The United States Is No Longer the World Leader in Resettling Refugees

For the first time, Canada is now No. 1.

Syrian refugee children walk in mud after heavy rain this month at a refugee camp in Bar Elias, Lebanon. Bilal Hussein/AP

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For the first time in more than three decades, the United States is not the world leader in resettling refugees. That title now belongs to Canada—a nation with fewer people than California.

Canada resettled more refugees than any other country in 2018, according to a new analysis from Robert Falconer, a researcher at the University of Calgary’s public policy school. It is the first time in the 72 years of modern refugee resettlement that Canada has taken the top spot.

In 2018, Canada took in far fewer refugees than it did in 2016. What’s changed is that President Donald Trump is cutting the number of refugees allowed into the United States to historic lows.

After the United States adopted the Refugee Act of 1980, it resettled more refugees than every other country in the world combined for more than 30 years in a row. That ended when the United States took in only 33,000 refugees in 2017, fewer than half of the 69,000 accepted by other countries, according to the Pew Research Center.

In the 2016 fiscal year, the United States admitted nearly 85,000 refugees. That fell to a record low of 22,491 in the 2018 fiscal year. For 2019, the Trump administration has said it will take in no more than 30,000 refugees.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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