A new article from the IIR discusses U.S. refugee admissions. The United States Refugee Act of 1980 mandates that the annual cap on refugee admissions is set by the president, in consultation with Congress. In FY 1980, 207,116 refugees were admitted to, and resettled in, the United States. In the following years, the admissions declined significantly, peaking again in the mid-1990s as a response to refugees coming from the former Soviet Union and the political tensions in the Balkan countries. On November 1, 2019, the Trump administration released the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for FY 2020 when the United States will admit up to 18,000 refugees – marking a historic low and threatening to further shrink the refugee resettlement program. In the first month of FY 2019, the U.S. received zero refugees, which had never happened in the thirty years that the resettlement program has existed.
Read the IIR's new article on refugee admissions here.
November 26, 2019