RCUSA Strongly Condemns Administration’s Sweeping Review of Resettled Refugees, Urges Respect for American Humanitarian Values

Washington, D.C. – Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) unequivocally condemns the recent directive from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), ordering a sweeping review of more than 200,000 individuals admitted to the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) during the previous administration. These refugees are the most thoroughly vetted entrants to the United States. Reopening their cases is a cruel exercise, wasteful of governmental resources, which is evidently aimed at conjuring up pretexts for returning refugees to countries where their lives may be in danger. This ill-conceived directive includes among its targets refugees who have already received their Green Card and are permanent residents of the United States. The USCIS directive will retraumatize tens of thousands of our newest neighbors. This unprecedented action marks a dramatic departure from U.S. law and longstanding humanitarian commitments. It represents a severe threat to the safety, stability, and dignity of people who fled persecution, conflict, or violence and to whom our country promised freedom, safety, and a permanent new home.

This directive violates U.S. obligations and undermines trust in the refugee admissions process.
Under the Refugee Act of 1980 and related tools, the United States committed to permanently protecting individuals who meet the definition of “refugee” under U.S. law and international treaty obligations. By ordering re-interviews and halting permanent residence processing for those admitted during the previous administration, the Trump administration is placing the entire resettlement system into legal limbo. Those who arrived – often after years of security vetting, medical screenings, and then finally resettled for the chance to rebuild their lives in safety – should not have their status revoked at the whim of cruel, inhumane policy. It undermines the rule of law and betrays our nation’s humanitarian leadership.

The human consequences are grave.
Thousands of men, women, and children who found safety and invested in our communities through work, school, volunteering, or resettlement services will now face fear, uncertainty, and destabilization. Indiscriminate reviews of vulnerable people are not only agonizingly cruel, but they also erode the very foundations of the U.S. resettlement program, community integration, and self-sufficiency.

The United States resettles refugees only after the most rigorous vetting in the American immigration system.
Refugees are the most vetted travelers to the United States; full stop. We reject the USCIS memo’s wrongful accusation that the previous administration prioritized expedited processing over proper secure vetting. Refugee admissions undergo rigorous inter-agency vetting, security and medical checks, and in-person interviews before even departing for the United States – and are scrutinized when at their ports of entry and yet again when they apply for green cards one year after arrival. This comes as the current administration employs a highly unusual and rapid process to adjudicate and resettle Afrikaners through the very same U.S. resettlement program; many of these Afrikaners have been processed and approved in a fraction of the time it took for those who are now subject to this re-review. 

Communities and congregations across the country have welcomed these refugees as new neighbors, friends, and coworkers.
This directive is an insult to the generous, welcoming spirit of hundreds of thousands of Americans, who – guided by religious principles, empathy, friendship, and respect for human dignity – have participated in refugee resettlement as volunteers, donors, and sponsors. Recent surveys indicate growing support for refugees among the American people.

Action must be taken:

• We urge the administration to rescind the memo and halt any actions that would terminate refugee status, remove protections, stop required processing, or retroactively review entire cohorts of resettled individuals.
• We call on Congress to exercise its oversight authority by questioning the administration on the rationale behind this wasteful and cruel directive – and by demanding full transparency if the administration follows through with this directive, requesting all documents, analyses, screening protocols, and timelines behind this directive, and ensuring that all statutory requirements are followed.
  
• National, state, and local elected leaders must speak out publicly – and urge the administration to reverse course and do everything in their power to safeguard their refugee communities.  
• It is critical for everyday Americans to tell their elected leaders that the very foundation of our national character is at stake – that it is simply wrong to stab in the back the very refugees we as a nation promised to protect.
• We want all Americans who came to this country seeking safety to know that we will not stop speaking out and will uplift your voices any way we can.
  
• We reaffirm that: America’s humanitarian values demand not just safe admission of refugees, but protection of their rights once admitted, and the assurance that they will be able to build futures in dignity.

“The latest refugee policy announcement from the Trump administration is astounding, unprecedented, heartbreaking, and cruel,” said John Slocum, Executive Director of Refugee Council USA. “The administration effectively says it will reopen the cases of 233,000 refugees already granted permanent protection in the United States. These are refugees who fled persecution on account of their religion, race, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Refugees who had been more thoroughly vetted than any other population before entering our country. Refugees who had been promised, not a temporary sojourn, but a permanent grant of freedom, safety, and opportunity. Refugees who are already giving back to communities and congregations of welcome across the country. To throw all those lives into uncertainty, raising the spectre that some of these refugees could be delivered back into the hands of their persecutors – this is unconscionable. And it’s a slap in the face to those who welcome refugees, an insult to what for many is a scriptural injunction to welcome the stranger.”

The USCIS directive is an insult to communities of welcome all across the country and simply another in a long series of attacks against refugees, other forcibly displaced people, and newcomers writ large. The Trump administration seems determined to break every promise our nation has ever made to the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Now is the time to stand in solidarity and take action. A summary of the USCIS memo is available here.

Media Contact: Mariam Sayeed, msayeed@rcusa.org

RCUSA is a diverse coalition advocating for just and humane laws and policies, and the promotion of dialogue and communication among government, civil society, and those who need protection and welcome. Individual RCUSA members do not all address all refugee-related issues, nor do all individual members approach common refugee-related issues identically.

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