Donald Trump has for two consecutive years overseen the lowest refugee admission rates since the modern resettlement system was created in 1980

Tecle Gebremicheal loves Idaho, and he wants people to know about how it has now become home after he fled an orphanage in Eritrea at 14.

After eight years in an Ethiopian refugee camp, he resettled in Idaho in 2012, learning at an airport in Florida that instead of being sent to Texas, as originally planned, he was being moved to what was then a mysterious place.

“People were saying ‘Tecle, you can say no, this is America, you have freedom’ because everyone was shocked and nobody had heard of this secret state [Idaho],” Gebremicheal said.

He didn’t want to cause trouble and went with the plan, setting three big goals for himself in his new home, all of which he has accomplished: returning to school, buying a home and serving the community which accepted him by working in the state house.

“I have come to the decision, it [Boise] is the best place for refugees,” said Gebremicheal, who announced in May he is running for city council in Boise.

His is just one story about the life-changing power of the US refugee resettlement program – a program which has never been in such jeopardy.

Shrinking numbers represent more separated families and more countries able to justify lowering their own resettlement numbers

Donald Trump has for two consecutive years overseen the lowest refugee admission rates since the modern resettlement system was created in 1980. Since October, the US has admitted just 14,808 refugees and is projected to have allowed in just 22,000 before the end of the fiscal year in September. In fiscal year 2018, it admitted 22,491 people.

Those shrinking numbers represent more separated families and more countries able to justify lowering their own resettlement numbers. In human terms it simply means fewer Tecles in the US.

Trump’s war on refugees is no secret. He paused the refugee resettlement program a week after taking office and repeatedly tells lies that refugees have been tied to terrorist attacks, even though none of the more than 3 million refugees resettled since 1980 have committed a lethal terrorist attack.

The White House adviser Stephen Miller reportedly said he wanted to end all refugee resettlement in the US and has suppressed government studies that show the economic benefits of refugee resettlement.

The executive branch wields immense power in determining each year how many refugees will be resettled in the US during the fiscal year, which begins in October and ends in September of the following year.

The current ceiling is 30,000 people – which is equivalent to 0.009% of the US population and is the lowest ceiling since the modern program began.

Bob Carey, who led the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under Barack Obama, warned that what is happening to the program under Trump is dramatically different from what happened under the past six administrations, Republican and Democrat.

“It is ideologically driven by some people in this administration who are against immigration in any way, shape or form,” Carey said.

No person immigrating to the US faces more scrutiny than a refugee. Trump’s own national security agencies have ruled that the system for deciding who is let in has been made as secure as it can be.

People close to the program said the opposition to refugee resettlement in the federal government originates from a small group of people. And the many who do support the program have been marginalized, ignored or left their jobs. “You have seen pushback from some quarters, otherwise there would be no program,” Carey said.

Hidden family separation

When the US decides to allow fewer refugees in, it is also deciding to keep more families separated because a prime role of resettlement is reuniting families separated by war and other circumstances.

Deborah Baliraine Jane resettled in Ohio in January 2016, but the journey that led her there from Uganda still dominates her day-to-day life as she waits for her children to also be resettled.

In 2014, her husband and other men threw acid on her, scarring her face, because of the work she had done to help female victims of domestic abuse. She fled immediately, leaving her three daughters and one son with family while she sought safety.

The children moved to Kenya and have been approved for resettlement in the US, but it has taken years for them to complete the interviews, vaccinations and orientations needed for processing. “I don’t know what to say today, but we’re waiting,” Baliraine Jane said.

But now if her children arrive as planned, they will be absorbed in a resettlement infrastructure that has crumbled under Trump.

Advocates warn that even if the program were to be returned to its previous rates – an average of 95,000 people each year over four decades – the programs that support them are closing down and cutting jobs and people who work there are leaving for different fields.

“Even if a new administration or this administration were to change course and decide they were going to stand by these commitments, it’s not going to be reconstructed in a short period of time,” Carey said.

