Somalis in Minneapolis have started businesses and contributed to the city’s cultural landscape. 8 In Buffalo, New York, refugee families have revitalized a section of the city and taken up residence in 500 previously vacant houses. Examples of refugees making remarkable contributions to their communities in the United States are not hard to find: Refugee families have been attributed to revitalizing cities across the country, from Utica, New York, to Akron, Ohio. Resettling refugees does not just help refugees it is also advantageous for the country that takes them in. 7 This imbalance of global responsibility-sharing to protect the most vulnerable population of the world may have grave ramifications on regional security and stability, thereby affecting the foreign policy of the United States. In a 2019 analysis, Michael Clemens, economist and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, estimated that the decrease in spots available can be directly attributed to the policies of the Trump administration to reduce refugee admissions. 6 From 2016 to 2019, the number of spaces available worldwide for resettlement declined by 50 percent. 5 In 2019, less than 0.25 percent of the global refugee population was resettled, and around 80 percent of the refugee population was hosted in developing countries, which places a significant responsibility on these nations’ strained systems. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are currently 79.5 million people who have been forced to flee their homes globally, with more than 26 million identified as refugees. These changes could not have come at a worse possible time. Low admission levels translate to reduced funding available for the operation of the program, starting a domino effect on the entire system-from decimating the local infrastructure, which supports newly arrived refugees, to affecting those overseas who are waiting to be resettled-and making it harder to simply restart once the numbers rise again.
4 The administration was on pace to fall below its fiscal year 2020 refugee admissions target even before the Trump administration halted the program entirely during the coronavirus pandemic. 3Īccording to the Refugee Processing Center, only 11,814 refugees were actually resettled in fiscal year 2020, falling well short of meeting the ceiling set for the year. 2 From 2016 to 2020, the number of refugees admitted to the United States dropped by 86 percent.
Every year, the administration has slashed the annual presidential determination-the numerical ceiling for refugee admissions set by the president in consultation with Congress-reducing it to only 18,000 in fiscal year 2020 and then proposing to admit just 15,000 in fiscal year 2021, the lowest level in the program’s history. 1 It has since systematically targeted key elements of the U.S. Starting with the Muslim ban that January, the administration halted all refugee arrivals for 120 days and banned Syrian refugees indefinitely. refugee resettlement system has been decimated by the Trump administration since it took office in 2017. Once an exemplary model as a welcoming nation to refugees, the U.S.
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