New Trump rule could put refugees on 10-day countdown clock to stay in the US

The Trump administration is aiming to speed up mass removals of refugees, a policy decision that has been described as a “new low in a parade of lows” by advocacy groups.Effective immediately and with less than a 24-hour warning, refugees will have just 10 days instead of 30 days to raise any challenges to contest the termination of their status, making them vulnerable to being deported back to countries they fled.The move upends a “core principle that refugee resettlement represents permanent protection,” according to Naomi Steinberg, vice president of refugee and immigration policy at the humanitarian nonprofit HIAS.“If this policy is allowed to go into effect, America can no longer claim to be the place of refuge and hope that it once was,” she said in a statement to The Independent.Stripping away that security without any procedural safeguards “sends a devastating message to both refugees and their persecutors alike: that even the most lawful and carefully vetted path to protection in the United States can be arbitrarily revoked,” she added.President Donald Trump will shorten a 30-day window for refugees to defend their status to 10 days in what advocates are calling a virtual countdown clock to remove them from the country (Reuters)A government notice, filed by the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday, claims there was “insufficient” evidence to support the admission of a “majority” of refugees in Minnesota who entered the country during the Biden administration.Homeland Security said there was an “alarming erosion” of refugee program integrity during that time, when refugees “who are improperly admitted may not have their identity fully confirmed and vetted due to an incomplete record” and could “pose a risk to national security and public safety.”The Biden administration “reduced or removed” requirements to ensure refugees had a “thorough examination and assessment of eligibility,” according to DHS.“This raises concerns about the integrity of the refugee program and calls into question the eligibility for refugee status of aliens admitted to the United States during this time,” the agency said.But it often takes months or years to vet refugees, who must submit to several rounds of interviews and background checks before they can arrive in the U.S. “These families did everything asked of them,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge.A 10-day countdown clock is a “wholly insufficient” amount of time for refugees at risk of losing their protections to secure an immigration lawyer and collect records from the country they fled, she added.Some refugees may not receive those notices before the 10 days are up, according to Vignarajah.The refugee policy changes were issued without warning one day after immigration agents raided the home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee and a frequent target of Trump and his allies (Reuters)It will now be “nearly impossible” for refugees to challenge unfair or false allegations against them before losing their status as protected refugees, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project.The new rule makes it “impossible for refugees to even fully understand the allegations against them, much less find counsel and contest those allegations, before their status is terminated,” according to Laurie Ball Cooper, IRAP’s vice president of U.S. legal programs.“The government is reducing this process to mere window-dressing for an effort to strip lawfully present, lawfully admitted refugees of their status and deport them to persecution or worse,” she added.The policy opens the door to “severe and swift” consequences, including prolonged detention and family separation, according to Vignarajah.“The families we serve are already anxious, and this rule gives them every reason to be,” she said.Federal law typically requires a public input period before the government implements sweeping policy decisions. However U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services issued the proposed rule on Tuesday and it takes effect Wednesday.The rule change follows the Trump administration’s drastic overhaul of the nation’s refugee program, including studying whether allowing refugees into the country is even in the nation’s interest.The administration lowered the ceiling for annual refugee admissions to just 7,500, an all-time low that was later raised to 17,500. Virtually all slots, except for a handful, are going to white South Africans.The administration has overhauled the nation’s refugee program, including effectively ending all new refugee admissions except for white South Africans (AFP/Getty)Trump has also increasingly targeted the state of Minnesota, where a federal judge accused federal immigration agents of “terrorizing” refugees and turning the “American dream into a dystopian nightmare.”An order from Minnesota District Judge John Tunheim blocks federal authorities from arresting and detaining recently resettled refugees who are not yet lawful permanent residents.“Decades ago, as a nation, we made a solemn promise to refugees fleeing persecution: that after rigorous vetting, they would be welcomed to the United States and given the opportunity to rebuild their lives,” the judge wrote earlier this year.“They are not committing crimes on our streets, nor did they illegally cross the border,” he added.The rule change also follows the Trump administration’s growing threats to Minnesota and Somali immigrants in the state, including Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar; the Minneapolis-St.Paul area is home to roughly 80,000 people of Somali ancestry, the vast majority of whom are legal residents or American citizens. On Monday, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations — ICE’s criminal investigation arm — raided Omar’s Washington, D.C. home.The congresswoman fled Somalia when she was eight years old and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp. She was granted asylum to live in the U.S. in 1995 and became a citizen in 2000.A spokesperson for the Department of Justice toldThe Independent that HSI agents “executed a judicially authorized search warrant” as part of an “ongoing federal investigation.”“Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” Omar said in a statement following the raid. “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”