Media: Under Trump's administration US admitted lowest number of refugees

Baku. 4 January. REPORT.AZ/ United States of America admitted 29,022 refugees under the presidency of Donald Trump, which is the lowest indicator for the last 15 years. 

Report informs referring to the TASS, the USA Today newspaper writes citing to the data of US Department of State.

According to newspaper, “the previous low during that time frame came in 2002”, when the US slowed down all avenues of legal immigration following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

“Refugee admissions hovered around 70,000 and 80,000 per year under the George Bush Junior and Barack Obama administrations. In 2016, 94,837 people admitted to US under this program, which applies to those who are persecuted based on their race, religion, nationality or political opinion in their home country,” writes the newspaper.

During his presidential campaign Trump has promised to toughen the US immigration policy. A week after assuming president’s office which took place on January 20, 2017, Trump signed a document, which aimed, as White House maintained “to strengthen the public safety within the US.”

In October, Trump signed an executive order instituting annual cap of 45,000 refugees in 2018 fiscal year (started on October 1, 2017).

According to the USA Today, “new restrictions that severely limited the number of refugees who could enter the U.S. under refugee program. Most notably, it barred citizens of 11 countries - identified by refugee agencies as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.”