United States letting in fewer refugees

NEW YORK — Those huddled masses yearning to breathe free shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for passage to America, which is setting a new record this year for refusing sanctuary to eligible asylum-seekers.

The United States will admit about 25,000 refugees by the end of the current budget year, a new low for a nation founded by people fleeing persecution. Experts blame terrorism fears and an obsolete asylum program that still lists "Soviets" as one of the top five nationalities that deserve U.S. protection.

The total number of resettlements as of Sept. 16 is only half the 50,000 admissions quota approved by President Bush for 2003. That ceiling itself was a new low.

Resettlement specialists see signs that the 2004 quotas, which are due to be determined by the White House in mid-October, won’t grow.

U.S. officials say the program is in transition, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tightening of domestic security measures, a lack of U.S. resettlement staffers and a refugee-admission criteria based on Cold War-era thinking are to blame for the sharp dip.

Arthur Dewey, undersecretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said that the program conceived in 1980 — when the primary sources of refugees came from Southeast Asia and the then-Soviet Union — now must concentrate on about 80 areas of conflict.

The U.S.S.R. dissolved on Jan. 1, 1992, yet that year was a high point for refugees during the decade — 142,000, with nearly half allotted to a Soviet republic that no longer existed. The ceiling and admissions dropped by roughly half during the eight years of the Clinton administration, then more sharply in the first two years of the Bush presidency.

The ceiling was 90,000 in fiscal 2000, then dropped 10,000 for each of the following two years, with the current ceiling at 50,000. Admissions were lower, particularly for 2002, when the ceiling was 70,000 and 26,000 were resettled, according to the State Department.