New Trump rule could put refugees on 10-day countdown clock to stay in the US
The Trump administration is aiming to speed up mass removals of refugees, a policy decision that has been described as a “new low in a parade of lows” by advocacy groups.
Effective immediately and with less than a 24-hour warning, refugees will have just 10 days instead of 30 days to raise any challenges to contest the termination of their status, making them vulnerable to being deported back to countries they fled.
The move upends a “core principle that refugee resettlement represents permanent protection,” according to Naomi Steinberg, vice president of refugee and immigration policy at the humanitarian nonprofit HIAS.
“If this policy is allowed to go into effect, America can no longer claim to be the place of refuge and hope that it once was,” she said in a statement to The Independent.
Stripping away that security without any procedural safeguards “sends a devastating message to both refugees and their persecutors alike: that even the most lawful and carefully vetted path to protection in the United States can be arbitrarily revoked,” she added.
A government notice, filed by the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday, claims there was “insufficient” evidence to support the admission of a “majority” of refugees in Minnesota who entered the country during the Biden administration.
Homeland Security said there was an “alarming erosion” of refugee program integrity during that time, when refugees “who are improperly admitted may not have their identity fully confirmed and vetted due to an incomplete record” and could “pose a risk to national security and public safety.”
The Biden administration “reduced or removed” requirements to ensure refugees had a “thorough examination and assessment of eligibility,” according to DHS.
“This raises concerns about the integrity of the refugee program and calls into question the eligibility for refugee status of aliens admitted to the United States during this time,” the agency said.
But it often takes months or years to vet refugees, who must submit to several rounds of interviews and background checks before they can arrive in the U.S. “These families did everything asked of them,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge.
A 10-day countdown clock is a “wholly insufficient” amount of time for refugees at risk of losing their protections to secure an immigration lawyer and collect records from the country they fled, she added.
Some refugees may not receive those notices before the 10 days are up, according to Vignarajah.
It will now be “nearly impossible” for refugees to challenge unfair or false allegations against them before losing their status as protected refugees, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project.
The new rule makes it “impossible for refugees to even fully understand the allegations against them, much less find counsel and contest those allegations, before their status is terminated,” according to Laurie Ball Cooper, IRAP’s vice president of U.S. legal programs.
