September 23, 2019

Dear John,

With the White House poised to announce the refugee resettlement ceiling for fiscal year (FY) 2020, a look at admissions during the Trump administration reflects that the steep decline has not affected all refugee populations equally.

With FY 2019 nearly at an end, the United States had admitted 29,818 refugees for resettlement as of September 20—a far cry from the nearly 85,000 refugees resettled during the last full year of the Obama administration, in FY 2016.

Exceptionally dramatic reductions have occurred in refugee admissions from particular countries, most notably from those in the Middle East, with an attendant plunge in resettlement of Muslim refugees.

In a new commentary, Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysts Mark Greenberg, Julia Gelatt, and Amy Holovnia explain how the 87 percent decrease in resettlement of Muslim refugees since FY 2016 is overwhelmingly the result of the Trump administration’s designation of 11 countries as “high-risk” in 2017 and resulting heightened screening measures. Today, Christians make up the largest share of refugee admissions.

And even as more than half of the reduction in admissions has come from the “Near East/South Asia” region, over this same period, resettlement from Europe actually increased.

I commend this timely commentary to your attention.

Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Migration Policy Institute