Refugee Admissions From Muslim Nations Plummet in NY and NJ, and Double From Russia

Refugee admissions in New York and New Jersey plummeted 59 percent in the fiscal year that ended last week as the Trump Administration restricted admissions to those fleeing persecution across the globe, particularly from Muslim majority nations. 

In New Jersey just one refugee arrived from Iraq and none from Syria and Afghanistan, compared to 200 from the three countries the year before, according to data culled from the Refugee Processing Center. 

New York resettled one Iraqi, six Syrians and 56 Afghans — a 94 percent decrease from the 957 from those three nations who arrived in the 2017 fiscal year. And while more Somali refugees, 515, arrived in New York in the 2017 fiscal year than from any other country, in 2018 just two Somalis were admitted.

While those nations are mostly Muslim, the number of refugees from two largely non-Muslim nations increased: Russia saw its number of refugees in New York and New Jersey nearly double, to 75. And nine from Moldova were resettled in the two states, versus three the year before. Nationwide, the number of refugees from Moldova is three times the number from Syria, even though, as Reuters recently reported, there are more Syrian refugees worldwide than citizens of Moldova.

The dramatic reduction in refugees is a direct result of President Trump's concern that refugees are a safety and economic threat to the United States. He has lowered the cap on refugee admissions to the lowest levels since the modern program was created in 2018. Last year he temporarily paused all refugee admissions, and he has since increased the intensity of background checks, particularly for refugees from Muslim majority nations. Bureaucrats who conducted interviews abroad as part of the refugee vetting process have also been reassigned to other duties, further clogging the pipeline. 

"If you are persecuted, we've opened our doors and offered sanctuary, and that's just not happening any more," said Melanie Nezer, the senior vice president of public affairs at HIAS, a nonprofit that resettles refugees. "This is a real retreat from our historic role in the world as a leader on humanitarian protection." 

The Democratic Republic of Congo claimed the most refugees in 2018 in both states. But Lisette Lukoji, a Congolese refugee chronicled in a January WNYC series, is still not cleared for admission into the United States, even though her husband resettled in New Jersey in 2016.

Together, New York and New Jersey resettled 1,443 refugees, compared to 3,477 the year before.