Evangelical Advocates Feel the Sting of More Trump Refugee Cuts

By amazon Friday, September 27, 2019 Comment Edit

It’s the third consecutive year that the administration has reduced resettlement totals to record lows.

The Trump administration’s decision to once again cut the US refugee ceiling didn’t come as a surprise after significant reductions in 2017 and 2018, but as one evangelical leader said, expecting the move didn’t make it any easier to bear.

“That the administration had already telegraphed plans to slam the door on refugees by slashing the # to be resettled during FY2020 by 40% to a new low of only 18,000 takes away none of the sting,” tweeted Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals. “Incredibly inconsistent w/ the pledged commitment to religious freedom.”

The official announcement of the new number came on Thursday, the same week as a historic speech by President Trump at the United Nations, where he touted US commitment to religious freedom and announced new measures to protect persecuted faiths.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which advises the federal government on religious freedom concerns abroad, condemned earlier reports of the proposed reduction.

“USCIRF is alarmed by reports that the #Trump administration is preparing to significantly reduce, or even zero out, the number of #refugees to be resettled to the US in FY 2020,” the commission tweeted.

President Trump’s administration has dramatically cut the number of refugees admitted to the US every year since taking office. Last year, CT reported on evangelicals condemning the decision to drop the refugee ceiling to then-historic low of 30,000 for the 2019 fiscal year. The year before, it was down to 45,000. Up until then, the cap for resettling refugees in the US hadn’t gone below 70,000 in 30 years.

As global religious ...