Day 1,086: Trump, White House humiliated by GOP governors accepting refugees, being human beings
They actively created a system they hoped would cause wholesale denials.
To date, 18 red states have agreed to accept refugees displaced to the U.S. It’s a stunning turn for Donald Trump and his administration, who were expecting, and even hoping, that the refugees —people who have no ability to return to their homes — would be blocked from relocating to Republican-led states.
In a September executive order, President Donald Trump gave states and local governments the right to reject refugees, but instead of saying no, most state and local officials have blindsided the administration by opting in, according to two former officials familiar with the matter.
Some of the local governments choosing to accept refugees voted heavily in favor of Trump in 2016, after an election campaign in which he vowed to clamp down on immigration and the flow of refugees — particularly Muslim refugees.
“They thought they were throwing red meat to their base. It’s a spectacular blowback for them,” said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions, who did not want to be named. “It was a mistake to assume that just because it whips people up at a Trump rally, that it will have the same effect on people in a community.”
Trump even tried to engineer a despicable system that would cause the refugees to be rejected over and over again.
In September, Trump signed an executive order permitting states, cities and counties, for the first time ever, to opt out of accepting international refugees.
If the localities take no action by Jan. 21, funding for refugees will be cut off, meaning there will be no resettlements there.
Only if local officials publicly say yes to refugees by that deadline do their cities and counties have to accept them. The wording means politicians would have to take a potentially unpopular position in favor of immigrants.
The main causes for the pushback to Trump — even as he slashes refugee numbers year after year — stem from moral reasons from religious communities and other everyday citizens, as well as a desire for an increased and diversified workforce from business leaders.
The White House actually went out of their way to try and persuade GOP governors to not accept refugees.
After several Republican governors said they would keep the door open to refugees, the White House organized a conference call with governors in November, explaining the Trump executive order and reminding them that they were not required to take any proactive steps, according to one former official. The conference call, which included Andrew Veprek, a senior Department of State official overseeing refugee policy, was first reported by the New Yorker.
So far, Texas is the only state to reject refugees from settling there, as seven more Republican-led states are set to make a decision in the next two weeks.
1,086 days in, 376 to go
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