…..And, in September he can set the number for FY2018 at zero!
Just a reminder, the Refugee Act of 1980 gave the President great latitude in setting over all refugee numbers for a 12 month period.
In September, for Fiscal year 2017, Obama set the cap (ceiling) for this year at 110,000 (way higher than normal).
In the 1980 law the ceiling was set at 50,000 (unless there was an emergency) and Congress must be consulted (which amounts to not very much) if the President wished to change (increase) the number during the year.
We showed you here in recent years that the ceiling proposed was often not met. (Not meeting the ceiling doesn’t require any consultation with Congress.)
In fact, George Bush had 4 years under 50,000. Two of those years followed the dramatic slowdown after 9/11 when the government feared Islamic terrorists could get in to the program.
In 2002 the number admitted was 45,896 and in 2003 it was 39,554 (from all the usual countries we took refugees from). Obama had a pretty relatively low year too in 2012 (58,238).
As I understand it, Trump’s new cap of 50,000 is not included in the Washington State court decision.
I’m arguing that 50,000 isn’t low enough and he could cap the level right now.
It would stop refugee admissions from all areas of the world, not just the seven terror hotspots identified in the so-called travel ban.
As of this morning Wrapsnet reports that (in a little over 4 months) we are at 32,968 admitted this fiscal year (not far off the level Bush admitted in 2003). The contractors are well-aware of the fact that they still have nearly 20,000 paying clients on the way, see here.
And here are the numbers of some of the groups of concern admitted in those 4 months:
Iraqis: 4,841
Somalis: 4,035
Syrians: 4,884
Congress must reform the Refugee Act of 1980 and a slowdown for a few months is not enough incentive for them to get to work!
(It is not just about security either, it is about the economic costs as well, see here.)