Washington D.C., Sep 13, 2019 / 11:00 am
As the Trump administration reportedly considers further cuts to U.S. refugee admissions, the leader of the U.S. bishops' migration committee has stated his opposition to any such plan.
Any "further reductions in the number of refugees" accepted into the U.S. "would be wholly counter to our values as a nation of immigrants," Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration said on Friday, in a joint statement with conference president Cardinal Daniel DiNardo
The bishops were responding to reports by the New York Times that the White House is considering further reductions to U.S. refugee admissions from the current cap of 30,000, which is already the lowest cap on record for the U.S. refugee resettlement program.
Some of the reported considerations range from accepting zero refugees altogether, unless in case of emergency, to reducing the admissions cap to a range of 10-15,000. In July, POLITICO also reported that administration security officials had suggested in a meeting of lowering the cap on refugee admissions to 10-15,000, or even zero.