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Refugee resettlement agencies are preparing to shutter more than 20 offices across the United States and cut back operations in more than 40 others after the State Department told them to pare their operations, according to plans seen by Reuters. ... The vetting measures are likely to significantly slow down the pace of arrivals, refugee organizations have said, and in the end the United States may not reach its cap for the year of 45,000 refugees.

After decades helping refugee families become Americans, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Dubuque announced on Dec. 18 that it was getting out of the business. Its 77-year-old refugee resettlement ministry was being shut down. (snip)“We have received some indication that those agencies that are serving under 100 resettlement clients a year are at risk for being discontinued, of losing their federal contracts,” she said on Jan. 9. “So some of the agencies that are very small are threatened.”(snip) Sister Markham emphasized that the closing of the refugee programs “is not a decision that Catholic Charities is making…this is being...

The United States has withdrawn from a United Nations pact to commit to protect and preserve rights of migrants and refugees. Donald Trump's administration said the agreement, known as the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, was "inconsistent" with its policies. In September 2016, the 193 members of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a set of commitments that pledged to uphold the rights of refugees, help them resettle and ensure they have access to education and jobs. A statement from the US read: "The New York Declaration contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with US immigration and refugee...

he administration of President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from a United Nations pact to improve the handling of migrant and refugee situations, deeming it "inconsistent" with its policies, the US mission to the global body announced Saturday. "Today, the US Mission to the United Nations informed the UN Secretary-General that the United States is ending its participation in the Global Compact on Migration," the Americans said in a statement. In September 2016, the 193 members of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a non-binding political declaration, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, pledging to uphold...

President Trump, in just eight months in office, has succeeded in upending U.S. refugee policy, cutting by more than half the 110,000-refugee target that the Obama administration had bequeathed him and dramatically shifting the demographics of who is accepted. Gone is President Obama’s overwhelming focus on Muslims, and particularly on Syrians fleeing a civil war that his administration facilitated. Under Mr. Trump, the rate of Syrian refugees has been cut by more than 80 percent, and Christians have overtaken Muslims in total refugees resettled. “It’s impossible to escape the clear message that there’s a new sheriff in town,” said Matthew...

ABOUT 50 refugees in Australia’s offshore detention centres have passed the United States’ “extreme vetting” and will be resettled in America in coming weeks. It comes just six weeks before the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea is due to close. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning said it was “good news” that about 25 refugees from both Manus Island and Nauru would be resettled. Mr Turnbull thanked US President Donald Trump for honouring his deal with the Obama Administration despite his obvious reservations. The deal had been the subject of their testy phone call in January, just...

The Trump administration plans to stop accepting refugee applications from children with U.S.-based parents from three violence-riddled Central American countries — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — according to the summary of a presentation the State Department made recently to refugee organizations. .....CAM admissions had already dwindled to a trickle. In August, 19 Central American refugees were admitted. By comparison, 160 were admitted last December, the single highest month. Over the history of the program, 1,627 refugees entered the U.S. through CAM, the overwhelming majority of them from El Salvador. In August, the Trump administration terminated a program that served...

Christian refugee admissions increase during the first five months of Trump presidency. After declaring that Christians have “been horribly treated” by the refugee program under former President Barack Obama, President Donald Trump has reversed the Obama administration’s disgraceful discrimination against Christian refugees.  According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department refugee data, during the period from January 21, 2017 - President Trump’s first full day in office - through June 30, “9,598 Christian refugees arrived in the U.S., compared with 7,250 Muslim refugees. Christians made up 50% of all refugee arrivals in this period, compared with 38% who are Muslim.”...

The number of refugees admitted to the United States was cut by nearly half in the first three months of the Trump administration compared with the final three months of the Obama presidency, reflecting the new president's skepticism toward immigration. Government statistics released Friday showed that more than 25,000 refugees were permitted to enter and reside in the United States at the end of the Obama administration. In the initial months under President Trump, the number fell to 13,000.

