San Diego County is on track to take in fewer refugees in fiscal 2017 than any year in the last decade.

Unless the county resettles more than 500 refugees in September, it will have welcomed fewer than 2,000 refugees for the first time since fiscal 2007, according to State Department data. While in years past, San Diego County has resettled several hundred refugees in the month of September, that is unlikely this year given current court rulings on an executive order from President Donald Trump that blocked most refugees from entering the U.S.

Jewish Family Service, one of San Diego’s four refugee resettlement agencies, expects to receive a total of six refugees in September, according to Etleva Bejko, director of refugee and immigration services.

“This year has been a trying one for the refugee community and those who aid them,” Bejko said. “Jewish Family Service believes that stopping refugee resettlement, for any period of time, undermines our nation’s founding principles and turns away those seeking safety, freedom, hope and opportunity.”


Those who support Trump’s immigration policies often cite both national security and economic reasons when discussing the need to curb arrivals.

In August, San Diego County resettled 16 refugees, all from Iraq. That’s a 97 percent decrease from August’s 619 arrivals last year. Resettlement counts have been in the teens for the last several months.

With one month to go, San Diego County has had 1,479 new arrivals. In fiscal 2016, the county took in 3,075 refugees.

Trump’s travel ban executive order lowered the number of refugees the U.S. would accept in fiscal 2017 to 50,000 from 110,000. After it was signed in January and then modified in March, the order has been caught up in court battles with judges overturning each other’s rulings again and again.


The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the full travel ban case in early October. By then, it will be a new fiscal year, and that may make conversations about the refugee arrivals aspect of the order moot. The president has the authority to set how many refugees can come to the U.S. each year.

For the last several months, resettlement agencies have anticipated that Trump will set next year’s cap at 50,000. More recent rumors have suggested that at least some in his administration want the cap to be lower.


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