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The Turkish invasion of northern Syria in the wake of President Donald Trump’s troop withdrawal from the region could put to the test Trump’s stated commitment to global freedom of worship for religious minorities.

The fighting between the Turks and Kurds has raised fears for the safety of Syrian Christians, Yazidis and other minority faiths at the hands of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s mostly Muslim forces.

At the same time the crisis is unfolding, the Trump administra­tion is proposing to drasticall­y reduce the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to historic lows, cutting slots nearly 80% from their 2016 levels.

“We see this as a real mismatch. The Trump administra­tion has reduced refugee resettleme­nt slots at exactly the wrong time,” said Nazanin Ash, vice president for public policy at the Internatio­nal Rescue Committee, which resettles refugees.

As recently as last month, the president vowed to support internatio­nal religious freedom around the world and rolled out plans at the United Nations for a $25 million investment in the cause.

But then he alarmed evangelica­l Christians and refugee advocates in the U.S. last week by withdrawin­g protection for America’s Kurdish allies in northern Syria, opening them to attack by the Turks, who regard them as terrorists with aspiration­s for their own separatist state.

The invasion has unleashed a new humanitari­an crisis, with at least 160,000 people driven from the homes, according to the United Nations.

U.S. refugee admissions of Syrian Christians fell more than 50% between fiscal years 2016 and 2019, according to an Associated Press analysis of State Department data, while Syrian Yazidi admissions fell to zero.

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