Despite a court order halting most of his extreme vetting policy, President Trump’s administration has quietly been working toward his goal of a drastic cut in the number of refugees the U.S. will accept this fiscal year. President Obama had set a target of up to 110,000 on his way out the door, but Mr. Trump tried to reset that number to 50,000. If the pace continues, the final tally is likely to be about 60,000 when the fiscal year ends in September — well below the level Mr. Obama wanted to lock in....

[snip] In his now-stalled immigration executive orders, Trump also wanted to halt for 90 days the entry of almost all citizens from six terror-prone countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Although that provision applied to most citizens of those countries rather than to refugees specifically, since Trump took office the six countries have accounted for 4,478 refugee arrivals in the U.S. – 1,655 from Somalia, 1,603 from Syria, 779 from Iran, 425 from Sudan, 16 from Yemen, and none from Libya. All but two of the Somali refugees are Muslims, as are about three-quarters of the Sudanese...

WASHINGTON — Despite repeated efforts by President Trump to curtail refugee resettlements, the State Department this week quietly lifted the department’s restriction on the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States. The result could be a near doubling of refugees entering the country, from about 830 people a week in the first three weeks of this month to well over 1,500 people per week by next month, according to refugee advocates. Tens of thousands of refugees are waiting to come to the United States. The State Department’s decision was conveyed in an email on Thursday to the private...

The Sacramento region is bucking President Donald Trump’s moves to cut back the flow of international refugees entering the United States. The region is experiencing a mini-boom of refugees resettling here, even as the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. overall plummets, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of data kept by the national Refugee Processing Center. A total of 466 refugees from around the globe have resettled in the Sacramento metropolitan area so far this year, a 20 percent increase over the same period last year. The number to date is also bigger than in any year under...

Not only on the Refugee Admissions front (see my previous post), but obviously fearing powerful Islamists, the US State Department has convinced the wobbling White House to not name the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. From Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily yesterday: President Trump has decided not to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, at least for now, according to published reports citing pressure from the U.S. State Department and the King of Jordan. Anonymous sources told the Washington Times that the administration “backed down from a plan to designate the Brotherhood” after an internal State...

Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily received word from a US State Department spokesperson that YES, as the HuffPo reported yesterday, the Administration is going to admit 900 refugees a week for the remainder of the fiscal year which ends September 30th. As of yesterday, that would mean that 62,482 could be the expected total. The average since 9/11 has been around 64,000. (See all admission numbers since 9/11 here.) So big deal! The Trump team would be admitting only a small number below the average of George Bush and Barack Obama years. The Dems, the Open Borders Left, the...

The U.S. State Department is ramping up refugee admissions back to more normal levels after it had slowed to a trickle over the past month under President Donald Trump. WND has confirmed through a State Department spokesperson that the administration is set to more than double the number of refugees arriving in U.S. cities from the current 400 per week to 900 per week. On March 15 a federal judge, Derrick Watson in Hawaii, issued a nationwide injunction stopping the State Department from enforcing or implementing sections 2 and 6 of President Trump’s March 6 executive order. Section 6[b] lowers...

A religious-based charity has received nearly $18 million in federal grants to help refugees and immigrant children who entered the country illegally since Donald Trump was elected president.. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has received nine federally-funded awards since Nov. 8, all of which came from the the Department of Health and Human Services ... Seven of those – worth over $13 million – were awarded under the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program, and the remaining two – worth $4.5 million – were used to helped refugees. ... LIRS ultimately raked in $60 million total for fiscal 2016 –...

“It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur. Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values,” President Trump said in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. “That is why my administration has been working on improved vetting procedures, and we will shortly take new steps to keep our nation safe — and to keep out those who would do us harm,” the president promised. President Trump is expected to reveal those new steps...

WASHINGTON — Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today cosponsored a bill to rescind President Trump’s discriminatory executive order barring immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and suspending the U.S. refugee program. In addition to Senator Cardin, the bill is cosponsored by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Maggie...

"""Breaking: Lead Plaintiff In Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ Lawsuit Has Ties To Hamas, Supports Sharia"""" A Federal lawsuit in the United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia was filed against Trump on Monday and the lead plaintiff, Linda Sarsour has ties to terrorist organization, Hamas. She supports Sharia Law.