Latest news with #USRefugeeAdmissionsProgram
Gulf Today
4 days ago
- Business
- Gulf Today
Marco Rubio's student visa pause makes no sense at all
Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service This is a season of anxiety for international students in the US, who find themselves demonised by the Trump administration as it devises new ways to limit their numbers. The latest tactic came in a diplomatic cable from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to US embassies and consulates abroad, ordering a halt to the student visa interviews necessary to enter the country. The reason? An as-yet-undevised policy to further scrutinise the social media histories of students in a search for ... what exactly? No one seems quite sure. It was President Donald Trump who, in his first term, initiated screenings of student visa applicants' social media histories, looking primarily for terrorists or terrorist sympathiders. The policy became one of the few that was maintained by President Joe Biden when he succeeded Trump. In April of this year, Homeland Security said it also would begin monitoring international students' social media for evidence of antisemitism. That raised alarms among free-speech advocates because of the administration's tendency to conflate opposition to the Israeli government's policies or the war in Gaza with antisemitism. At the time, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement that the administration was 'pursuing witch hunts into American colleges.' Now comes another amorphous, arbitrary standard that, even before implementation, is sending shock waves through an already traumatised international student community. Rubio's 'pause' on new student visa interviews will last until his department issues 'guidance on expanded social media vetting for all such applicants,' according to the cable. It does not specify what might disqualify an applicant or what the State Department will be looking for. It does not even say when the guidelines will be available nor when new interviews will resume, although on Thursday the department announced a pilot program to vet Harvard University's visa applicants for antisemitism. That cable advised those doing the vetting to consider 'whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to 'private' or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness.' That is an unconscionable level of opacity for students whose biggest sin is wanting to come to the U.S. to further their education and who have a limited window in which to pursue such opportunities. Recall that the last administration-announced 'pause' was to the US Refugee Admissions Program back in January. That was four months ago. It's still in effect. Bizarrely, Rubio's decision even includes J-1 visa applicants for the State Department's own Exchange Visitor Program. Often those relate to cultural visits, summer work or other education-related travel. But that program also includes physicians and International Medical Graduates, who often serve in teaching hospitals and medically underserved rural areas or other hard-to-staff roles. These J-1 applicants already run a substantial gauntlet of vetting just to reach the interview stage. Finally, there is the conundrum of how the State Department will implement this enhanced vetting even as it plans huge cuts to its footprint and workforce. Trump earlier this year signed an executive order axing budgets at embassies and consulates. In April, CNN reported that according to internal State Department documents, up to 30 embassies and consulates overseas could be closed and others could see reductions. Those kinds of cuts are at odds with the plan to increase the vetting of international students, who already go through exhaustive checks in their attempts to enter the US. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is right when he says that 'all this is just going to scare people away from the United States, people that might come here, get an education, stay here, make some really important progress in some area ... It's just all wrong-headed.' Wisconsin alone had more than 15,000 international students in the 2023-24 school year, according to a study by NAFSA, the National Association of International Educators. That stimulated the state economy by an estimated $541 million. Multiply that by every state and it's easy to see the damage from restricting foreign students won't only be felt by colleges and universities. Fanta Aw, executive director of NAFSA, said in a statement that international students 'already represent the most tracked and vetted category of nonimmigrants in the United States,' calling the pause unnecessary and the additional scrutiny 'a poor use of taxpayer dollars.' And the State Department is unlikely to draw the line at students. Rubio could also easily crack down on business visas, tourist visas, H-1B work visas and others. Despite the fear fostered by the Trump administration's policies, the intellectual richness of an American education remains a potent draw. And while Trump may be happy to set the bar close to zero for foreign students, few outside his MAGA base would agree. The benefits the students bring are indisputable, both in talent and economic impact. The swelling numbers of international students over the last few decades affirm this nation's primacy, spreading American values through 'soft' diplomatic power. America First cannot become America Alone, isolated and parochial. Whether they remain here or return to their native countries, we should hope these international students remember their time here fondly — not with fear.
