White House chief of staff John Kelly said he doesn’t remember saying, if it were up to him, the number of refugees that should enter the U.S. each year should be between zero and one.
“I don’t ever remember saying between zero and one,” Kelly, who previously was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told Fox News host Laura Ingraham Monday in response to a New York Times report from last week. “My time at DHS was definitely — we should not take refugees into the country unless we know who they are and consequently we have improved the vetting process.”
Last month, it was revealed the administration intended to lower the annual cap on admissions of refugees to 45,000. This is the lowest number seen since 1980, when the caps were first established through the U.S. Refugee Act. Under the Obama administration, the cap had been set at 110,000.
“It just seems to me, and most people I think that are — if they think about the refugee issue, it’s theoretically a temporarily problem,” Kelly continued. “Best thing to do is to house them as close to their countries as possible and to help solve the problems inside the country, like we have, say, in Syria.”
“So you are satisfied with the 45,000? That’s a good number?” Ingraham pressed.
“Yeah, that’s a good number,” Kelly said. “But I don’t know where this zero to one came from.”
Trump has in the past called for the Department of Homeland Security to execute “extreme vetting” of refugees.
