I’ve been asked frequently what the numbers look like for which religions are practiced by refugees entering the US right now.
Unless Donald Trump tells us that the New York Times story was fake news last week, see here, and that we are not shooting for 70,000 refugees this year, we will assume it is true (and report the numbers as they come in). Just a reminder that any number in excess of 70,000 will put Trump ahead of most Bush years and ahead of several of Obama’s years.
Before I give you the list, I want to emphasize that religion should not be the main criteria for your assessment of whether the refugee is good or bad for America.
First, these people are all supposed to have been PERSECUTED? Do we take some who are really simply economic migrants, those who need work? If so, that is not the purpose of the Refugee Act of 1980.
Can we afford large numbers with mental illness, or illnesses such as TB?
Can we afford those who have no hope of getting off welfare for a generation?
Can we afford those who might already have criminal tendencies that do not become evident in those personal interviews (when no data is available from failed nation states)?
Are we to take into consideration the need by big companies and the Chamber of Commerce for a steady supply of cheap immigrant labor (supported by your tax dollars)?
Are we taking some supposed ‘refugees’ for other purposes of the US State Department, to ‘help-out’ some country that is having a security or economic problem? Or, as we have done in some cases (Uzbeks? Meskhetians?), where we want something from that country?
Again, religion should not be the primary reason we admit or deny anyone, unless they can prove they are being persecuted for it!
Here is a list of some of the religions recorded at Wrapsnet and the refugees who practice those religions (data for this fiscal year from October 1, 2016 to today). Note: This program operates on a fiscal year basis!
Again, I do not include below all of the religions listed. These are the larger (or more interesting to me) numbers and these are not my categories, they are how they are categorized at Wrapsnet. 45% of those entering the US in this fiscal year practice some form of Islam. Since Trump was inaugurated on January 20th, the percentage of Muslims entering the US has dropped to 39%.
Numbers for the fiscal year 2017 (so far):
Baptists (1,591)
Buddhists (1,380)
Catholics (2,713)
Christians (6,890)
Evangelical Christians (364)
Hindu (979)
Jehovah Witness (388)
Jewish (149)
Moslem Suni (9,663)
Moslem Shiite (2,509)
Moslem (8,180) These must not have designated a sect
No religion (369)
Orthodox (983)
Pentecostalist (3,901)
Protestant (1,918)
Yezidi (416)
Total refugees this fiscal year: 45,732
Like it or not, these will be Trump’s refugees because years from now (especially if we reach the 70,000 mark by September 30th), no one will remember that Obama presided over 3 1/2 months of the fiscal year.
Again, the data base goes on for 22 pages and I’ve picked those with the largest numbers, or in a few cases ones that interested me like the small number of Jews entering as refugees. If HIAS (formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) still focused on Jewish refugees they would be out of business by now!
One last thing!
We have been admitting mostly Burmese Christians for probably a decade, but the number of Burmese Muslims (Rohingya) are on the rise and I note that, for this fiscal year, 1,108 of the ‘Moslems’ are from Burma. I was also surprised to see how large a number of ‘Moslems’ there were from the DR Congo (325) when that whole flow was supposed to have been, we were led to believe, Christians.