The non-profit network for refugee resettlement in the United States may take years to recover from changes announced by President Donald Trump, charity managers and advocates say. The 120-day pause to the programme, and a reduction from 110,000 to 50,000 arrivals in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, will have far-reaching effects. The resettlement system is “not a pipeline you can turn on and off like a tap”, according to refugee advocate Amy Slaughter, who added that the programme faces an “existential threat”.
The suspension affects 67,689 refugees who had been fully cleared by the Department of Homeland Security and were “travel-ready”. When the programme restarts, supposedly at the end of May, only about 20,000 can be admitted from then until the end of September under the new quota (30,000 of the 50,000 total arrived before Trump took office). The rest will be in limbo, according to Slaughter, chief strategy officer of US-based refugee agency RefugePoint. They include 13,928 Somalis, 10,680 Iraqis, 8,886 Syrians, 1,805 Sudanese, 983 Iranians, and 29 Yemenis. Many will likely have to repeat lengthy security and health clearances that expire after a relatively short time. The resettlement vetting process rarely takes less than two years. “They could take a couple more years to get in the country,” said Slaughter.
Stuck
Over 67,000 refugees have been cleared to travel to the US. Just over half are from the seven countries highlighted by the January 2017 White House Executive Order