The Trump administration has set the annual admissions rate for legal refugees at 7,500, the lowest number in a half century since the modern refugee program was established. No president of either party has ever set the number below 60,000 and it was 120,000 under Joe Biden although the number actually entering was fewer his last year partly due to the decimation of the country’s robust resettlement support program in the last Trump administration.
Even the high aspirational number is a drop in the bucket considering there are millions in the world who potentially qualify. Meanwhile, preference for even these few slots reportedly will go to white Afrikaners, leaving tens of thousands of refugees in the rest of Africa and elsewhere in the third world who have been fully vetted, some of whom even had tickets ready, to continue to languish, as they have been since the administration paused the program altogether.
There is a requirement that this “presidential determination” include a consultation with Congress which has not taken place yet, although the order reportedly has been signed.
I urge readers to contact their representatives in Congress to insist on the consultation and call for a more robust number. It is important to remember at a time when the issue of immigration is so fraught and politicized — and all manner of people who have come to our shores through multiple avenues, many legal and some not, have been lumped together and mischaracterized and demonized —that the long established refugee program run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has been a huge success and the source of an inflow of new Americans of proven character and incredible resilience unusually motivated to succeed and to become new citizens along a carefully marked 5- year pathway to full citizenship.
The USCIS screening process is by far the most stringent in the world on multiple metrics, including vetting for any criminal behavior or dubious political affiliation of national security concern. One could argue it is a test of fortitude and intelligence and certainly persistence to make it clean through that official gauntlet.
It is a misnomer that incoming refugees are somehow abject and needy and will pose a burden on our public welfare — now, what is left of our public welfare. Far from it.
USCIS provides for 90 days of special support delivered through a system of private resettlement agencies, and after that families are on their own. With work permits issued, almost all are more than ready to roll, enrolling children in school, taking whatever jobs are available (usually multiples), and begin paying taxes etc. Many start small businesses. There are no end of studies that quantify in dollars the benefits these new neighbors bring to their communities.
Meanwhile most enroll in language and citizenship education classes looking forward to their naturalization. Some resettlement agencies have recruited volunteers to form support groups to assist refugee families adjust and acclimate to American culture and mores.
As almost any volunteer will tell you, it is a pleasure to work with people who, over and above a work ethic, bring faith, bring culture (often old cultures that prioritize the community over the individual), bring dedication to family, bring humor, bring kindness, bring bravery, and bring gratitude.
We need these potential new citizens badly right now.
Judson Brown, formerly of Northampton, is a volunteer in a refugee circle of care and lives in Brooksville, Maine.