By REBECCA SANTANA and ELLIOT SPAGAT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration plans a evaluation of all refugees admitted to the U.S. in the course of the Biden administration, in response to a memo obtained Monday by The Related Press, within the newest blow towards a program that has for many years welcomed individuals fleeing warfare and persecution into the nation.
The evaluation is prone to sow confusion and concern among the many practically 200,000 refugees who got here to the US throughout that interval. It’s prone to face authorized challenges from advocates, a few of whom stated the transfer was a part of the administration’s “cold-hearted treatment” of individuals making an attempt to construct new lives within the U.S.
The memo, signed by the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers, Joseph Edlow, and dated Friday, stated that in the course of the Biden years “expediency” and “quantity” have been prioritized over “detailed screening and vetting.” The memo stated that warranted a complete evaluation and “re-interview of all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025.”
The memo indicated that there will probably be an inventory of individuals to re-interview inside three months.
Advocates of the refugee program say that refugees are usually a few of the most vetted of all individuals coming to the US and that they typically wait years to have the ability to come.
The memo additionally instantly suspended inexperienced card approvals for refugees who got here to the U.S. in the course of the said time interval.
“USCIS is ready to uphold the law and ensure the refugee program is not abused,” Edlow wrote.
Folks admitted to the U.S. as refugees are required to use for a inexperienced card one yr after they arrive within the nation and often 5 years after that may apply for citizenship.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers, the Division of Homeland Safety and the White Home didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The strikes described within the memo are the newest to take purpose on the refugee program, which the administration suspended earlier this yr and later set a restrict for entries to 7,500 largely white South Africans — a historic low of refugees to be admitted to the U.S. because the program’s inception in 1980. The Trump administration extra broadly has ramped up immigration enforcement as a part of its promise to extend deportations of unlawful immigrants.
The Biden administration admitted 185,640 refugees from October 2021 by way of September 2024. Refugee admissions topped 100,000 final yr, with the biggest numbers coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria.
“This plan is shockingly ill-conceived,” stated Naomi Steinberg, vice chairman of U.S. coverage and advocacy at HIAS, a refugee resettlement company. “This is a new low in the administration’s consistently cold-hearted treatment of people who are already building new lives and enriching the communities where they have made their homes.”
USCIS expects to have a precedence record for re-interviews inside 90 days, Edlow wrote. His language factors to a rigorous revisiting of why refugee standing was granted within the first place.
“Testimony will include, but is not limited to, the circumstances establishing past persecution or a well-founded fear for principal refugees, the persecutor bar, and any other potential inadmissibilities,” he wrote.
Sharif Aly, President of the Worldwide Refugee Help Challenge, an advocacy group, criticized the administration’s actions in an announcement late Monday, saying that refugees are “already the most highly vetted immigrants in the United States.”
“Besides the enormous cruelty of this undertaking, it would also be a tremendous waste of government resources to review and re-interview 200,000 people who have been living peacefully in our communities for years,” Aly stated.
IRAP is at the moment a part of a lawsuit searching for to overturn the administration’s suspension of refugee admissions.
Spagat reported from San Diego.
