By Eileen Sullivan
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is looking to cut the number of refugees who come to the United States to escape persecution and humanitarian crises, a program that formally dates back to 1980, though the United States had long been accepting refugees and had established its image as a haven for people from around the world.
Since President Trump took office, the number of refugees admitted each year has dropped, to 30,000 last fiscal year from 110,000 in the 2017 fiscal year, a ceiling established at the end of the Obama administration.
In meetings over the past few weeks, one senior administration official proposed cutting the program entirely, but leaving the president with the discretion to allow refugees into the country in an emergency. Another proposal under consideration is cutting the number to as low as 10,000 and accepting people only from certain countries. Officials will meet on Tuesday in the Situation Room to discuss what the annual cap should be.
The refugee program, housed at the State Department, resettles displaced people from around the world into the United States, with help from agencies at the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. The focus is on migrants who have fled their own countries for fear of their safety and of persecution or violence, and decamped to another country where they cannot stay permanently.
Under United States policy, refugees are considered part of a different category of immigrants than those seeking asylum, even though both groups are often fleeing their countries out of fear for their lives. The difference between the two is mostly a matter of location. Refugees are people displaced from their countries, having fled war or a humanitarian concern, who ask the United States to allow them in. Asylum seekers are people who are already in the United States and argue to immigration officers that their lives would be in danger if they return home.
Facing a crisis at the end of World War II, the United Nations created a position to oversee global refugees: the high commissioner for refugees. The United States had welcomed refugees on a mostly ad hoc basis — like accepting hundreds of thousands of Europeans displaced by the war, and later Southeast Asian refugees after the end of Vietnam.
In 1980, the United States created a formal system for accepting refugees, which included increasing the number allowed into the country and establishing an office to oversee all of the resettlement issues. Since then, the United States has accepted three million of the four million refugees who were resettled around the world, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center analysis.
The administration has broadly pushed to lower the number of all kinds of immigrants who enter the United States, including pursuing policies that favor immigrants who are able to financially support themselves.
Stephen Miller, the president’s immigration architect, has made it clear that he believes refugees are more likely to be uneducated and have few skills, making them drains on the American economy. In 2017, he helped prevent the release of a study by the Department of Health and Human Services that concluded that the net fiscal effect of refugees was positive.
If the number of refugees allowed into the United States is further reduced or eliminated, it could put American forces stationed overseas in danger, cutting off what former senior military officials have described as a “critical lifeline” for American military, intelligence and diplomatic officials.
Most at risk are refugees from Iraq who worked with American officials as translators and advisers. The United States placed a priority on accepting these Iraqi refugees, and preventing them from resettling in America would “undermine” previous commitments to allies, the retired military officers wrote in a Sept. 3 letter to Mr. Trump.
Family members seeking to reunite with refugees already resettled in the United States would also suffer, increasing the number of families separated, said Jennifer Quigley, the director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First.
Another potential consequence, Ms. Quigley said, would be if other countries look to the United States as an example and limit their refugee cap, as well.
When countries limit the refugees allowed in, it often leaves people stuck in refugee camps indefinitely. This can make for fertile ground for radicalization and resentment against the United States for abandoning them.
The Defense Department has fought these cuts in the past. Last year, Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, was outspoken about his objections to the decreasing refugee cap, citing national security concerns. But the current secretary, Mark T. Esper, has not yet made his position known.
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