President Trump is further reducing the inflow of refugees to the United States, cutting their resettlement by 80 percent compared to former President Obama’s last year in office.
This week, Trump announced that the fiscal year 2021 inflow of refugees will be capped at 15,000 admissions — a more than 16 percent reduction to this year’s cap and a more than 80 percent reduction compared to Obama-Biden era refugee levels.
The cap is merely a numerical limit and not a goal federal officials are supposed to reach.
Trump’s reduction is the lowest level of refugee resettlement since the program’s inception in 1980 and marks the fifth consecutive year that the president has cut the number.
Vital components of the program are currently making their way through the courts. Last year, Trump issued an executive order that allows states and localities to decide whether they want to resettle refugees in their communities.
The executive order immediately prompted the lawsuit, with three of the nine refugee contractors filing suit. In January, a federal judge blocked the order.
These nine refugee contractors — which have a monopoly over the program — have a vested interest in ensuring as many refugees are resettled across the U.S. as possible because their annual federally-funded budgets are contingent on the number of refugees they resettle.
Those refugee contractors include:
Church World Service (CWS), Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC), Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), International Rescue Committee (IRC), U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and World Relief Corporation (WR).
Over the last 19 years, more than 985,000 refugees have been admitted to the country. This is a number more than double that of residents living in Miami, Florida, and would be the equivalent of adding the population of Pensacola, Florida, to the country every year.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to the latest research. Over the course of five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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