More Christian Refugees Arriving under Trump than Muslims

Under President Donald Trump, more Christian refugees have been admitted to the United States in the first six months of 2017 than Muslim refugees, a departure from the Obama-era.

Since Trump took office in January through June 30, nearly 9,600 refugees who are affiliated with the Christian faith have been resettled in the U.S., accounting for roughly 50 percent of all refugee resettlements, according to research by Pew.

Meanwhile, 7,250 Muslim refugees have been admitted in that same time period, or about 38 percent of all  admissions, breaking with former President Obama’s refugee resettlement norms where foreign Muslims were the largest religious group resettled in the country.

Beginning in February of this year, the share of Muslim refugees being admitted to the U.S. has increasingly gotten smaller, with the portion of Muslims dipping to just 29 percent of all refugee resettlements in May.

In 2005, 2006, and 2016, the number of Muslim refugees admitted to the U.S. far outweighed the number of Christians, with the vast majority coming from Somalia in the earlier years and from Syria last year.

In recent months, under Trump, the origin of refugees coming to the U.S. has changed, with Iran being the only Muslim-majority nation in the top six countries where refugees are mostly arriving from.

Trump’s travel ban that would halts all refugee resettlement from a slew of terrorist-stricken Muslim-majority countries was partially upheld until the U.S. Supreme Court fully rules on the measure, allowing refugee resettlement to be capped at 50,000 a year, with refugees who have “bona fide” family ties in the U.S. exempt from the cap, as Breitbart News reported.

Trump’s 50,000 cap on refugees is the first time ever that a cap on refugees set by a U.S. president has been exceeded, with previous higher refugee caps enacted by Obama being fully enforced and not surpassed.

While campaigning, Trump promised to halt all refugee resettlement, arguing that Americans’ safety should be at the forefront of the refugee resettlement issue. That position has been blasted by establishment Republicans and Democrats.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.