I don’t know why this isn’t a bigger deal, especially in the wake of the US 4th circuit court of appeals extending the stay on Trump’s Refugee Ban 2.0, but it seems to have pretty much slipped under the radar. But not mine.
Travel ban or not, refugee entry to the United States is down this year. The stated reason was “budget constraints”, forcing the State Department to issue a weekly quota limit to refugee groups to allow for proper processing. Trump’s goal was to drop refugee entry into the country from 110,000 to 50,000. And indeed refugee entry into the country is down this year.
But not anymore. According to a report in The Daily Beast, somebody at Rex Tillerson’s State Department didn’t get the right memo. The weekly quota for refugee groups for processing has been lifted;
While there was no public announcement made on the move, refugee groups were made aware of the decision in an email from a State Department official on Thursday, according to The New York Times. In that email, the official, Jennifer Smith, informed the groups that they could begin arranging for refugees’ entry “unconstrained by the weekly quotas that were in place.” The department’s earlier quota on refugees’ entry was reportedly the result of budget constraints, and the spending bill passed by Congress earlier this month allowed the department to ease restrictions.
Needless to say, this is expected to lead to a spike in the number of refugees entering the country. Refugee groups are predicting that more than 70,000 refugees could enter the country by the end of this fiscal year. But refugee groups are only cautiously optimistic, pointing out that the 2018 budget could put them right back in the same bind if budget cuts affect the departments they have to deal with for refugee entry.
Be that as it may, the way congress is functioning right now, it may be quite some time before anything even resembling a new budget becomes a cause for concern. And if the original reason for the installation of a quota limit was budget constraints, now that the State Department has made official notification that the moolah spigot has been turned back on again, it is going to be difficult for the administration to come up with another reason for a quota until a new budget is passed. Besides, that would give the GOP a lousy image, and right now Trump has more important things that a few scruffy refugees to worry about, like saving his own wrinkly orange skin.