US Refugee Resettlement Program Starts to Bounce Back After Being Gutted by Trump Administration

The United States refugee resettlement program languished under the Trump administration, dropping from 50,000 to 80,000 each year down to record lows of 12,000 each year in 2020 and 2021.

However, new data provided by the Refugee Process Center shows that the refugee system has bounced back considerably this year, catching up to pre-Trump numbers with more than 50,000 resettled refugees so far this fiscal year and possibly more to come in September, the last month of the fiscal year.

Refugee resettlement is an essential aspect of the global refugee system. Through the refugee program, refugees are identified and screened outside of the United States, and then granted permission to come to the country with some transition assistance provided by local resettlement agencies. More information about the U.S. refugee resettlement program is available at the U.S. Department of State and the UNHCR.

Most analyses of the refugee resettlement program under Trump describe the program as being gutted as the refugee cap was cut each year and funds to resettlement agencies slashed. I was still living in Columbus at the start of the Trump administration and I remembered our local agency, Community Refugee & Immigration Services (CRIS), being forced to cut staff. I clearly recall a conversation over coffee with Angie Plummer, CRIS’s executive director, who explained to me what I’ll refer to as a kind of “brain drain” as a result of funding cuts. Refugee resettlement requires highly specialized skill sets and experiences that are not easy to train new staff quickly if and when funding eventually returns.

This helps to explain why, despite the Biden administration setting high refugee caps of 125,000, refugee resettlement numbers have remained so low. I have commented on this in previous blog posts. As I have also pointed out in the past, despite complaints about the United States seeming to accept a lot of refugees, refugees actually make up a very small percentage of the U.S. population. Overall, it is good to see the refugee resettlement system back on track.

See previous posts below to get more information about the trajectory of the Biden administration’s refugee numbers.

Biden Leaves Historically Low Trump-Era Refugee Limits in Place

Biden Administration Sets High Refugee Cap for 2023 After Failing to Come Close This Year

Refugees Make Up Less than Half a Percent of US Population, 54th in the World

I would also recommend the article by Niskanen Center analysts Matthew La Corte and Claire Holba who tipped me off to these new numbers in their article titled “New data confirms that the U.S. rebuilt the refugee resettlement program.”

Learn more about refugee resettlement in this useful short video produced by USA Today.

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Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash