The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has just released the public figures for refugee admissions in the country, providing an insight into the state of legal immigration under Trump’s administration.
According to the statistics published on Friday, the number of refugees entering the United States plunged by almost half in the first three months after Trump took oath as the new U.S. president.
There were about 13,000 refugees who came to the U.S. in those three months as opposed to the 25,000 who gained entry to the country towards the end of Barack Obama’s administration. Most of the refugees come from five countries : Somalia, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, and Syria, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A week after Trump was sworn into office in January, he signed an executive order suspending all refugee admissions for 12 days and barring entry for 90 days to immigrants coming from the aforementioned Muslim nations.
This resulted in nationwide protests as well as confusion at many airports. After the courts blocked the order, Trump revised it in March, removing Iraq from the list, but it was also ruled against. Courts have declared Trump’s orders to be unconstitutional.
The latest statistics show that the number of refugee admissions rose sharply by 86 percent as the Obama administration was coming to an end.
During Obama’s time, he set a limit of 110,000 refugee admissions across the nation. This year, Trump has sought to reduce the number to 50,000. Congress has budgeted for only 75,000 refugees for this fiscal year. To stick to the budget, the country is working with 900 admissions per week, the State Department said.
The number of refugees entering the country would have been lower if federal courts had not blocked the president’s executive order to ban people coming from Muslim-majority nations.
Trump is still moving to reduce that number. The latest refugee admissions rate is expected to decline further. In his March executive order , Trump gave a directive to the Secretary of State to produce a report detailing the long-term costs involved in the refugee admissions program of the country. Along with this, Trump also asked for recommendations on how to reduce the costs.
The United States is one of the countries with the lowest quota for receiving refugees.
[Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images]
