During the campaign, Trump said he would suspend immigration from certain countries and called for “ideological certification” of those entering the country. Two days before the election he told a crowd, “When I’m elected president we will suspend the Syrian refugee program, and we will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country.”
The issue has particular resonance in Rutland because the city was approved in September as a resettlement site for 100 refugees from Syria and Iraq. The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program has said it expects the first families to arrive in December or January.
Under the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, the president has very broad powers in determining the number of refugees admitted to the United States and where they come from. There is some consultation with Congress, but the final decision rests with the executive branch.
“In theory the president could suspend the program,” said Betsy Fisher, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project. “It’s too soon to know exactly what the president or the Congress is going to do.”
Thousands of refugees have been successfully resettled in Vermont since the late 1980s, most in Chittenden County.
When Rutland Mayor Chris Louras announced in April that his city had been proposed as a resettlement site, critics argued the community didn’t have the necessary resources. The mayor countered that resettlement would help revitalize Rutland, which has struggled with a declining population and a weak economic recovery since the 2008 recession.
Once Rutland was approved, the public debate was largely put to rest. However, in a Facebook post two weeks before the election, the group Rutland First, which opposed resettlement, urged its members to vote for Trump. “He plans to close the refugee program to persons from countries that present a security or vetting risk,” the post said.
City Treasurer Wendy Wilton, who was an active member of Rutland First, said after the election that she didn’t think a Trump administration would spell the end of refugee resettlement. “The U.S. takes in thousands of refugees from all over the world and not all from areas where terrorism is a problem,” she said. Last year the largest number of refugees resettled in the U.S. came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by Syria, Myanmar (Burma), Iraq and Somalia.
Wilton said national security was not high on her list. She’s more concerned about the cost of the program and the potential burden on taxpayers.
Asked if Rutland First had plans to regroup after the election, Wilton said it did not. “We felt that we did our job,” she said.
Another member of the group, Fred Haas, said his primary concern was national security and border security. Haas said he felt the program should be slowed though perhaps not eliminated.
“I don’t think it would hurt to slow down the refugee resettlement program and really look at it,” he said. “Are we really doing everything we can to vet these people?”
Haas, who served in the Navy for six years and voted for Trump, said he doesn’t think all refugees are a national security threat and that most are probably “good, decent people.” He even said Rutland could probably absorb 100 refugees without issue but worries that if the program continued in subsequent years the city might be overburdened.
According to Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria, there are already Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the pipeline to come to the United States. In some cases, Ford said, they are awaiting final checks and U.S. government issuance of travel papers.
Over the years the national refugee program has enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and in 2008 a bill co-sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., made it easier for Iraqis who had worked with the U.S. military as translators or analysts to be eligible for resettlement.
Under President Obama the number of refugees resettled in the United States has increased incrementally. In 2015, for example, 70,000 refugees were admitted. Last year that number went up to 85,000, and in fiscal 2017 the administration has committed to resettling 110,000 refugees, with about 10,000 coming from Syria. According to Fisher, since 1980 the number of refugees admitted has typically varied between 50,000 and 100,000.
“The president has a lot of authority when it comes to refugee admissions,” said Melanie Nezzar, vice president for policy and advocacy at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. However, she said, refugee resettlement is a complicated process. “How they’re going to maneuver this if they want to restrict refugees from certain countries or certain faiths is hard to see,” she said.
“We really just don’t know how everything will play out,” said Fisher. “But in the meantime we’re going to call on the new administration, as we called on previous administrations, to maintain the program and ensure people have access to the program based on vulnerability, not based on religion or national origin or any other criteria.”
The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program is seeking office space in Rutland and plans to have three full-time employees. The first refugee service provider network meeting is scheduled to take place at the end of the month. The office of the state refugee coordinator has received a three-year federal grant totaling $450,000 to support case management, English language instruction and other services.
In a statement last week, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said, “We continue to work toward the welcome of refugees into Rutland. We are so grateful for the outpouring of support we have experienced from countless individuals with donations in support of newcomers and hope to welcome the first families in the New Year.”
Louras said he’s not interested in speculating about the future of the program, saying it is a question ultimately for the Trump administration. “My focus is on the fact that (Trump) only received 38 percent of votes in Rutland,” Louras said, “clearly anything but a mandate opposing resettlement in Rutland.”
