For immigrants, Trump is making America crueler again (2)

US President Donald Trump’s policies damage the international response to the growing global refugee crisis. In sharp contradiction to the spirit of the 1980 Refugee Act, which states that “it is the policy of the United States to encourage all nations to provide assistance and resettlement opportunities to refugees to the fullest extent possible,” American influence under Trump has moved in exactly the opposite direction.

The following is the second and concluding part of an article on this subject by Arnold R. Isaacs, a journalist based in Maryland who has written widely on refugee and immigration issues, under the heading: "For immigrants, Trump is making America crueler again." The article was taken from the Truthout.org.

The number of Muslim refugees, in particular, has dropped in a stunning fashion since Donald Trump entered the White House, even though, as a recent study notes, four of the world’s five largest refugee crises affect Muslim populations. That report, compiled by the Refugee Council USA, highlights how startling the change was for the most deeply troubled countries between the last two fiscal years of former US President Barack Obama’s presidency, 2016 and 2017, and the first two full fiscal years of Trump’s, 2018 and 2019.

The report’s country-by-country figures show that refugee admissions from Iran dropped from 6,327 in 2016 and 2017 to 104 in 2018 and 2019. Admissions from Iraq — where the waiting list still includes thousands of Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government or military after the American invasion and occupation of that country — fell from 16,766 to 308, a 98% drop. For Somalia, the number went from 15,150 to 284; for Sudan, from 2,438 to 201; and for Syria, from 19,473 to 280. Altogether, the Refugee Council found that admissions of Muslim refugees had declined by 90% in the Trump era.

The cut in admissions doesn’t just harm refugees waiting to come to the United States but hurts those already in the US and the people who help them. Because the State Department gives the resettlement agencies a fixed amount of money for each individual they resettle, the sharp drop in admissions has meant deep cuts in their budgets. That, in turn, reduces their ability to help new arrivals fit into American society after their initial government-funded 90-day refugee benefits run out.

According to the Refugee Council study, since 2017, the nine national agencies combined have closed 51 branch offices across the country. That means they can no longer help refugees in those communities find jobs or offer them language training or legal services, or assist them in enrolling children in school or obtaining public benefits they are lawfully entitled to.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) says: "If the rollercoaster keeps going downhill, it could destroy the network her organization has created in its 80-year history," adding, “If we lose that infrastructure built over decades by faith communities, nonprofits, and local communities, that is going to take a very long time to replace.”

Matthew Soerens, who directs World Relief’s efforts to mobilize evangelical churches on refugee and immigration issues said his agency has closed seven offices since 2017, while halting refugee resettlement in several others, losing “really gifted, committed staff who have years and decades of experience.” When possible, World Relief and similar agencies have tried to close down branches in places where other resettlement agencies are still operating, but, of course, those agencies are now stretched to the limit as well.

Trump’s policies also damage the international response to the growing global refugee crisis. In sharp contradiction to the spirit of the 1980 Refugee Act, which states that “it is the policy of the United States to encourage all nations to provide assistance and resettlement opportunities to refugees to the fullest extent possible,” American influence under Trump has moved in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of providing moral leadership for international efforts to meet the crisis, his example has encouraged governments and political forces across the world that strongly resist more generous efforts. As a result, tens or hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees will be trapped in their suffering for years longer, waiting for relief that may never come.

Another recent Trump initiative will potentially mean new hardships for a different category of immigrants who, like resettled refugees, are in the U.S. legally: non-citizens seeking the right to legal employment who may, in some cases, be subject to deportation if they can’t work.

That group, which includes many who are related to, or share households with, U.S. citizens, will face new barriers under a revised “public charge” rule that was scheduled to take effect in near future until it was delayed by judicial rulings in three federal district courts. In those orders, handed down just four days before the October 15th effective date, federal judges in New York and Washington state temporarily blocked the rule nationwide, while a more limited ruling in California stayed its implementation in that state as well as in Maine, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and the District of Columbia, which were plaintiffs in the same lawsuit.

The new rule is aimed at making it tougher for green-card applicants to show that they will not be dependent on public benefits. Its weight would fall entirely on those in the applicant pool who are already the most needy and vulnerable. Women, children, the ill, and the elderly will be disproportionately affected, as will immigrants from poorer countries (who are also more likely to belong to racial minorities). Within those already disadvantaged groups, the poorer and more vulnerable someone is, the more likely she is to suffer adverse consequences.

That non-citizens should be denied permanent residence if they are “deemed likely” to depend on government benefits is a long-standing provision in U.S. immigration law, not a Trump-era invention. For many years, though, the “public charge” label was applied only to those receiving cash assistance through welfare, Social Security disability payments, or government-funded long-term institutional care. Under the new rules, immigrants seeking a green card or temporary employment status would be penalized for using — or just being judged likely to use — a long list of other benefits including food stamps, most Medicaid services, and various housing assistance programs, which were not previously held to define the recipient as a "public charge."

Limited use of one of those benefits would not automatically disqualify an applicant, but would count as a “heavily weighted negative factor.” Low income, defined as less than 125% of the federal poverty guideline, would be another “heavily weighted” negative. Health and age could also count against an applicant.

Practically speaking, someone lawfully in the US could be sent home not only for using public benefits but simply for being more than 61 years old or having “a medical condition that is likely to require extensive medical treatment or institutionalization or that will interfere with the alien’s ability to provide care for himself or herself, to attend school, or to work.” Presumably, this means that someone legally in the U.S. who is blind or has some other physical disability would face a greater risk of deportation. An analysis by the Migration Policy Institute showed women would be at a significant disadvantage, because “they are less likely to be employed than men, generally live in larger households, and have lower incomes.”

A side effect of the new rules (noticeable since a draft was released more than a year ago) is that significant numbers of immigrants are now going without assistance to which they are legally entitled. Multiple studies have documented declining enrollments even in programs not covered in the new regulations or when benefits are going to the U.S.-born children of immigrants who are unquestionably eligible for them.

For example, the Agriculture Department’s Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, is explicitly excluded from the list of “benefits designated for consideration in "public charge" inadmissibility determinations.” But a recent Kaiser Family Foundation fact sheet reports that WIC agencies in a number of states have experienced “enrollment drops that they attribute largely to fears about "public charge.” Investigations by the Urban Institute, Children’s Health Watch, and other organizations have found the same pattern in other programs.

Taken as a whole, the latest Trump administration assaults on refugees and immigrants should shock the conscience — the words the Church World Service’s John McCullough used about the new "local-option" resettlement policy. Legally, they are not high crimes and misdemeanors as that phrase appears in the Constitution. In moral terms, though, it would not be an exaggeration to call them high crimes and misdemeanors against humanity. By any reasonable standard they are more morally repugnant and bring more suffering to more innocent people than any presidential phone call to Ukraine.

In Trumpian terms, think of it as MACA, or Making America Crueler Again — and again, and again. Closing the country’s doors to more refugees (particularly if they’re Muslim), encouraging bigots to mobilize to keep refugees out of their towns, making it harder for immigrants to stay and build new lives if they are old or poor or sick, raising a barrier of fear that keeps them away from food aid and health care they and their children need and have a right to — none of these are impeachable offenses. In a fairer and more humane country, perhaps they would be.

ME