The Trump administration beat the president’s goal of trimming new refugee admissions from the 100,000 brought in by former President Obama, slashing the population by 66 percent.

In fact, for the first time, the U.S. resettled fewer refugees than the rest of the world, but still more than another other country.





New data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees showed that the U.S. took in 33,000 refugees last year, down from 97,000 under Obama, who had pushed to raise the ceiling to 110,000.

President Trump vowed to reverse that flow, raising concerns that refugees were not being vetted well by the United Nations. He pushed to cut refugees to 45,000 a year.

The majority of refugees to the U.S. come from the Middle East and Africa. But U.S. generosity is not met by wealthy nations in that region, such as UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, who refuse to take in the refugees. And while the U.S. and Europe are criticized by the U.N. for not doing more, little anger is directed at those Middle Eastern nations.

Refugee resettlement groups, like Catholic Charities, have been critical of the administration's cuts, which mean lower revenue to them. A recent report in a Catholic magazine indicated that reducing refugees could force the closure of 23 Catholic Charities resettlement offices.

An analysis by the Pew Research Center found that there were an international total of 103,000 refugees in 2017, down from 189,000 in 2016. And the U.S. was joined in cutting numbers by Canada and Australia.

Refugees are one of the foreign populations being scrutinized by the Trump administration along with those seeking asylum, legal and illegal immigrants.

However under Trump the U.S. is bringing in a higher percentage of Christian refugees than the majority Muslim under Obama.

Refugees are a huge population, projected to be over 60 million, mostly in war-torn Middle Eastern nations.

Still, the administration is planning to continue cutting its intake of refugees. Said Pew: “U.S. refugee resettlement is on pace to remain at historically low levels in 2018. The Trump administration lowered the refugee ceiling for fiscal 2018 to 45,000 refugees – the lowest cap since the Refugee Act was adopted by Congress. The U.S. has admitted more than 16,000 refugees with about three months remaining in the current fiscal year, according to U.S. State Department data. The number of Muslim refugees admitted to the U.S. has dropped more than other religious groups.”