USCIS Plan to Re-interview Resettled Refugees is Vindictive, Harmful, Wasteful 

Statement from Refugees International:

“The USCIS plan to reinterview resettled refugees is a vindictive, harmful, and wasteful attack on people throughout U.S. communities who have fled persecution and cleared some of the most rigorous security checks in the world. The decision retraumatizes families, undermines faith in the legal immigration system, disrupts integration, and misuses taxpayer dollars to scrutinize valuable new members of American communities. This is part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented delegalization of people who arrived on humanitarian pathways and erodes the U.S. as a nation of refuge. 

Reassessing people already approved for resettlement sends the message that no immigrant status is ever secure. It will also paralyze an already overburdened USCIS, diverting officers from genuine security tasks and deepening backlogs for families and employers across the system and country. Treating an entire cohort of mostly non-white refugees as presumably suspect – while simultaneously slashing the refugee ceiling to historic low and prioritizing white South Africans – erodes the principle of equal treatment. This is at odds with U.S. refugee law and what the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program was designed to be – a pathway to permanent status for refugees based on humanitarian need without regard to politics or national origins.  

No one should live in fear of loss of status, detention, or deportation because they arrived during a previous administration. Refugees international calls on the Trump administration to immediately rescind the USCIS memo, on Congress to exercise urgent oversight, and on state and local leaders to stand with resettled refugees in their communities.” 

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Sarah Sheffer at ssheffer@refugeesinternational.org