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The Trump administration’s increased vetting of refugees has resulted in tens of thousands of people waiting in limbo, including Hadi Mohammed’s wife. “Mohammed, who worked as a security guard for the U.S. military in Baghdad, says he was initially told his wife would be reunited with him and the boys within a month,” the AP reports. “The wait has now dragged on for more than a year as she goes through stricter screening imposed by the Trump administration.”
Much like in the case of Mohammad Hamid Ayoubi, who worked as an interpreter for the military, having aided the U.S. seems to have made no difference to an administration led by a draft-dodger. Ayoubi had his interview more than a18 months ago, but “his case hasn’t progressed.” In Mohammed’s case, he and his two young sons are in Nebraska, but have spent more than a year waiting for his wife to be able to join them. “Every night he cries about mom, I need mom,” Mohammed said.
Refugees are already among the most vetted groups entering the U.S., but the Trump administration’s racist platform has shut out thousands of vulnerable people, many of them Muslim, from seeking safety here. The AP reports that officials admitted only 22,000 refugees in the last fiscal year, “less than half the maximum that the administration had said it would allow.” In the next fiscal year, the administration plans to admit only 30,000, “the lowest ceiling a president has placed on the refugee program since its creation in 1980.”
If the officials continue last fiscal year’s pattern, then we could see only around 15,000 refugees admitted, despite the “worst global refugee crisis in history,” Hannah Graf Evans of the Quaker Lobby said. “There were 140 Iraqis accepted during the just-ended budget year, down from 6,886 the year before,” the AP continued. This is happening as Trump’s administration is also barring asylum seekers at the U.S./Mexico border, punishing the most vulnerable in the name of his white supremacist agenda. “For my family to be at peace, I need to know that my wife is safe,” Mohammed continued. “But I would never change my decision and return to Iraq. Coming to the United States was an answer to my prayers.”