Plan for refugee vetoes raises alarm
Trump move could pit states against cities over admitting people
No state in America resettled more refugees in the past year than Texas. And in the state capital, the mayor says the influx has been a boon.
“It’s brought in industrious, hard-working people. It’s brought greater exposure to the world and to different cultures,” said Austin Mayor Steve Adler. “It’s a positive for the community.”
But it may end. Under policy changes announced by the Trump administration late last month, Adler’s neighbor in the governor’s mansion could opt to block refugee admissions to Texas next year. Trump’s executive order requires state and local governments to consent in writing before people can arrive, meaning a state could ban refugees even when a city is prepared to welcome them, and vice versa.
That veto power is unprecedented in the history of U.S. refugee resettlements.
Trump highlighted the change at a Thursday rally in Minneapolis, blaming Washington for bringing in a large number of Somalis — a remark that prompted many in the crowd to jeer their refugee neighbors.
“You should be able to decide what is best for your own cities and for your own neighborhoods, and that’s what you have the right to do right now,” Trump said as images of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee, flashed overhead. “And believe me, no other president would be doing that.”
But critics — including governors, mayors and resettlement managers — say the move is potentially crippling for a program long seen as the global gold standard but now reeling under assault from a hostile White House. They also say it opens the door to more demagoguery by Trump, increasingly emulated by others.
“This is another sign the administration is looking to absolutely decimate the refugee resettlement program,” said Jenny Yang, vice president for policy at World Relief, an evangelical Christian organization that helps new arrivals get their start in the U.S.
The new policy, Yang said, will give politicians looking to whip up xenophobic sentiment the chance to “decide who lives in their community based purely on immigration status.”
“That’s extremely alarming,” Yang said. “It harks back to the days of segregation.”
Many details of how the refugee ban will work, and who will get to implement it on behalf of a state or local government, are still being worked out amid a 90-day period to formulate the new policy.
So far, officials have been cautious about saying whether they will exercise the veto. None of the 27 Republican governors and other state officeholders contacted by The Post said definitively that they would move to block refugees. But several said they support giving states that right.