WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday proposed a new refugee policy that would allow 5,000 people fleeing religious persecution, 4,000 Iraqis, and 1,500 Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans to move to the United States during the 2020 fiscal year.

The policy would allow 7,500 refugees from other countries to resettle in the United States, a senior Trump administration official told reporters on Thursday.

The proposal, which would mark a drastic reduction of U.S. refugee slots, would slash the number of refugees that could be resettled in the United States to 18,000, the lowest level in the history of the modern refugee program.