U.S. may cut refugees more than 50%
— The Trump administration is considering reducing the number of refugees admitted to the country over the next year to below 50,000, the lowest number since at least 1980, according to current and former government officials familiar with the discussions.
President Donald Trump promised during his 2016 campaign to deny admittance to refugees who posed a terrorist threat. In his first days in office he took steps to radically reduce the program that resettles refugees in U.S. cities and towns, capping the number admitted at 50,000 as part of his executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. That was fewer than half the 110,000 refugees President Barack Obama said should be admitted in 2016.
But in recent weeks, as the deadline approached for Trump to issue the annual determination for refugee admissions required by the Refugee Act of 1980, some inside the White House — led by Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior adviser for policy — have pressed to set the ceiling even lower at 15,000.
The issue has created an intense debate within the administration, with Miller and some officials at the Department of Homeland Security citing security concerns and limited resources as grounds for deeply cutting the number of admissions, and officials at the National Security Council, the State Department and the Department of Defense opposing a precipitous drop.
No decision has been made, according to the officials, but as the issue is being debated, the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the administration to bar almost any refugees from entering the country while the justices considers challenges to the travel ban order. The court will hear arguments in the case next month.
Spokesmen at the White House and the departments of Homeland Security and State declined to discuss an annual figure, noting that it had not yet been finalized. By law, the president must consult Congress and make a decision on the refugee ceiling by the start of each fiscal year, Oct. 1. mid-November, the late-summer effort to redraw the districts would create confusion and potentially delay the March primaries.
Critics said the Supreme Court’s intervention will let Texas continue using voting districts that discriminate against Latino and African-American voters.
“We are disappointed that there is another hurdle in this process preventing some Texas voters from having fair districts drawn as quickly as possible,” said Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “However, we are optimistic that on full appeal these unconstitutional districts will be struck down once and for all.”
Riggs said the Supreme Court’s action all but guarantees that the 2018 elections will be held using current districts.
Texas has 60 days, with time extensions freely given, to submit its appeal arguing why the three-judge panel’s finding of discrimination should be overturned. That pushes the process well beyond Oct. 1, when officials said final maps are needed to avoid postponing the primaries.
Those challenging the maps could speed the process by filing a cross-appeal and asking the Supreme Court for an expedited review, but that decision has not yet been made, Riggs said.
Although getting new maps for the 2018 elections “is looking pretty bad,” Supreme Court rulings in other cases have prompted districts to be redrawn under tighter timelines, Riggs said.
“You can push this really late if you need to. I wouldn’t say it’s totally off the table, but it’s a challenge,” she said.
The delay by the Supreme Court was Paxton’s second victory in a week in a voting rights case.
After tossing out the state’s voter ID law as discriminatory on Aug. 23, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi was preparing to rule on whether Texas should be required to receive federal approval for voting law changes. At Paxton’s request, however, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week temporarily halted action in Ramos’ court to give Texas time to appeal her ruling.
The fight over the state’s political districts, drawn earlier this decade after new census numbers were released, came to a head on Aug. 15, when the threejudge panel concluded that two congressional districts violated the U.S. Constitution and Voting Rights Act:
■ District 35, held by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, which the court said was gerrymandered along racial lines to provide Doggett with a Latino primary challenger and to eliminate another district with significant Hispanic and African-American populations that consistently voted for Democrats.
■ District 27, held by U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, which the court said was improperly drawn to reduce the voting strength of Latinos. Now stretching from southern Bastrop County to the Gulf of Mexico, the district originally extended south to Brownsville and was heavily Hispanic.
In a separate ruling about a week later, the same court ordered nine Texas House districts to be redrawn, saying they also were created to discriminate against minority voters.
Hearings to begin work on new districts, set for last week in San Antonio, were canceled after Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees legal matters arising from Texas, blocked proceedings at Paxton’s request and ordered additional information to be provided to the full court.