Last month, the Trump administration announced it would allow up to 45,000 refugees to come to the U.S. in fiscal year 2018, which began October 1. The figure was the lowest refugee cap announced since President Reagan signed the Refugee Act in 1981. As I reported at the time, U.S. presidents have, on average, set a ceiling of 95,000 refugees per fiscal year—but the actual numbers allowed in vary, and can be significantly lower, as they were in the years following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Less than 1 percent of the world’s 22.5 million refugees will be placed in a third country (about 225,000). The vast majority of them will return to their homes when the unrest that has displaced them ends, or they end up living in camps for decades. The U.S. is the largest recipient in absolute numbers of refugees around the world, and it’s also the top donor to refugee causes, but the Trump administration’s refugee policy unveiled Tuesday was criticized by U.S. groups that advocate for refugees.

“This is remarkable. The administration has had more than six months to review this policy under the March EO [executive order on travel], and they’ve come back in October to re-impose what will largely be seen as another unreasonable ban that primarily affects Muslims,” said Eric Schwartz, the president of Refugees International, a group that advocates for refugees. Although the move announced Tuesday is not a ban, refugee advocates say it is tantamount to one because of the additional security requirements that are often time-consuming.

“I hope they at least have the decency to be transparent about what they are doing, and name the nationalities affected,” Schwartz said. “It is a cynical and tragic manipulation of administrative process, and conflicts with U.S. values and interests.”

That view was echoed by other groups, as well. Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, the Jewish refugee-resettlement organization, said the new rules “will not make us safer. What they will do is create additional, unnecessary burdens for individuals who have been forced to flee for their lives and are searching for safety.”

Olivia Enos, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, who co-authored a recent report on the U.S. refugee-resettlement program, told me it was “understandable that you have a heightened review process for certain countries, especially if the circumstances on the ground mean that the government isn't able to keep a log of all their prospective information.”

But she added: “I don’t think it means that people from these countries have a lesser chance of getting here. I think it may take a little bit longer. You will see religious minorities, and Muslims, from these communities able to be resettled, and this is much better than the alternative of having them banned altogether— which I think was the fear early on.”