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Executive Summary for June 22nd

We review the latest issues related to refugees, including the White House being accused of pushing skewed data to back refugee cuts, Tibetans born to refugees in India winning passport rights and Venezuelan exodus reaching new heights.

Published on June 22, 2017 Read time Approx. 3 minutes

White House Orders ‘Skewed’ Data to Back Cuts to Refugee Programs

The White House is accused of using “skewed” analysis to recommend restrictions on refugee flows. Studies detailing the costs of refugee programs have not been balanced with data on the benefits, sources told Reuters.

Serving officials said President Donald Trump’s team ordered research on the costs and dismissed equivalent data on the benefits of refugees, including tax revenues, professional skills and job creation.

The alleged row pits Trump adviser Stephen Miller against career civil servants from the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), Reuters reported.

One current and one former government official said skewed data was being used to bolster cuts to refugee programs: “It’s a policy outcome in search of a rationale,” said a former U.S. official familiar with the debate. A White House spokesman has denied the accusation: “The idea that we are ordering biased reports is false.”

However, White House budget proposals contain deep cuts to refugee-related programs and aim to cut in half the numbers the U.S. receives.

The Trump administration has so far been blocked in its efforts to suspend refugee resettlement by executive order. Miller was the architect of the orders, which have been repeatedly rejected by U.S. judges and will likely be heard by the Supreme Court later this year.

Tibetans Born in India Before 1987 Win Right to Passport

Tibetans born to refugee parents in India have had their right to a passport upheld by the courts. Tibetans who fled after a failed uprising against the Chinese in 1959 have not had citizenship rights in India.

But the Delhi High Court said authorities must abide by an earlier ruling that all Tibetans born in India between January 1950 and July 1987 can have passports and are Indian citizens by birth, reported Reuters.

Some 100,000 Tibetans, many of whom followed the Dalai Lama to Dharamsala more than half a century ago, live in settlements in the Himalayas. They have schools and limited voting rights but no citizenship or property rights. Their precarious position means that some undocumented refugees face arrest and deportation to China.

“The status of statelessness is demoralizing and frustrating. There’s a lot of emotional turmoil,” Tenzin Tselha, a student whose father served in the Indian army, told Reuters.

“Sometimes I eat rice and daal (lentils) more than thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup), but I never feel Indian; I am Tibetan. It drains my energy, this struggle to always prove who I am and where I am from,” she said.

Tenth of Venezuela’s Population Has Left the Country

One in ten Venezuelans now lives outside the country, according to the AP, with nearly 1 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, the largest population outside the country.

Since the political and economic crisis worsened, many wealthier Venezuelans have moved to the U.S. or Europe. Some 18,155 Venezuelans applied for asylum in the U.S. last year alone.

But the poorer citizens of the oil-rich country have crossed into Colombia, many of them illegally. Concerns in Colombia saw the government send officials to Turkey to learn more about refugee camps.

“Since about a year and a half ago, it has been a constant flow,” said Daniel Pages, president of the Venezuelans in Colombia Association. “They need to leave in order to live.”

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