US to sharply reduce refugee admissions for 2019

The US said on Monday that it would cap the number of refugees allowed into the country at 30,000 for fiscal year 2019, a sharp drop from a limit of 45,000 it set for 2018.

"We proposed resettling up to 30,000 refugees under the new refugee ceiling as well as processing more than 280,000 asylum seekers," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an announcement at the State Department.

"These expansive figures continue the United States' long-standing record as the most generous nation in the world when it comes to protection-based immigration and assistance," he said.

The refugee ceiling set last year at 45,000 was the lowest since 1980 when the modern refugee programme was established. The United States is on track to admit only 22,000 refugees this year, about half the maximum allowed.

Rights groups quickly denounced the decision, saying that severely curtailing the number of refugee admissions into the United States does more harm than good.

“For 2018, the president set the refugee quota to 45,000, but less than half were actually resettled," said Betsy Fisher, the policy director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, in a press release. 

"Now the president is again reducing that number by a shocking amount. This decision is not informed by the global need, nor by America’s national security and foreign policy priorities. It will not only harm refugees, whose lives are at risk, but also America’s interests abroad and at home,” she added.

"Today's announcement… is a shameful abdication of our humanity in the face of the worst refugee crisis in history," Jennifer Quigley, of Human Rights First, said in a statement.

Ryan Mace, a refugee specialist at Amnesty International USA, urged Congress to oppose the decision as it finalises fiscal year 2019 appropriations.

"The Trump administration is abandoning this country’s promise to refugees," said Mace. "Today’s announcement demonstrates another undeniable political attack against people who have been forced to flee their homes."

According to a Middle East Eye report in June, data from the State Department showed that only about 1,800 Muslim refugees resettled in the US during the first half of the fiscal year. They accounted for 17 percent of the refugees admitted during that time compared to 63 percent who were Christians.

Fewer than 50 Syrians, for example, had been admitted to the US as of 31 May 2018, according to the State Department, despite the US being the largest funder of UN humanitarian efforts in Syria, providing approximately $8bn over the seven years of the conflict.

Officials at the State Department and the Pentagon initially supported maintaining the cap at 45,000, according to one former and one current official. It was unclear whether they changed their position as the debate proceeded or failed to persuade the White House.

US President Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 on the promise that he would tighten restrictions on immigration, and his administration has sharply reduced refugee admissions through executive orders and closed-door decisions in the past year and a half.