Trump plan for veto power on refugees sparks outcry
No state in America resettled more refugees in the past year than Texas. And in the state capital there, the mayor says the influx has been a boon.
“It’s brought in industrious, hardworking 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 last month, Adler’s neighbor in the governor’s mansion could opt to block refugee admissions to Texas next year. President Donald 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 rally in Minneapolis on Thursday, 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 America 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.
“There is an array of challenges — financial, legal and public safety, to name a few — that states or localities face when compelled to accommodate refugee populations,” said the office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. “States deserve to be heard before those decisions are made.”
A spokesman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — who threatened to pull his state out of the refugee resettlement program in 2016 — did not respond to a request for comment.
The new veto power is the latest blow to a system for welcoming refugees that long enjoyed bipartisan support, but that critics say has been dramatically weakened under Trump.
For decades, the U.S. resettled more refugees than any other country — and often more than all other countries combined. Democratic and Republican presidents endorsed the program, and Ronald Reagan celebrated it in his farewell address, highlighting America’s welcome to refugees as proof that America stood “for freedom.”
But under Trump — who has speculated that refugees are a “Trojan horse” bent on attacking the U.S. from within — the White House has slashed resettlement totals, allowing Canada to speed ahead. Last month, his administration said the cap for the coming year would be 18,000. That’s the lowest in four decades and down 84% from the highest-ever cap, 110,000 during the final year of the Obama administration.
Trump bragged of the cuts at his Thursday rally, sparking loud cheers.
As the numbers have fallen, the infrastructure to support refugees has shriveled; more than 100 refugee resettlement offices have closed or suspended resettlements in recent years, according to a report by Refugee Council USA. Meanwhile, the number of people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide is the highest ever — more than 70 million, according to UNHCR, the U.N.’S refugee agency.