Euronews
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Afrikaners' arrival in US as refugees sparks international debate
A charter plane carrying 59 white South Africans made international headlines when it landed near Washington on Monday. The new arrivals at Dulles International Airport weren't holidaymakers. Instead, they were the first Afrikaners, a minority descended from European colonists, to be admitted to the US as refugees. Greeted by senior officials from the Trump administration, the South African adults and children were promptly handed small US flags as a welcome to their adoptive country. Their entry is particularly contentious because it comes at a time when all other refugee resettlement through the US Refugee Admissions Program is indefinitely suspended. On his first day back in office on 20 January, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that paused the programme. Just weeks later, an exception was made for Afrikaners, who the White House said were suffering racial discrimination at home. The move followed the claim by Trump adviser Elon Musk — who was born and raised in South Africa — that white farmers face genocide and land expropriation in South Africa. The South African government has strongly denied the Trump administration's accusations, as have some prominent Afrikaners themselves. Euronews reached out to several major Afrikaner groups in South Africa, but did not receive a response. Loren Landau, professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford, said the optics of the Afrikaners' resettlement were plain to see. 'It sends a very clear message to the world and to American citizens that, even as the US attempts to deport millions of (people of colour), the Trump administration will welcome a group of people from elsewhere who have historically been associated with white supremacy and elitism,' he said, with reference to South Africa's Afrikaner-led apartheid regime, which lasted from 1948 until the early 1990s. Landau said vulnerable people, such as those fleeing Sudan's brutal civil war, are in much greater need of resettlement. 'All of these people qualify more as refugees — or should — than Afrikaners, who may face some level of anti-white discrimination on the streets, maybe even in politics, but by no means need to fear for their lives or livelihoods because of who they are,' Landau said. The Oxford professor added that the knock-on effects of US refugee policy, which he described as 'a huge slap in the face for humanitarians and humanitarianism', could be significant. 'It opens space for every country in the world to say, 'If the US, the world's richest country, won't take genuine refugees, why should we?'' Until Trump's executive order in January, the US was the leading resettlement country in the world, typically granting asylum to tens of thousands of refugees each year. In total, there are around 38 million refugees in the world, who have fled their countries and have a well-founded fear of persecution if they return, according to Bill Frelick, the director of Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Refugee and Migrant Rights Division. Only a small number of this vulnerable group used to receive third-country resettlement, Frelick said. 'The numbers accepted are now even smaller because the US was the major resettlement country,' he added. 'And so what had maybe been maybe 1% of the world's refugees being resettled is now going to be a fraction of that 1%.' Like Landau, Frelick said the US president's acceptance of Afrikaners and rejection of other groups was driven by political factors. 'I think Trump's thinking is transactional and is driven by other foreign policy considerations. There are other criticisms he's made of South Africa,' Frelick noted. Trump's criticisms include attacking South Africa for bringing a case in the top UN court against Israel over its war on Hamas in Gaza. Regardless of Trump's motives, the Afrikaners' refugee applications were expedited. "I can't speak to the Afrikaners' individual cases, but the US refugees admissions programme, which is decades old, has specific requirements that individuals have to meet,' said Mevlüde Akay Alp, a senior litigation attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). 'Historically, the process involves significant vetting and screening. It typically takes years for refugees to be admitted to the United States. What stands in stark contrast about the admission of dozens of Afrikaners this week is that they were fast-tracked in a matter of months.' Meanwhile, the thousands of refugees who were approved and had travel booked to the US as of 20 January remain unsure about their futures. Even though a court order is in place requiring the Trump administration to grant them entry. "Those people are now stranded in limbo in third countries. They, by definition, have faced extreme violence and persecution,' Akay Alp said. 'They had taken significant steps and relied on the fact that they would be travelling very soon to the United States. Many of them sold their belongings, ended the leases on their homes, left their jobs in anticipation that they would be travelling ... And they now have no idea whether they will ever be able to come to the US." Akay Alp mentioned that this group included those who had risked their lives helping the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq. The litigation attorney also spoke of one of IRAP's plaintiffs in a case challenging the Trump administration's suspension of the US Refugee Admissions Program. After fleeing war in the Congo at the age of 13, Pacito was scheduled to fly to the US two days after the refugee ban was declared. But despite multiple court orders in recent months, he is still waiting in Kenya. "We're dealing with real people's lives here,' said Akay Alp.
Business Insider
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
Trump welcomes 59 white South African refugees, critics call hypocrisy
The United States expedited refugee processes for 59 white South African refugees, despite Donald Trump having suspended the US Refugee Admissions Program in January.
