President Trump will move to limit the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. next year to 45,000 amid the implementation of stricter vetting procedures that could keep the actual number of refugees admitted even lower.
Administration officials unveiled the new refugee cap on Wednesday after providing Congress with a report outlining their policies for fiscal year 2018. The “extreme vetting” procedures Trump promised to deliver after the 120-day review he commissioned in his so-called travel ban executive order will be announced on Oct. 24, when the window for that review closes. Those requirements could slow the vetting process and result in fewer admissions next year, senior administration officials told reporters on a conference call Wednesday.
“I state unequivocally that that’s not our goal, to slow roll it,” an administration official said. “We have every plan to process as many refugees as we can, under the ceiling…In past years, many times, we haven’t reached the ceiling.”
Another senior official said “it’s difficult to predict right now” how the tougher vetting procedures will affect the pace at which the administration can admit refugees, but noted the potential impact of those procedures was taken into consideration when determining the 45,000-refugee cap.
Trump’s new admissions limit is less than half of the 110,000-refugee cap ordered by the Obama administration last year, although a senior administration official said the actual number of refugees admitted by the end of fiscal year 2017 will ultimately fall around 54,000.
Trump has long argued that unchecked refugee intake could pose national security risks to Americans. His belief that terrorists could sneak into the country by exploiting U.S. refugee programs formed the basis of a controversial executive order he first signed in January, which he has since replaced and refined several times in an effort to evade multiple court challenges. The travel ban originally suspended immigration from seven Middle Eastern countries for a 90-day period and blocked entry for Syrian refugees indefinitely. In March, Trump signed a revised travel ban that removed Iraq from the list of majority-Muslim countries from which immigration was halted.
Both orders faced fierce opposition from immigration activists and suffered legal blockades that delayed the start of the suspensions. However, a judge ruled in June that the 120-day examination of vetting procedures could proceed despite injunctions on the rest of the travel ban, setting the end of the review period for October.
“The safety and security of the American people is number one,” a senior administration official said Wednesday. “We want to make sure that this is a secure process and that no one is allowed through that might endanger the security of America. Second are humanitarian goals.”
Officials said the lower ceiling for refugee resettlement will still allow the U.S. to lead the international community in accepting those who flee their home countries.
“At 45,000, the U.S. will continue to be the largest refugee resettlement country in the world,” an official said.
“We want to maintain a robust resettlement program for the small percentage of people who are vulnerable in their situation and need to be moved, and we think that the current program will do that,” another official added.
The administration will accept the highest number of applicants from Africa, where officials have set a cap of 19,000.
The admissions ceiling in the Near East and South Asia is the next highest at 17,000, followed by the 5,000-refugee limit for East Asia, the 2,000-refugee cap for Europe and Central Asia, and the 1,500-refugee ceiling for Latin American and the Caribbean.
