Obama refugee director attacks Trump administration's record low cap: ‘People will die’
The Trump administration recently announced it would cap the number of refugees admitted into the US next year at 30,000
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Your support makes all the difference.The man who once oversaw refugee resettlement for former President Barack Obama has a dire warning for the Trump administration after it announced it would cap resettlement at just 30,000 this upcoming year: “People will die”.
Bob Carey, who was the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, told The Guardian that the new limit is a “new low in our history” that would lead to suffering in communities across the globe.
“People will be harmed,” he said. “People will die”.
The decision to lower the number of refugees allowed into the United States was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday, with the new figure amounting to less than 1 per cent of the 68 million displaced people across the globe.
The decision is in line with President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on this issue, and has sparked fear among individuals like Mr Carey that other countries could follow America’s lead on the issue and limit their own acceptance rates for incoming refugees.
And, leaving millions of people without hope for future safety in relatively stables like the US and elsewhere could ultimately leave the world destabilized, with generations of individuals growing up disenfranchised after being forcibly displaced from their home countries.
“It’s really disturbing and tragic,” Mr Carey, who is now a fellow at the Open Society Foundations, said. “I think it will ultimately make the world less secure.”
Even before the American cuts, resettlement was at a relatively low rate compared to demand. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that there were 19.9 million people who left their home country by the end of 2017, and who could be eligible to apply for resettlement in a third country. Of those, the agency says, less than 1 per cent had been resettled during that year.
The agency also estimates that another 40 million people are internally displaced in their home countries because of war or famine or other concerns, and that 3.1 million people are seeking asylum across the globe.
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