Guest Post: Americans’ Attitudes Towards Refugees are Becoming Increasingly Open

By Isabel Norwood

For decades, the United States had led the world in refugee resettlement. In fact, each year from 1980 to 2017, the U.S. resettled more refugees than the rest of the world combined. Under the current Presidential administration, that has changed. Refugee resettlement in the U.S. is at its lowest levels since the passage of the1980 Refugee Act, which created the current framework for resettling refugees across the country.

            The effort to limit refugees has come at both the federal and state levels. The President has the power to set refugee caps, and Trump has lowered that cap every year he has been in office. For the 2020 fiscal year, which ends on October 1, the cap was 22,000. However, as of July 7, only 7,544 refugees had actually been resettled (for comparison, in 2016, the U.S. resettled a record 97,000 refugees). Trump has attempted to limit refugee resettlement in other ways as well. In just his fifth executive order, which came to be known as the Muslim Ban 1.0, he suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days.

            At the state level, support for refugees has varied, with some states taking action to welcome refugees, and some states attempting to limit resettlement within their borders. This division mirrors the attitudes of Americans, which are deeply polarized along political lines. Still, in 2018, 51% of Americans said that we do have a responsibility to accept refugees, while just 43% said we do not, figures that represent a growing openness towards refugees compared with historical beliefs. Perhaps, with increasingly open attitudes, the U.S. will reclaim its position as the number one nation for refugee resettlement (depending, of course, on the results of a big election this November).

Isabel Norwood is a student at the University of Colorado Law School (Class of 2022) and Vice-President of the Immigration Law and Policy Society.