Trump administration’s 45,000 cap on refugees is a ten-year low
THE TRUMP administration will allow no more than 45,000 refugees into the United States next year officials said, in what would be the lowest admissions level in more than a decade.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce the cap on refugee admissions following a debate within his administration about where to set the number.
The figure represents the maximum number of refugees the US would be willing to accept and the actual number of refugees who move to the United States could actually be much lower.
The administration had been considering a ceiling somewhere between 40,000, which the Homeland Security Department recommended, and 50,000, the State Department’s preferred level, according to officials.
The new figure appears to be a compromise that cabinet officials felt would be palatable to the president. Still, Mr Trump’s stated hostility to accepting refugees and opposition among others in his administration mean the US may not intend to fill all 45,000 slots in the 2018 fiscal year .
The US has not taken in so few refugees in a single year since 2006, when 41,223 were allowed entry. The State Department declined to comment on potential figures ahead of a presidential announcement. The US welcomed 84,995 in fiscal year 2016, and former president Barack Obama had wanted to raise that number to 110,000 in 2017.
Worldwide, there were some 22.5 million refugees last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, with many more people displaced within their home countries.
The strong preference among aid groups and governments has been to seek conditions so refugees can return to their homes, rather than being permanently resettled in host countries.
President Trump has made limiting immigration the centrepiece of his policy agenda.
He temporarily banned visitors from a handful of Muslim-majority nations, has rescinded an Obama-era executive action protecting young immigrants from deportation and says he will build a wall onthe border with Mexico.