A coalition of Republican and Democrat Senators sent President Trump a letter last month, begging his administration to bring “as many refugees as possible” to the United States next year.
In a letter dated August 5 — before Trump announced he would lower the refugee resettlement cap to a maximum of 18,000 admissions for Fiscal Year 2020 — Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Coons (D-DE) led a group of lawmakers to ask that the president increase the number of refugees resettled in the U.S. every year beyond the current year’s 30,000 admissions ceiling.
Likewise, the lawmakers called reports “alarming” that the Trump administration would halt the refugee resettlement program for Fiscal Year 2020 for national security reasons and said the U.S. has a responsibility, above all else, to be compassionate to the world’s migrants:
While some Members of Congress have already expressed their displeasure with the FY2019 resettlement cap, and the lower-than-normal admittance numbers for FY2017 and FY2018, eliminating refugee admittance altogether is even more alarming. At a time when we are facing the “highest levels of displacement on record,” according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, we urge you to increase the refugee resettlement cap and to admit as many refugees as possible within that cap. America has a responsibility to promote compassion and democracy around the world through assistance to vulnerable and displaced people. [Emphasis added]
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