IOL News
13-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
SA White Afrikaners land in US, but Episcopal Church says ‘not in our pews'
After nearly 40 years and 110,000 refugees served, the Episcopal Church ends its role in the US refugee program over what it calls racially biased resettlement priorities. Image: SAUL LOEB/AFP The Episcopal Church just cut ties with the United States government on refugee work, turns out they weren't too keen on helping resettle White Afrikaners from South Africa, a move approved under President Donald Trump. In a statement, the church confirmed that it is terminating its partnership with the US government to resettle refugees over moral objections. 'I am writing today with some significant news about Episcopal Migration Ministries, the organisation that leads The Episcopal Church's refugee resettlement ministry," began a letter by the church's Reverend Sean Rowe. 'Since January, the previously bipartisan US Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain,' Rowe said. The individuals, including children waving American flags, were welcomed Monday at Dulles International Airport outside Washington by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar. 'I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,' Landau said. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The arrivals follow a decision by Trump's administration to grant refugee status to white South Africans after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act into law earlier this year. The act enables land reform without compensation, a move Trump criticised, subsequently pulling more than $400 million in US aid to South Africa. Rowe said the federal government recently informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that it is expected to begin resettling white Afrikaners under the terms of its federal grant. 'In light of our church's steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation, and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,' he wrote. 'Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the US government.' He emphasised the church's concerns over preferential treatment being given to a specific group of refugees. 'It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,' Rowe wrote. 'I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country.' 'I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months,' he added. For nearly 40 years, Rowe said Episcopal Migration Ministries has participated in federally funded refugee resettlement, helping nearly 110,000 people from countries including Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Myanmar. 'Now that we are ending our involvement in federally funded refugee resettlement, we have asked the administration to work toward a mutual agreement that will allow us to wind down all federally funded services by the end of the federal fiscal year in September,' Rowe said. 'We are working with the affected staff members to provide extensive outplacement services and severance packages. Rowe said the church will continue to serve migrants in other ways 'No change in political fortunes alters our commitment to stand with the world's most vulnerable people,' he said. 'Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command,' Rowe added. Earlier, IOL News reported that the Trump administration welcomed the 49 Afrikaners who landed in the US on Monday at Dulles Airport outside Washington after they were granted asylum status following claims that they faced discrimination and violence in South Africa. The group, which included children who were waving small American flags, was welcomed by Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar. 'I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,' said Landau. IOL Politics
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Hope in my heart': displaced Afghans in limbo as White House freezes refugee programs
The 24-year-old Afghan woman wants to become a surgeon – and she had set her sights on training in the US. She wants to care for other women and girls, so they don't have to be afraid to visit the doctor – so at least in one crucial aspect of their lives they won't have to endure the unwanted advances, dismissive comments and blatant disrespect that she's experienced from many of the men who have always surrounded her, first in her native Afghanistan and now in legal limbo in Pakistan. 'I hope a lot that I will be a doctor in the future. I don't know it will happen, but I hope,' she said. 'It means that a woman is powerful, that if she wants to do something, she can.' Yet for the moment, she has no way to attend medical school anywhere. She can barely step outside the apartment in Islamabad where she and her two sisters, her teenage brother, and their mother spend each day terrified that police will arrest and deport them back to face Taliban rule. Simply as a woman in the Taliban's Afghanistan her lifestyle would be severely restricted, but as Christians the whole family would literally be in mortal danger. Her family has documents from the United Nations Refugee Agency proving that they're certified asylum seekers, and they were on the verge of getting the green light to come to the US. But to the Trump administration right now, these plans don't matter – despite volunteer groups in Texas preparing for months to welcome them. To the police in Pakistan, where they are in exile, those UN documents don't matter either. What matters is that the family is Afghan and is no longer wanted there. 'Everywhere is policed. Every day, police come to our house. It's too difficult for us,' said the woman in an interview over Zoom. The Guardian is withholding the family's identity while they remain at risk. 'In these days, we awake with a fear,' she said of her family. They have already been lying low in Pakistan for three years after fleeing Afghanistan. A few months ago, it seemed as though the family was finally on the cusp of relief, soon to fly to east Texas. 'They were nearing the finish line. We didn't have any certainty, they hadn't actually been approved and travel wasn't being scheduled yet. But we were right there – everything, all the screening, was done,' said Justin Reese, one member of a group of Texas volunteers who were getting ready to welcome the family. Then, on the first day of Donald Trump's second term as president, one of his many immigration-related executive orders indefinitely suspended the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) – and with it, the family's chance at reaching imminent safety. 'By every metric, they have played by the rules and they are being treated like this,' said Reese. 'It's very damaging to them individually, and it's damaging, I think, to the future security of the US, for us to be seen as this mercurial, as this incoherent.' A federal district judge temporarily blocked Trump's effective ban on refugees coming to the US, offering those on the brink of resettlement a flicker of hope, but a circuit panel has now rolled back that decision, saying only people already approved must be allowed to come. And whether an administration ideologically opposed to refugee resettlement will resume the program at scale – or in any meaningful way – remains an open question, particularly after the state department has tried to terminate essential funding agreements with all of the US's resettlement agencies for the entire fiscal year. That was even before the prospect of new Trump travel restrictions on Afghans entering the US, and before immigration officials suddenly paused green card processing for refugees already here. 