President Trump could nip this in the bud by resetting refugee levels for this year from the 50,000 (he had already declared) down to 35,000 because the Refugee Act of 1980 gives him the legal right to do it.
That 50,000 is not a goal, it is only a ceiling not to be exceeded!
On January 28th, President Trump signed the Executive Order that called for a 120-day pause in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (RAP). That was before Washington State Judge James Robart, in a legally questionable ruling, halted the order a week later.
But, as CNN reported here, that 50,000 re-set of the refugee admissions ceiling was not addressed in the ban.
… a provision of the Trump administration’s order that was not overturned in Friday’s court ruling — a provision capping total refugee admissions at 50,000 for the 2017 fiscal year, which ends October 1.
Since the Judge stalled the ban causing a legal wrangle of epic proportions, the Trump State Department has been rushing refugees in as fast as they can.
This morning we see (at Wrapsnet) that 1,618 have come in since Trump first signed an EO to pause the refugee program for 120-days—and less than a week since Judge Robart’s ruled on a portion of the EO.
Of the 1,618, the following came from countries the Administration was particularly concerned about. And, remember, although there were 7 countries of concern (90 day pause from 6 of them) Syria was to be halted indefinitely:
Iran (84)
Iraq (151)
Somalia (68)
Sudan (24)
Syria (248)
No refugees came from Libya or Yemen, however, 78 came from Afghanistan in less than a week—a country I maintain should have been included from day one. (This notion that the 7 countries targeted had already been identified by the Obama Administration so, we are told, the Trump team thought they had some sort of PR coup with the media was a dumb idea. The media hardly mentioned it.)
Below is where the 248 Syrians were placed over the last week (since the rogue Judge’s decision). From Wrapsnet:
Another way to skin the cat!
As we said above, not effected by the ban was President Trump resetting the overall resettlement levels at 50,000 for FY17 (too high in our opinion as we said here). As of this morning we are at 33,743.
To stop this rush he could reset the level to say 35,000 (a reasonable level to allow those with tickets to get here, but stop the rush (by the State Dept.) to hand out more taxpayer-funded airline tickets).
By resetting the overall ceiling again, down to 35,000, it would effectively stop refugees/immigrants from these terror hotspot countries. (Very few get in to the US LEGALLY from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Somalia through other programs other than the UN/US RAP anyway).
Endnote: Thanks to all of you who told me RRW was mentioned by Rush Limbaugh yesterday! I heard it too! He mentioned our post on the 100 Syrians rushed in on Sunday and Monday.
This post is filed in our Trump Watch! category as well as ‘refugee statistics’ and ‘where to find information.’