Refugee and Asylum Policy in the US

Refugee and Asylum Policy
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Refugee and Asylum Policy
Introduction
The United States of America has been in the front line in the resettlement of the displaced people and immigrants. The need to settle the refugees in today's world remains enormous. Over the past two decades, the number of refugees who are fleeing their home countries has risen due to increased political instability. The refugees flee their homes due to endless persecution by their home government. The reason for the refugee's abuse might be their faith, their political opinions or even failing to agree with the ideologies of the government of the day in their countries. While the United States has been the global leader in being a haven for millions of refugees and asylum seekers globally and bringing new hope in their lives, refugee and asylum policies determine the effectiveness of such programs.
Recently, president Trump has raised a concern about the settlement of the refugees and has decided to reduce the number of refugees that migrate to the United States each year. The current president of the United States aims to significantly reduce the number of refugees and immigrants that enter the country by a considerable portion. (Mushaben, 2018). Therefore, he has facilitated the immigration departments to come up with tighter security procedures in assessing and vetting those who enter the country. The new law will see the country reduce the number of refugees who can be settled in the United States. Additionally, the enactment of the policy has made the refugees take long periods before they are accepted to enter the country and it has also exposed the refugees and asylum seekers to higher risks.
Background of the Refugee and Asylum Policy
The US has always been known to welcome immigrants, and sometimes knows as a nation of immigrants. Until 1921, the US has admitted a significantly large number of immigrants and the refugees into the country. After the 1921 quota act which was finalized in the year 1924, the US put a cap on the immigration restriction, but the number of asylum seekers was to be unlimited. For the first time in history, the US limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3 percent (Loescher, 2017). The year 1948 marked the period of the refugees and asylum liberalized immigration policies. That means that the European refugees were admitted in the United States without a limitation after the Second World War. With the enactment of the refugee and the asylum law in 1980, there has been a growing number of asylum and refuge-seekers in the United States (Loescher, 2017). Due to the increase in the number of refugees entering the United States, the United States refugee and asylum policies have been a subject of discussion and controversy.
The 1980 refugee act was passed to end the cold war between the capitalists and the communists. The refugee act of 1980 redefined a refugee as a person who was fleeing the communist oppression and therefore only those fleeing the communists dominated nations could be taken for admission (Hollifield, Martin & Orrenius, 2014). Since then, the United States has had some deterrent refugee policies directed explicitly to particular nationalities in a way that has appeared controversial and not following the universal definition of a refugee. When President Obama took the lead in 2008, he also came up with a refugee policy which permitted 110000 refuge seekers to be admitted into the country (Hollifield Martin & Orrenius, 2014). Change in regime and leadership effectively affects the policies regulating refugees and asylum seekers.
Currently, under the leadership of president Trump, the government has passed an act to control the number of refugees entering the United States annually. The reduction in the number of refugees to an all-time low of 50000 spots annually has been a subject of discussion and argument by the global leaders (Crisp, 2019). He first suspended the acceptance of the refugees for 120 days so that he could see the number of refugees entering the country reduce by a large percentage. Additionally, president Trump suspended the entry of the Syrian refugees indefinitely for an unknown period (Crisp, 2019). President Trump had made all these changes to give the immigration department more time to assess the security and the application of the asylum and the refuge-seekers.
Weaknesses of the Refugee and Asylum Policy
The problem with the refugees and the asylum policy is the government of the United States has put more pressure on the nations to settle the excess refugees in their countries. No country can fill the gap since the United States was the most substantial settler of the refugees than all the other countries combined (Arbel & Brenner, 2013). The policy increases the widespread suffering of the refugees as the overall number of refugees resettlement reduces by about 54% annually. In the year 2016, the hotspots for the refugees were the highest at 163000, but by the end of the year 2017, they were only 75200 (Crisp, 2019). The UNHCR had an estimated number of refugees to be settled as 1.2 million people while those who were accommodated in all the countries were only 102800 (Loescher, 2017). The challenge leads to the suffering of those seeking refuge due to persecution in their home countries.
Policy changes elicited various reactions from asylum seekers, refugees, and other interested parties. Most of the refugees who were residing in the United States crossed the Canadian border since the swearing in of the president trump in January 2017. The refugees hope that they will better be accepted in Canada than in the United States. The policy has created the problems between the government of the United States and that of Canada since they had an agreement that these people whose entre any country between the two should be given a refuge where they enter (Karamouzian, 2018). The refugee and asylum policy has affected the European countries since they have to settle the excess number of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. In 2017, Europe's share of the refugee’s settlement rose by 57% (Jungblut, Vukasovic & Steinhardt, 2018). The German government has also faced the challenges since the introduction of the policy since they have experienced a political backlash after promising to settle 1 million refugees starting from the year 2015. Thus, the policy affects not only the US but also other developed countries (Jungblut, Vukasovic & Steinhardt, 2018). The UNHCR argues that no country will be able to fill the void left by the United States after the policy enactment.
Despite reducing the number of refugees entering the United States, the country still topped in the refugee accommodation. An enormous challenge is that all the other countries combined cannot accommodate the remaining number of refugees (Fullerton, 2014). ...