Geneva Sands, Priscilla Alvarez and Kylie Atwood, CNN, July 19, 2109

The Trump administration floated the possibility of admitting zero refugees next year during a recent meeting with officials from the Department of Homeland Security, State Department, the Pentagon and other agencies, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

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The crack down on refugees is in line with the administration’s immigration agenda which has sought to limit entry to the US. Earlier this week, the administration also put in place a regulation that bars most Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the US.

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According to Politico, two allies of White House adviser Stephen Miller, Citizenship and Immigration Services official John Zadrozny and the State Department’s Andrew Veprek, argued in the meeting that the refugee cap should be low because of “ongoing security concerns and the ability of the US to offer humanitarian protections through the asylum process.”

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During the Trump administration, the number of refugee refugees allowed to be admitted to the United States has been dramatically reduced — from 110,000 in fiscal year 2017 to 30,000 refugees in fiscal year 2019.

A number of agencies are expected to submit their recommendations in the coming weeks.

The refugee cap is determined by several departments and agencies, and approved by the President. Where as the cap has often been viewed as a goal to be reached, the actual number of refugees admitted has fallen short. The administration had set the 2018 ceiling at 45,000 refugees, only 23,000 were admitted, according to figures by the Refugee Processing Center.

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