At the end of June, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in a lawsuit that challenged the Administration's so-called "travel ban". The Supreme Court decision would permit the Administration to impose its ban on refugees from any nation in the world for 120 days, once the quota of 50,000 refugees has been met. Since that absurdly low number is expected to be met next week, the effect is to permit a refugee ban for the rest of this year
However, the Court provided that refugees from six Muslim-majority countries can be admitted if they can prove a "bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States." The Administration has interpreted this narrowly, to mean that people with "close family" in the U.S. — such as a parent, spouse, fiance or fiancee, child or sibling — would qualify. But it does not include others, including grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles and cousins. And it fails to take into account the reality of persecution suffered by thousands who don't have any family ties to the US
This leaves thousands of refugees trapped in dangerous and unhealthy camps or in hiding from violence and persecution. 65 million people are currently displaced by war and persecution around the world, according to the UN. Our attention has mostly been directed to the Middle East, but there are refugees from all over the world, including those fleeing the civil war and famine in South Sudan and people escaping the growing tyranny and economic collapse in Venezuela
The terrible irony is that, even though the President originally said he wanted to help Christians facing persecution and to keep out radical Islamists, the ban will likely exclude far more Christians than Muslims. According to the State Department, 48 percent of the refugees admitted to the US in the first half of this year were Christian, while 41 percent were Muslim
The injustice to Christians fleeing persecution was made even more evident by the bizarre decision by immigration officials to target Chaldean Christians in Michigan for a deportation campaign. Some of these people were legitimately subject to potential deportation because of prior criminal convictions. But the result of this campaign is not only to separate families, but to send these people back to northern Iraq — a current hot war zone that has been the site of genocide against Christians. It's hard to fault them for feeling betrayed by a President who once tweeted "Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!"n
This Administration is not exactly famous for consistency and rationality of its policies, and chaos seems to be the order of the day. Just today, it was revealed that the head of the ICS deportation unit has ordered his officers to detain all undocumented immigrants they encounter, even if they don't have a criminal history — in direct contradiction of the Administration's publicly stated priorities. Considering that the Administration hasn't even nominated a new head of ICS or the policy office of Homeland Security, the disarray is not too surprising
But the injustice of this Administration's policies on refugees is both surprising and tragic. While I can appreciate differing positions on the appropriate numbers of immigrants to welcome to the United States, it is hard to fathom the Administration's hard-heartedness towards refugees.