'I don't know how you get to a place of suspending refugee resettlement as policy without a series of ideological turns that I don't understand how to unwind,' Reese said. Before the ascent of Trumpism, USRAP enjoyed widespread bipartisan support for myriad reasons: its protection of American allies and related benefits to national security; its solidarity with 'frontline states' such as Turkey and Colombia that are taking in so many of the world's displaced people; its signal to other nations that the US cares about human rights. In fact, even before the refugee resettlement program was written into US law, organizations cropped up across the nation in response to the atrocities of the second world war – and the US's role in rejecting refugees early on who then became victims of the Holocaust. These agencies welcomed displaced people from around the world, many fleeing communism from the Baltic states, Hungary or Vietnam. After Congress established a more universal, standardized refugee framework, general support for resettlement continued, even following the 11 September 2001 attacks that reshaped much of the US immigration system. Sometimes, scandals would arise within the program, but administrations would address them and move on. Then, in 2015, Trump ran for president and soon started trumpeting a narrative that refugees posed a security threat to American communities, despite them being some of the most thoroughly vetted newcomers in the country. 'There [was] already a kind of deteriorating bipartisan support,' Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, the humanitarian organization, recalled of that moment. By fiscal year 2020, the first Trump administration had gutted the US's refugee resettlement infrastructure and set the annual ceiling on refugee admissions at 18,000 – the lowest cap on record. When Joe Biden took office, his administration eventually rebuilt resettlement capacity in the US, with more than 100,000 people welcomed in his last full fiscal year in office. To do so, Biden made innovations, such as an initiative called the Welcome Corps, which invited Americans and green card holders to form private groups and financially sponsor refugees for resettlement in the US. 'I think the idea of the Welcome Corps was that it was politically foolproof,' said Schacher, and that 'because it relied on private funds and private individuals to step up … that these folks would push back against the Trump administration and make sure that folks still come. And they would step in if government funding was withdrawn. I think it remains to be seen if that's actually going to work politically.' Reese and his family knew that they wanted to participate in the Welcome Corps. A software developer by trade, he had spent the better part of a decade learning about the politics and policy of offering refuge. Just before the coronavirus pandemic gripped the US, he traveled to Greece to serve in a refugee camp with 20,000 residents representing 40 different nationalities. The corner of camp where he volunteered hosted mostly Afghans, and he returned home to east Texas with new friendships and phone numbers from within that community. So when Kabul fell to the Taliban and the US withdrew troops from Afghanistan in 2021, his phone started buzzing with alerts from worried Afghans whose loved ones were still stranded in danger. He sprang into action, attempting to cut through red tape to try to get desperate families in Afghanistan on US evacuation flights. It was frantic and exhausting. 'Everything felt like an inch away and then a mile away at the same time, because you just knew if you just were smart enough or well-resourced enough, then you could make this happen,' he remembered. Simultaneously, the Afghan family of five he would eventually try to resettle through the Welcome Corps was fleeing Afghanistan for Pakistan. The Taliban's return to power was the final straw that dashed any hope they had for stability in their homeland, though it was hardly their first brush with persecution. As members of the Hazara ethnic community, their people had long been victims of massacres and genocides, including by the Taliban at the turn of the 21st century. Having converted from Shia Islam to Christianity, the family had been targeted by their neighbors, beaten and forced to move many times. And as a household in which the patriarch died about a decade ago, the women had been subject to constant unwanted attention and harassment from unscrupulous men. 'We miss, a lot, our country,' one of the daughters said. 'We miss our memories that we had. But unfortunately we can't go back because I have lots of bad memories from Taliban … situations, and it makes me sad.' As she described the family's experience, she wept. Her family met Reese in person when they were all in Islamabad in late 2023. Until then, they had been names on a list for Reese, names he was still trying to help find refuge. After getting to know the family face to face, he wanted to bring them to his own community, where he thought their life experiences would resonate with people. He found willing volunteers back in east Texas. With 10 members, Reese's Welcome Corps group is far larger than required and includes a veteran who served in Afghanistan, a missionary's kid who grew up in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a couple whose children work with Afghans abroad, and others uniquely equipped to help. Offers of housing and other support flowed in. And Reese's commitment to sponsor the Afghan family made a huge difference in their lives, even as they remained in a precarious situation abroad. They suddenly felt as though they were waiting in Pakistan for a reason, and they stopped worrying as much about their future while imagining safety together in the US. 'It made my family so happy,' one of the daughters said. In Texas, she hoped, 'we can continue our studies and we can continue our lives without any worries'. Now Reese's garage is full of donated household items from an online wishlist to outfit what would have been the family's new home in Tyler, Texas. It's unclear when or if the family will ever arrive – news Reese had to deliver personally. 'I have a hard time talking about how it made us feel without being angry because I do feel that it's not just unnecessary and harmful, but strategically incompetent,' he said. 'I don't believe that anybody involved in turning [USRAP] off had to deliver phone calls like the ones that we had to over the last few weeks.' Despite the setback and the increasingly serious threats of deportation the family faces in Islamabad, one of the daughters expressed gratitude for 'brother Justin', as she calls Reese, and appreciates at least hearing an update on their case. Trump's actions have made her 'sad, but I hope', she said, adding: 'I have hope in my heart that this program will open again.'
