Trump administration moves to reinterview refugees admitted to U.S. under Biden

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Nov. 18. (Win McNamee/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

The Trump administration is moving to reinterview certain refugees who were admitted to the United States under former U.S. President Joe Biden as part of a comprehensive review of their cases, according to an internal memo and a source familiar with the plans.

The effort marks an unprecedented step in U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — this time, targeting one of the world’s most vulnerable populations. Refugees must show that they were persecuted or face persecution in their home countries and undergo rigorous vetting prior to entering the United States in what is generally a yearslong process.

Trump officials have scrutinized the admissions program, which has historically had bipartisan support, and argued that the previous administration didn’t sufficiently vet the people who entered the US. Trump has largely halted refugee admissions, with the narrow exception of White South Africans.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is expected to be charged with the review and reinterview process, according to the memo, dated November 21, citing an operational necessity to ensure refugees don’t pose a national security or public safety threat. Between fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2025, around 235,000 refugees entered the U.S. after going through the admissions process.

CNN reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and the White House for comment. The State Department referred CNN to DHS.

For years, the U.S. outpaced other countries in refugee admissions, allowing millions into the country since the Refugee Act of 1980. But the program took a hit during Trump’s first term when he slashed the number of refugees allowed to come to the US, and during the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in a temporary suspension of resettlements. Biden tried to rebuild the program and eventually set an annual ceiling of 125,000 admissions.

“Just the threat of this is unspeakably cruel. … To threaten refugees with taking away their status would be re-traumatizing and a vicious misuse of taxpayer money,” said Mark Hetfield, the president of HIAS, a refugee resettlement organization, in a statement to CNN.

The president of Refugees International, Jeremy Konyndyk, echoed this, noting that “refugees who enter the U.S. through the refugee admissions program are the most vetted and scrutinized of any migrants.”

“They pass intensive reviews of their refugee status, background checks, and security screenings. The Trump administration knows this full well,” he said in a statement to CNN.

“At a time when the Trump administration is trying to resettle White South Africans,” who he said don’t meet the criteria as refugees, “it’s very hard to see this as anything other than a pretext to revoke protections from those who actually need them.”

The anticipated interviews are intended to ensure that refugees met the criteria for admission when they were allowed in the country. The agency has the authority to terminate refugee status, according to the administration memo, with no option to appeal the decision.

The memo also orders a hold on pending applications for refugees to adjust their status in the U.S. until the USCIS director determines otherwise. A year after refugees are admitted to the country, they are required under U.S. law to apply for permanent status.

In remarks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau argued that the current international asylum system and frameworks, including the Refugee Convention, are outdated and have been abused, making “mass illegal migration legal.”

“The asylum system has become a huge loophole in our migration laws, and we just have to be realistic about this,” Landau said at the US-led event, titled “Global Refugee Asylum System: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It.”

By Priscilla Alvarez, Jennifer Hansler, CNN