Ed MarkeyVerified account

For fiscal year 2018, Trump set refugee admissions at a record-low 45,000 (historical average is 95,000). The next year he slashed admissions to a mere 30,000. His administration is now using this manufactured slowdown to dismantle our resettlement program.

Over the past two years, the State Department has ordered reductions in the number of refugee resettlement offices ­- citing the self-inflicted problem of few refugee arrivals.

“Administrative closure” removes a case from an active court docket and halts deportation proceedings. Often used to provide relief to, for example, parents of U.S. citizen children or immigrants who have lived here for decades without a criminal record.

The Trump admin is now revisiting thousands of cases the Obama admin administratively closed and ICE is considering revisiting all 355,000 administratively closed cases.

The Attorney General can overturn immigration court decisions by “self-referring” them. Previous AGs have wielded this power cautiously because these decisions can affect hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

But Trump’s Attorneys General have used this to restrict discretion of immigration judges, advance partisan political objectives, and unilaterally reinterpret immigration law.

Unaccompanied alien children (UACs) are children under age 18 who have no lawful immigration status and who have no parent or legal guardian in the United States, or have no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.

Trump’s Department of Justice has reinterpreted the definition of UACs to strip protections from children previously determined to be UACs.

Trump’s ICE is intentionally targeting vulnerable populations and those who support them. Over the past 2 years, ICE has targeted sponsors of UACs.

From late July to late November 2018, ICE arrested 170 potential sponsors of UACs, 64% of whom had no criminal record. ICE is also targeting asylum seekers, immigrant victims of crime, and children who have recently aged out of the foster care system.