Fewer Americans believe U.S. should accept refugees
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Fewer Americans believe U.S. should accept refugees
Mama Winnie's energy is contagious. She helps refugees feel right at home in their new country.
Fewer Americans believe the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees, a shift that has been spurred by President Trump's efforts to limit them from entering the country, according to a poll released Thursday.
More than half of Americans — 51% — still believe the United States should welcome immigrants fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, according to the poll conducted by the non-partisan Pew Research Center. But that number is down from 56% during a similar survey in February 2017.
The drop is mostly due to the changing attitudes of Republicans: 26% feel the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees, a drop from 35% last year. That trend is even more pronounced among self-described conservative Republicans: their support for refugees has fallen to 19% from 33% last year.
Refugees and asylum recipients are people who are forced to flee their home country because of war or violence. They can prove a credible fear of returning based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Refugees are interviewed and approved while overseas, while asylum seekers make their claims once they reach the U.S.
The overall crash in the public perception of refugees coincides with the Trump administration's efforts to limit the U.S. refugee program in the name of national security.
Through his attempts to institute a travel ban, Trump was able to shut down the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for seven months. Even when it was restarted in October, potential refugees were exposed to "extreme vetting" procedures to more thoroughly screen their backgrounds.
Trump also signed an order lowering the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. to 45,000, the lowest number since Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980. The administration may not even reach that figure, however, as it has approved only 13,758 refugees with only three months remaining in the 2018 fiscal year.
Along the way, the president and his top officials repeatedly warned about terrorists infiltrating the U.S. through the refugee program. The administration was not able to show any examples of refugees committing terrorist attacks in the U.S., but they continued warning about the possibility.
That constant barrage against refugees helps explain why so many Americans have started viewing refugees with more suspicion, said Erol Kekic, executive director of the immigration and refugee program at Church World Service, one of nine groups that helps refugees resettle in the U.S.
Kekic said it wasn't just Trump. Over the past 16 months, Kekic said Americans have seen the images of refugees fleeing wars and famine pouring into countries around the world. And in many cases, he said that's led to a sudden, and irrational, fear of those refugees.
"We have seen an unfortunate rise in xenophobia globally," he said. "We have seen that in European capitals, in Australia, and unfortunately we've seen it in the United States."
Kekic also blamed a more polarized political climate in the U.S., and a poor job by the media of navigating between those two sides.
"We need to change the narrative," said Kekic, who just completed tour of refugee camps in Kenya and Tanzania that hold hundreds of thousands of refugees with no place to go. "Refugees are not terrorists. Refugees are not the enemy. But refugees are a convenient target because they do not posses the capacity to defend themselves."
Supporters of Trump's efforts to crack down on would-be refugees agree that some are deserving of American goodwill. But Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the new poll numbers show Americans are learning that many people who apply for refugee status or asylum are simply taking advantage of generous U.S. laws to sneak into the country.
"Most people, regardless of party affiliation, feel we have some sense of responsibility to people who are truly fleeing political persecution at the hands of their government," Mehlman said. "But there's this perception that people are coming here and, if not making outright bogus claims for asylum, are (stretching the truth) and seeing it as a way to slip in the door."
The survey of 1,503 adults was conducted between April 25 and May 1. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.
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