President-elect Donald Trump has promised to block refugees from entering the United States during his second term, a promise that will largely be kept within his powers as president.
On his first day in office, President Trump said he would “pause refugee admissions, block resettlement, and completely shut terrorists out of our country.” Regulations regarding the admission of refugees were established by Congress, including the Refugee Act of 1980, but also by legislation immediately following World War II. Therefore, a vote of Congress would be required to formally end the refugee program. But presidents have a lot of power over refugee admissions, and Mr. Trump exercised that power during his first term.
It is the president’s prerogative to decide how many refugees to admit into the United States in a given year, and President Trump significantly lowered the cap during his first term. The president can also suspend admissions, as President George W. Bush did after 9/11.
“Every president has expanded or diminished authority depending on the situation,” Eric Welsh of Reeves Immigration Law Group told Box. “That’s something he’s very susceptible to.”
Given how badly President Trump undermined the U.S. refugee program during his first term, it is understandable to fear that he will do even more damage this time around. While there are technical legal limits to what President Trump can do to dismantle the refugee program, there are many practical things the administration can do to water it down.
How does the U.S. refugee system work?
Refugees are immigrants who flee threats and extreme conditions in their home countries and wish to settle in a safe country, in this case the United States.
To be classified as a refugee, an immigrant must undergo a vetting process while outside the United States. Potential refugees are typically vetted first by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and then by the U.S. government. After passing the screening process, they receive a visa to come to the United States, where they receive basic assistance such as finding housing, enrolling their children in school, and enrolling in government benefits through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Masu.
Once refugees enter the United States, they can work and, if they have legal status in the United States, they can apply for U.S. citizenship.
What did President Trump do in his first term?
When he first took office in 2017, President Trump suspended refugee admissions for three months.
“The justification was to determine whether[the U.S. refugee program]was safe because of suspected security risks,” Welsh said. President Trump also indefinitely barred Syrians from the refugee resettlement program. Syrians were not admitted again until 2018.
“And he took it a step further with the Muslim ban by specifically banning (asylum) applicants from certain countries,” the Welshman said. The Supreme Court upheld the ban after more than a year of litigation.
President Trump also significantly reduced the total number of refugees allowed into the United States during his first term. For example, President Trump has set a cap on refugee admissions for 2021 at just 15,000. Under the Biden administration, that number has increased to 125,000 over the past year.
What else could President Trump do about the refugee program in his second term?
Given President Trump’s first-term actions to limit refugees, refugee advocates fear he will go even further in his next term. And there are things President Trump can do to increase pressure on the refugee program.
First, he promised to freeze the program, as he did in his first term, but it is unclear how long the process will be paused or what the justification for doing so will be. Mr Wales said measures similar to the 2017 travel ban could be implemented.
“The concern is that now, after having had four years to think about it, President Trump is going to try to do it again and do it better, because he’s very much in this area. Because they have a lot of power,” Wales told Box.
Of course, President Trump could simply lower the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States on an annual basis, as he did during his first term.
Chris Opira, a staff attorney at the American Immigration Council, told Box that there are also administrative ways for Trump and his administration to hollow out the program.
“The Trump administration may choose to reallocate refugee personnel to different tasks, including asylum within the United States and reliable fear processing at the border, potentially drawing away a type of adjudication resource,” Opira said. said.
Under the former Trump administration, “[federal]resettlement agencies had some changes that caused them to close some of their offices. And in terms of measures to slow processing and limit the number of people allowed into the country, I think some of the things we can expect will be similar,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney with the Migration Policy Institute, told Box.
After all, Mr. Trump is unpredictable and it’s impossible to say what he will or won’t do in January, Wales said. But if his first term is any indication, refugees hoping to come to the United States may face increasing obstacles to a secure future.
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