As Trump seeks systemic change, does the US have an obligation to refugees? - Iqraa news

Washington, DC – They are images woven into the country's national myth: huddled masses sailing into New York Harbor, drawn by the torch of that "mother of exiles", the Statue of Liberty, and in more recent decades, families boarding commercial flights as they flee wars and persecution across continents.

But observers say the suspension of the United States refugee programme has turned that national image on its head.

On January 27, the sprawling system the US uses to approve, admit and relocate refugees officially ground to a halt.

The US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), the primary arm through which the federal government processes refugee claims, had been placed under an indefinite suspension, by orders of President Donald Trump.

"The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees," Trump wrote in the executive order authorising the suspension.

In so doing, experts say, Trump has cut to the core of two intersecting questions: how far his presidential power extends and how he could transform the US’s obligations to refugees.

"We're being exposed to the question of how far can a president go in curtailing a programme that Congress has created," said Chris Opila, a staff lawyer for the nonprofit American Immigration Council.

The answer could have “severe ramifications” around the world, according to Jaya Ramji-Nogales, an associate dean at Temple University's Beasley School of Law.

Not only could refugees be left in dangerous conditions, she told Al Jazeera, but Trump’s actions could erode “the values that underlie the programme and the values that it expresses”.

Observers like Ramji-Nogales say the suspension has already damaged the US's standing abroad.

Just this week, a French politician called for the Statue of Liberty, gifted to the US in 1884, to be returned, citing a betrayal of its values.

The effects of Trump’s January order have been immediate. Thousands of refugees who had already been vetted and approved to enter the US were suddenly stranded.

Among the refugees affected were 10,000 Afghans who had already been approved for travel.

Other groups included families living in crowded refugee camps after fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and displaced residents of Myanmar seeking safety amid the military-led government’s crackdowns, to name a few.

By definition, refugees are people facing persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a particular social group. Their lives often depend on their ability to seek refuge abroad.

To create a system for facilitating those requests, Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which codifies a formal process for admitting and relocating refugees.

The law also specifies that the US refugee system should be "permanent and systemic", effectively barring unnecessary disruptions in admissions.

The government, it says, is also responsible for providing "comprehensive and uniform provisions for effective resettlement and absorption of those refugees who are admitted”.

But experts say Trump has disrupted that "permanent" system, effectively using his executive authority to subvert the will of Congress.

Fernando Chang-Muy, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, told Al Jazeera that the legal challenges to Trump's decision will test the limits of his power.

On the one hand, the court cases could reinforce the balance of powers set out in the US Constitution, wherein the presidency must respect the laws Congress passes.

"The positive that could come out of the legal challenges to Trump's move is that the first branch of government and the statutes passed by it have to be implemented by the second branch," Chang-Muy said, referring to Congress and the presidency, respectively.

But that is not the only outcome, Chang-Muy warned. "The negative is it could set a bad precedent that the second branch is more important to the first branch."

There have been only scant pauses to USRAP in the past, primarily linked to the fear of terrorism.

After the US suffered attacks on September 11, 2001, the administration of then-President George W Bush issued a two-month moratorium on refugee admissions, citing the risk of "terrorists" entering the country.

Then, in 2017, Trump suspended the programme for 120 days shortly after taking office for his first term. He too said the suspension was meant to "protect the nation from terrorist activities by foreign nationals".

But the risk of "terrorists" exploiting refugee pathways is relatively low — in part because of the thorough vetting refugees must endure.

A 2023 report from the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, DC, analysed the immigration status of so-called terrorists between 1975 and 2022.

It determined that the annual chance of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack in the US was one in 3.3 billion.

But the statistical improbability has not blunted concerns about the possibility a bad actor could enter the US through the refugee system.

And the Supreme Court has signalled it is willing to side with broad interpretations of presidential authority in cases of "national security".

Opila, the lawyer from the American Immigration Council, points to a 2018 case where the Supreme Court ruled "quite broadly — like, very broadly" — in favour of Trump's ability to curtail refugee admissions.

He had banned travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries, including refugees, on the basis that their admission could "be detrimental to the interests of the United States".

Critics argued Trump's ban was discriminatory. But the high court found it had "a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any religious hostility".

It ruled the "Muslim ban" was allowed to stand, albeit with some changes.

This time around, however, the Trump administration has taken a different tack to suspending refugee admissions.

