This year, the United States is on track to welcome the fewest number of refugees since 2002, when 9/11 thwarted resettlement programs in this country.
That year, about 22,000 refugees found homes in America. So far in 2018, according to a new Pew report, barely 10,000 asylum-seekers have been granted reprieve in the Land of the Free. And of those, only 1,800 (17 percent) are Muslims.
The abandonment of Muslim refugees is not even disguised these days. In some ways, it’s flaunted.
Last year, the US took in about 20,000 displaced Muslims. In 2016, it was more like 40,000—and more Muslims came through our doors than Christians. But at the rate we’re going now, the US will take in less than 20,000 refugees total this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2017–Sept. 30, 2018), and less than 3,000 Muslims.
The stated cap for the Administration’s refugee admissions for this year is 45,000. Our pace has us falling well short of that.
If we have decided to help fewer and fewer refugees by reducing our cap, that’s one issue. But it’s a separate issue when we don’t even help the dramatically-reduced number we say we will.
Considering that three of the top five refugee-creating countries in the world are Muslim-majority states—Iraq, Syria, and Somalia—some American excuses for deselecting them are tough to swallow.
So disheartening.