Donald Trump suspends the arrival of refugees into the country

(Washington) Thousands of refugees waiting to come to the United States are seeing their hopes dashed after the draconian measures against immigration taken by Donald Trump upon coming to power.

The American president suspended by decree on Monday for 90 days all arrivals in the United States of refugees, a measure which was to come into force from January 27.

But according to a State Department document consulted Wednesday by AFP, “all previously planned refugee trips to the United States are canceled.”

“No travel reservations will be made, processing of files and all activity before departure are suspended,” it is written in the note dated Tuesday.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) is also being asked not to move refugees to transit centers.

This concerns thousands of people around the world, some of whom already had their plane tickets in their pockets and who endured a long admission process.

Refugees already settled in the United States will, however, continue to benefit from the services provided, and the measure does not concern a special visa program, particularly for Afghans who worked for the United States before the fall of the Afghan government in 2021.

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Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed alarm at Mr. Trump’s measures, stressing that welcoming refugees was “a fundamental American value.”

“The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has long enjoyed bipartisan support and is a tool to save the lives of the most vulnerable refugees, while strengthening the security of Americans by promoting stability around the world,” he said. she said in a press release.

She expressed concern that Afghans were also being left in limbo with canceled flights.

President Trump, faithful to his campaign promises, issued on the first day of his mandate a flurry of decrees ranging from the proclamation of a state of emergency at the Mexican border to the questioning of land rights and announced a vast program of expulsion of illegal immigrants, in order to fight against what he described as an “invasion” of migrants.

“Over the past four years, the United States has been inundated with record migratory flows, particularly under the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” President Trump wrote in his executive order, emphasizing that the United States United “do not have the capacity to absorb large numbers of migrants, and particularly refugees.”

“Dreams shattered”

In the same decree, the Republican president revoked a measure taken by his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden concerning the admission of so-called “climate” refugees linked to natural disasters.

The new head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, assured Wednesday that “the State Department will no longer undertake activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration.”

The previous administration of Joe Biden made welcoming refugees a priority. In fiscal year 2024, some 100,000 refugees resettled in the United States, the highest number in three decades, according to official figures.

These refugees come from a number of countries in conflict including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma and Sudan.

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are some 37.9 million refugees worldwide, out of 122.6 million displaced people.

“Refugees are subject to the most rigorous screening in the world, and it is heartbreaking to see their dreams of safety dashed days or, in some cases, hours before they begin their new lives here,” lamented in a statement from Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, who heads the NGO Global Refuge.

Congress passes first anti-immigration law

The US Congress on Wednesday adopted the first bill of the second Trump presidency, which – as a symbol – attacks illegal immigration.

The bill requires the automatic detention by federal law enforcement of illegal immigrants who have been convicted or indicted for certain crimes.

It was adopted by the Republican-majority House of Representatives with 263 votes for and 156 against.

Around forty Democratic elected officials voted for the text, a sign of changing trends on the subject of immigration within the American political class.

A subsequent promulgation by Donald Trump is expected, he who promised Monday in his inauguration speech to “send millions and millions of criminal foreigners back to where they came from”.

Democratic elected officials denounced the staggering cost, according to them, of the measure adopted on Wednesday, putting forward the figure of 83 billion dollars over the first three years.

“That’s a lot of money to spend on a bill that’s going to cause chaos,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said on X.

For left-wing elected official Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this law is a slippery slope that will further erode the rule of law.

“In a few months, there will be members of Congress who voted for this bill and who will claim that they were not aware of all the bad things that are going to happen because of it,” she said. launched from the hemicycle.

The bill was named the “Laken Riley Act,” after a 22-year-old student killed in February 2024 in the southeastern United States by an illegal Venezuelan immigrant.

José Antonio Ibarra, 26, had been arrested before the murder for shoplifting. He has since been sentenced to an irreducible life sentence.

The affair had created significant stir during the electoral campaign and had been extensively exploited by Donald Trump and the Republicans, who blamed this murder on the lax policy of the Biden administration in terms of border control.

They had demanded that the Democratic president offer an “apology” to Laken Riley’s family.