美国务院提议减少来非洲、中东国家难民比例

The U.S. State Department is proposing that the United States receive proportionally fewer refugees from Africa and the Middle East in the coming year than it planned to last year, in favor of an increase in refugees from Asia and Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, according to data obtained from the agency.

The regional shifts are part of a proposal that would reduce the number of refugees allowed into the country for Fiscal Year 2019 to 30,000, a record low for the program.

As it stands, the proposed amounts for each region, according to the State Department, are:

Africa — 11,000, down from 19,000 in fiscal 2018.

Near East and South Asia (includes the Middle East) — 9,000, down from 17,500.

East Asia — 4,000, down from 5,000.

Europe — 3,000, up from 2,000.

Latin America and the Caribbean — 3,000, up from 1,500.

The proposed ceiling marks an upper threshold — not a goal. With about a week left in the fiscal year, fewer than 22,000 of a proposed 45,000 refugees had been admitted into the country, according to State Department data.

Moreover, regional allocations don't always align with reality. For example, last year, the president mandated that 42 percent of refugees come from Africa. As of Sept. 21, that figure was 46 percent.

Another region that exceeded its intended allocation: Europe, where a surge in Ukrainian refugees accounted for part of the jump from a proposed 4 percent of refugees to a reality of 16 percent.

The difference in refugee arrivals from the Middle East in the last year was the starkest. The administration capped the number at 39 percent — 17,500 Middle Eastern refugees of the 45,000 total; to date for FY2018, it has admitted 3,756 from the Middle East, or about 17 percent.