Trump administration cuts refugee cap to new record low
01 October 2020
The Trump administration plans to only admit a maximum of 15,000 refugees this fiscal year, the State Department said in a release late Wednesday evening.
Why it matters: This is yet another record low refugee cap. Before leaving office, President Obama set the refugee limit at 110,000 for fiscal year 2017 — a number Trump has continued to slash throughout his presidency.
- The proposed cut "accounts for the massive backlog in asylum cases – now more than 1.1 million individuals – by prioritizing those who are already in the country seeking humanitarian protection," according to the release.
- "It also accounts for the arrival of refugees whose resettlement in the United States was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic."
- Meanwhile, 79.5 million people around the world were living forcibly displaced from their homes in 2019 — roughly 1% of the world's population, according to the United Nations.
Between the lines: The State Departmentsays it expects 300,000 new refugees and asylum claims in FY 2021. Refugee resettlement and asylum are two separate programs for humanitarian immigrants hoping to immigrate to the U.S.
- The Trump administration has also made it more difficult to attain asylum. Denial rates for asylum seekers in immigration courts have risen from 55% in FY 2016 to 72% in FY 2020, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.