Wednesday.

HIAS, a nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian assistance and aid to refugees, has long helped refugees resettle in the United States. Hetfield was immensely displeased that at least one HIAS client, who was approved as a refugee, will be unable to come in despite having a grandmother in the country. Others will also see their flight reservations cancelled.

“People who were scheduled to travel — and there were a few who don’t have the U.S. ties in the very narrow sense that the Trump administration has described, people who had been living as refugees for years and finally almost made it in — their flights are being cancelled.”

In the past, the largest number of refugees generally come in August or September, Hetfield said, pointing out that nearly 25,000 people are still somewhere in the refugee “pipeline” and are unable to enter the country this year.

“We’re at least grateful the Supreme Court prevented Trump from fully implementing his mean spirited executive order and that refugees will ties to US will continue to be admitted,” Hetfield said. “It’s an embarrassment for our country to be taking in so few refugees when the needs are so great.”

“We can’t forget that this is not about a number,” Kay Bellor, LIRS Vice President for Programs, said in a press statement, echoing Hetfield’s comments. “This is about saving lives.”

The United States has been one of the most generous financial providers of foreign aid and has accepted three million refugees since 1975. But the first-world country also has not shouldered the same international responsibility of taking in a greater number of refugees like other countries have, like Turkey which hosts 3.2 million refugees.


https://thinkprogress.org/refugee-admissions-us-cap-e93ded724c61

 

[the cac mamba]

none of your kosher one liners to accompany the story?

personally im fine with this

 

[Professor Emeritus]

The idea of a cap on refugees at 0.015% of the country's population is just arbitrary and stupid.

Trump has no problem importing hundreds of Eastern Europeans to wait tables at his club and be his trophy wives, yet talk about helping people in desperate, life-threatening situations and all the sudden there has to be an arbitrary hard cap.

They forget that most of their own White mammas were already here in the first place because they were fleeing something or other on the other side of the world. Puritan/Quaker persecution, Irish potato famine, everyone who fled the Russian Revolution and WW2, etc.

 

[ORDER_66]

The idea of a cap on refugees at 0.015% of the country's population is just arbitrary and stupid.

Trump has no problem importing hundreds of Eastern Europeans to wait tables at his club and be his trophy wives, yet talk about helping people in desperate, life-threatening situations and all the sudden there has to be an arbitrary hard cap.

They forget that most of their own White mammas were already here in the first place because they were fleeing something or other on the other side of the world. Puritan/Quaker persecution, Irish potato famine, everyone who fled the Russian Revolution and WW2, etc.

Trump has always been a hypocrite... why is anyone so surprised by this guy anymore...

 

[newworldafro]

The idea of a cap on refugees at 0.015% of the country's population is just arbitrary and stupid.

Trump has no problem importing hundreds of Eastern Europeans to wait tables at his club and be his trophy wives, yet talk about helping people in desperate, life-threatening situations and all the sudden there has to be an arbitrary hard cap.

They forget that most of their own White mammas were already here in the first place because they were fleeing something or other on the other side of the world. Puritan/Quaker persecution, Irish potato famine, everyone who fled the Russian Revolution and WW2, etc.

Here is the thing.....and I say this delicately and respect to my fellow human beings escaping strife in unstable countries.

1) The Trump Administration is not responsible for the millions of refugees leaving war torn countries in MENA right now.

2) The previous administration is quite literally responsible for millions of refugees leaving war torn countries in MENA...

3) Since the previous administration has played a role in millions of people being at the refugee status, we as citizens should empathize and fairly/unfairly recognize that we should allow a few in here.

4) The U.S. citizens has no mandate to bear endless number of refugees and a cap is a reasonable response from an administration that had no significant impact on why refugees are unfortunately refugees.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Here is the thing.....and I say this delicately and respect to my fellow human beings escaping strife in unstable countries.

1) The Trump Administration is not responsible for the millions of refugees leaving war torn countries in MENA right now.

Acting like the "Trump Administration" is some sort of separate entity that is innocent of all history before it is ridiculous. Look at who actually comprises the Trump administration and what they've been involved in in the worlds of finance, oil, defense, and the government. They are part of the Neoliberal/neoconservative mess that led to the present issues just as much as anyone else is.

2) The previous administration is quite literally responsible for millions of refugees leaving war torn countries in MENA

At the very least, the issue was already set in motion in the 1980s when Congress began funding fundamentalist militants in a war in Afghanistan while the Reagan administration channeled arms to both sides of a horrifically bloody Iran-Iraq War and then knowingly hid evidence from the U.N. that Saddam had used chemical weapons against his own people.

The Reagan Administration, Clinton Administration, both Bush Administrations, Obama Administration, and Trump Administration, the last 40 years of Senate and the House, bureaucrats in State and Defense and Treasury, and tons of private players in the defense, oil, finance, and other industries ALL have a part to play in what has happened (not to mention the USSR, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UN, and others). You can't pin it on any single administration, though Bush probably made the single biggest unforced error.

3) Since the previous administrsyion has played a role in millions of regees status, we as citizens should empathize and fairly/unfairly recognize that we should allow a few in here.

Yes.

4) The U.S. citizens has no mandate to bear endless number of refugees and a cap is a reasonable response from an administration that has no significant impact on why refugees are unfortunately refugees.

Of course, but what is this nonsense about "endless number"? Our cap is 0.015% of the population. That's ridiculous. Jordan, a far poorer country than ours, is trying to support something like 20% of its population in refugees with much fewer resources or infrastructure than we have. The USA already had an annual cap in place that was about 0.067% of the population. Even that was a tiny amount. If we did it intelligently and evenly, we could easily support something like 0.5% of our population in new refugees each year without overburdening our current infrastructure at all. If you want to play it safe, make it 0.2%. That would be 600,000 a year. We could easily handle that and if it was done intelligently, most Americans would barely notice.