The domino effect of the US retreat

One of the prevailing concerns about the US curtailing its refugee program is the negative impact it has had on resettlement across the globe.

Until Trump took office, the US was the world leader in refugee resettlement.

In 2017, after Trump took office, the amount of resettlement places available across the globe dropped 54% compared to 2016, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

When we don’t have that moral leadership, we can’t ask other countries to step into that void Jen Smyers

The US has supported resettlement for its moral value and diplomatic role. It was helpful, for instance, for the US to welcome in people fleeing communist regimes during the cold war. And accepting refugees is an act of solidarity with countries that accept much higher rates of people, such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which have taken in 5 million Syrian refugees.

“When we resettle refugees, It’s not just the people who are coming, it’s also the signal we’re sending,” said Jen Smyers, associate director of policy and advocacy for the immigration and refugee program at Church World Service, which helps resettle refugees.

Smyers continued: “When we don’t have that moral leadership, we can’t ask other countries to step into that void.”

Advocates said it is clear the US withdrawal has had knock-on effects across the globe.

In 2016, Kenya’s interior cabinet secretary, Joseph Nkaissery, linked a plan to close Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp to decisions by wealthy countries to limit refugee resettlement.

“We will not be the first to do so; this is the standard practice worldwide,” Nkaissery said. “For example in Europe, rich, prosperous and democratic countries are turning away refugees from Syria, one of the worst war zones since World War Two.”

From non-partisan to political lighting rod

The sudden change in attitudes towards the US refugee program emerged in the run-up to the 2016 election, when the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris were incorrectly blamed on refugees.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, then led a procession of American politicians in demonizing refugees. This tactic was used in local government election races in districts that had never even resettled refugees and in states that had tiny refugee populations.

In a presidential debate, Trump said Syrian refugees were actually a “great Trojan horse”, echoing language used by President Franklin Roosevelt and other politicians in the 1930s to justify keeping Jewish admissions low during the Holocaust.

For all this hysteria, however, refugees and advocates said the political messaging contradicted their own experiences of American public attitudes to refugees.

After the travel ban, the International Rescue Committee said it saw a 100% increase in volunteers in Democratic-leaning states and a 90% increase in volunteers in Republican-leaning states. Those numbers have remained steady ever since.

Advocates are now looking to Congress to loosen the executive branch’s grip on the refugee program.

Democratic lawmakers introduced two bills in April, the Grace Act and the No Ban Act. The former would set an annual admissions floor of 95,000 refugees and the latter would repeal the existing Muslim ban and prohibit the creation of similar, broad laws by the executive branch in the future.

They are hoping to seize on the support for refugees in local communities.

Dauda Sesay, who moved to the US in 2009, said he has experienced an overwhelmingly positive reception in Louisiana, even in the current political climate.

Canada took in more refugees than any other country in 2018, UN says Read more

It was an American soldier who rescued Sesay from Sierra Leone when he was 16. He was nearly mistaken for dead after he was attacked by political opponents of his father, a local leader in their village. The men killed his father and burned down Sesay’s childhood home while his mother and other relatives were inside.

Sesay said in normal American life, people are looking towards their future as 16-years-old. “Unfortunately for me that’s not what happened – it’s when my whole life turned 180 degrees,” he said.

He recovered in a military hospital, met his wife, and spent nine years in a refugee camp in the Gambia, before coming to the US. “I say thank you to this nation for giving me and my family a second chance at life,” Sesay said.

The most racist incident he experienced involved a university professor. Because of the professor’s cruel remarks, Sesay would show up to class as late as possible to avoid the professor while still getting credit for attendance. He said it was painful, but he was awed by how his fellow students came to his defense, calling in the university dean to observe class because of the racism they had witnessed.

“Seeing that my fellow students advocated on my behalf, makes me appreciate this nation,” Sesay said. “There are only a few, very few people that represent things like that. They don’t represent the majority of this nation.”