Trump administration cutting number of new refugees to 4-decade low

The Trump administration will cut the number of refugees allowed into America to 30,000 next year — marking the lowest mark in nearly four decades, officials said Monday.

Humanitarian groups had already been livid with the Trump White House for limiting this fiscal year to just 45,000 refugees.

This new number of 30,000 – which starts with the fiscal year Oct. 1 – is the lowest since 1980, when the modern refugee program was first established.

As a comparison, in President Obama’s final year, America welcomed nearly 85,000 refugees.

“The improved refugee policy of this administration serves the national interest of the United States, and expands our ability to help those in need all around the world,” according to a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We are and continue to be the most generous nation in the world.”

Former British lawmaker David Miliband, now president of the International Rescue Committee, decried the US cutback.

“The US is not only abdicating humanitarian leadership and responsibility-sharing in response to the worst global displacement and refugee crisis since the Second World War, but compromising critical strategic interests and reneging on commitments to allies and vulnerable populations,” Miliband said.

Betsy Fisher, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the Trump administration is claiming, falsely, that the pullback is over security.

“This is another demonstration that the U.S. is stepping back from global leadership and engagement to protect refugees,” Fisher told NBC News.

“We were told that the slow rates of processing this year were due to the implementation of new security checks and that processing would pick back up. This number shows that was never the intent and the goal has always been to reduce the overall number of refugees admitted.”

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