The Trump administration is considering ending all new refugee admissions to the United States beginning in October. Every year the president announces an annual ceiling for refugee admissions. Typically, those ceilings range from 50,000 to 100,000 people. Trump’s aides reportedly have suggested that the number of admissions for 2020 will be ZERO.
Trump had already halted refugee admissions from Syria and a number of other countries suffering from severe human rights abuses and had reduced refugee admission by about three-quarters. His decision is the first time that refugee admissions worldwide have been reduced to zero.
Refugees have been admitted to the United States in a systematic and orderly way since the end of World War II. The failure of the United States and other Western democracies to admit Jewish and other refugees during the 1930s and early 1940s led to the development of a worldwide system of refugee resettlement.
The New York Immigration Coalition is planning to hold a day of action for refugees on Saturday, August 3, 2019.
