Data: Obama Outpaced Trump’s Annual Refugee Admissions in Three Months

Former President Obama outpaced President Trump’s first year of foreign refugee admissions in just three months, new data from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals.

After Trump’s first year in office, between January 20 and December 20, 2017, the populist president admitted fewer refugees than Obama admitted in his last three months in office, CIS researcher Nayla Rush notes.

During Obama’s last three months in office, an estimated 30,017 foreign refugees were imported to the U.S. with a plurality, 47 percent, of those refugees being Muslims and 43 percent identifying as Christians.

On the other hand, during Trump’s first 11 months in office, he admitted 28,875 foreign refugees to the U.S. with a majority of those refugees, 53 percent, being Christians and 32 percent identifying as Muslims.

Additionally, Obama admitted more refugees from Iraq, Syria, and Somalia in his last three months than Trump admitted during 2017.

For example, Obama admitted more than 13,000 Iraqi, Somali, and Syrian refugees to the U.S. between October 20, 2016, to January 19, 2017.

In contrast, Trump brought less than 6,800 Iraqi, Somali, and Syrian refugees to the U.S. in his first 11 months in office, a number that would have been even lower had left-wing courts not held up implementation of his travel ban executive order.

The travel ban, which temporarily halts refugee resettlement from particular foreign countries with known terror problems, began being fully implemented by the State Department in December 2017.

For Fiscal Year 2018, Trump has lowered the number of refugees who can enter the U.S. to 45,000, the lowest refugee cap to be implemented by the federal government since 1980.