Now, as the Trump administration presses ahead with every means at its disposal to transform the United States into a fortress of exclusion, it has whacked the U.S. refugee program to the lowest level in its four-decade history. In setting a ceiling of 18,000 refugee admissions next year — a 40 percent cut from the current year’s admissions and down from about 85,000 that President Barack Obama admitted shortly before he left office — the administration has turned its back on American tradition, values and preeminence on the world stage.

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Far from making America great again, Mr. Trump is making it meek, churlish and inhospitable.

Gratuitously, he is also, in effect, inviting communities to turn their backs on the world’s most vulnerable and desperate. In announcing that it would slash refugee admissions, the administration also said Mr. Trump had issued an executive order requiring that states and localities consent, in writing, to the resettlements of people already thoroughly vetted by the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. Whatever the impact of that order — and officials suggested it would be minimal — it’s a disgrace on its face. Imagine if, a century ago, Americans had been asked to “consent” to the annual influx of Irish, Italian, Jewish and other immigrants — who were then widely regarded as unlettered and unwashed.

The administration’s stated rationale for drastically shrinking the refugee program is that it is busy processing a surge in asylum seekers, mainly from Central America, who now contribute to a backlog of nearly a million cases in immigration courts. In fact, one has nothing to do with the other. Relatively few applications from asylum seekers, most of whom are already in the United States, will ultimately be accepted — perhaps 15 percent or so — while refugees, by definition, have already been thoroughly screened and assessed by U.S. officials, often after waiting for years in war-ravaged countries. Many have played crucial and dangerous roles as translators for U.S. troops in the field.

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Mr. Trump and his in-house xenophobe, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, seem intent on driving down the annual refugee intake to zero, as they had been rumored to be considering. Pushback from the military, including prominent figures such as Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. William H. McRaven, former head of United States Special Operations, seems to have preserved the program, at least for now, albeit in drastically diminished form.

Ultimately, the refugee program is a barometer of America’s prestige. It stands as an example to other nations. As it contracts, so too does this country’s greatness.

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