The Trump administration's decision to reduce the cap on the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States is deeply disappointing, Washington Deputy Director at Human Rights Watch Andrea Prasow told Sputnik on Friday.
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th October, 2018) The Trump administration's decision to reduce the cap on the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States is deeply disappointing, Washington Deputy Director at Human Rights Watch Andrea Prasow told Sputnik on Friday.
"We've been deeply disappointed by the US government response to assisting refugees," Prasow said. "We think that many many more refugees should be able to seek refuge inside the US. And the caps that the US government has placed on refugees inside that US are really problematic."
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced on Thursday that the United States will only admit 30,000 refugees in 2019, the lowest number ever allowed into the country since the US refugee program began in 1980.
The US admitted almost 85,000 refugees in 2016, the last year of former President Barack Obama's term in office, according to the State Department.
Trump has made reducing immigration a central part of his policies. Since he took office, he has tightened refugee screening processes and has banned all admissions including refugees from five Muslim-majority countries, Venezuela and North Korea.
He also told the United Nations General Assembly in September that the United States would not be part of a new global compact on migration and instead asked countries to respect the right of the US to adopt immigration policies in line with its national interests.
