The Trump administration is slashing the amount of refugees it would accept into the country by almost half, The New York Times reports. The State Department announced on Thursday that the U.S. would only be accepting 18,000 refugees in the next 12 months—a drastic decrease from the current 30,000 cap and the 110,000 refugee cap in the last year of the Obama administration. The administration also said they planned on reserving many of the 18,000 spots for Iraqis who have aided U.S. military forces, some persecuted populations from Central America, religious minorities, and other small persecuted groups. “The current burdens on the U.S. immigration system must be alleviated before it is again possible to resettle large number of refugees,” the State Department said in a press release. “Prioritizing the humanitarian protection cases of those already in our country is simply a matter of fairness and common sense.”
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