The number of refugees admitted to the US has fallen 70 per cent during the current fiscal year, setting it on course to fall far short of the Trump administration’s targets, according to a new report.
An analysis by the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian group focusing on refugees, found that 12,189 refugees arrived in the US in the first seven months of this fiscal year. That put the US on track to accept 21,000 refugees for the full year, well below the 45,000 target set by the Trump administration.
For most years since 2000, the US agreed to take in 70-80,000 refugees. But it has sometimes allowed in far fewer, with the number falling to 27,000 after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the lowest total since the IRC began keeping records in 1980. In its last year, the Obama administration set a 110,000 goal for 2017.