Instead of linking the refugee programme to "terrorism", Trump has connected new refugee arrivals to overall migration to the US, saying they place an untenable "burden" on US communities. In January's executive order, he even implied that refugees could "compromise the availability of resources for Americans".

The order suspended USRAP "until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States".

The line of argument has been particularly galling to refugee advocates, who note individuals resettled under USRAP receive higher scrutiny and more formal community support than nearly any other category of immigrant.

In a statement denouncing Trump's order, Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the president of the nonprofit Global Refuge, called the USRAP the "gold standard of legal immigration pathways in terms of security screening, community coordination, and mutual economic benefit".

She added the programme was "designed and ameliorated over four decades precisely to address" the concerns Trump cited.

Advocates also point out that refugees can be a boon to the domestic economy.

A 2024 report from the US Department of Health and Human Services found that the 2.1 million refugees and 800,000 asylum seekers admitted into the US from 1990 to 2022 had a positive net fiscal impact.

That means they "contributed more revenue than they cost in expenditures to the government".

Already, two legal challenges have been filed against Trump's order. One of the cases, filed in Washington state by the International Refugee Assistance Program (IRAP), has had some early success.

In February, Judge Jamal Whitehead ruled in IRAP's favour, granting a temporary injunction against Trump's decision to suspend the refugee admissions programme.

The judge explained Trump's indefinite suspension ran counter to the 1980 Refugee Act.

While Trump had "substantial discretion" over refugee admissions, Whitehead added, the president's authority "is not limitless".

Still, despite Whitehead's injunction, USRAP has yet to return to its normal operations.

Government lawyers have cited a "significant deterioration of functions" in the wake of Trump's executive orders and cuts to government funding, among other reasons. They say it could take months before the programme is fully back online.

Melissa Kearney, IRAP's legal counsel, said the administration appears to be "purposely foot-dragging" as it pursues an appeal.

"They're both maintaining the actions that they have taken to destroy the infrastructure that facilitates refugee resettlement and doing nothing to undo those steps," Kearney told Al Jazeera.

The Trump administration is also using "the fact that this infrastructure has been so decimated as an excuse for why they can't currently do more to be in compliance with the court's injunction", she added.

The government's appeal could eventually end up at the Supreme Court, where a ruling could have far-reaching consequences.

"I think the core question presented by this case is: Does the executive have boundless discretion to just overwrite Congress's law?" she said.

"The Refugee Act in particular is an example of legislation that was very detailed, very clear about what Congress was intending to establish," she said.

"We think the answer is clear. We know that the president can't just basically undo that with a strike of a pen."

But even a legal victory may not be enough to restore the US refugee system.

Temple University's Ramji-Nogales told Al Jazeera that, even if legal challenges prevail, there are myriad other ways the Trump administration could render the programme nearly ineffective.

"If they can't stop it completely, they can really lower the numbers and really inflict damage on the programme and its ability to function going forward," she said.

The 1980 legislation created an annual process for the president to set admission ceilings: a maximum number of refugees that can be allowed into the US.

Since 1990, refugee admissions have averaged about 65,000 per year. Still, the 1980 Refugee Act sets no minimum on the number of refugees that must be permitted.

The late President Jimmy Carter set the highest bar, with an admissions ceiling of more than 230,000.

Trump, meanwhile, capped admissions for fiscal year 2020 at 18,000, marking a historic low. For 2021 — the year his first term ended — he proposed an even smaller number: 15,000.

It is unclear just how far Trump can legally go in minimising the programme during his second term, according to Opila, the lawyer at the American Immigration Council.

"There isn't a ton of case law about the sort of boundaries" the president might face, Opila said.

For its part, the Trump administration has indicated there is at least one group it is willing to prioritise in refugee admissions: white Afrikaners from South Africa.

In an executive order in February, Trump said the US "shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation".

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, however, has said Trump's claims of anti-white discrimination are false.

It is unclear what the effect of all these changes will be, according to Ramji-Nogales.

She noted there has traditionally been bipartisan support for the refugee programme, as it overlapped with religious interests and efforts to promote US "soft power" abroad.

That was true even when public sentiment towards refugees dipped at various points in recent decades, she said.

But Trump has faced little opposition from his own Republican Party so far during his second term.

"What happens next depends on what happens in the midterm elections and depends on what happens with the next presidential election," Ramji-Nogales said.

"But I think the long-term ramifications for both the United States and the rest of the world will be unfortunate, to say the least."