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Trump Seeks to Halt Refugee Family Reunification Program
You are excused if you missed this headline among the endless deluge of terrible things. What should sound alarm and prompt marches, now barely receives mention on television, print, or internet media.
The United States has a family reunification program. It seeks to offer humanitarian aid to those in need of being reunited with their family in the U.S.
In order to request to have your spouse or children join you in the USA under the Family Reunification Program, you must be what is called a principal refugee or asylee. This means that you were the person that received official refugee status and came to the US through the US Office of Resettlement. You must have entered the United States as a refugee within the past 2 years or have been granted asylum within the past 2 years.You must remain in refugee or asylee status or have become a lawful permanent resident (received a green card).
Trump's people see this program as another way to lower refugees aided by the U.S. and seeks to end it.
Trump administration is considering changes [to a program] that allows refugees to reunite with family members already settled in the country. The administration has created a plan to pause the program, which allows refugees to stay with family members in the U.S. until they go through increased security checks.
Trump came into office in January with a goal of sharply cutting refugee admissions, in line with the hard-line immigration policies..... The changes would slow the pace at which refugees are admitted to the U.S.
As reported by Smart Dissent earlier this month:
Trump also lowered the maximum number of refugees to be allowed into the United States in 2017 to 50,000 from the 110,000 originally set by President Barack Obama. The 2018 level has been set at 45,000, the lowest number in decades.
Sources:
http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/us-family-reunification.html
https://therefugeecenter.org/resources/family-reunification/