State Department Already Has Religious Tests for Refugees
8th December 2015
We are confidently told that religious tests have never been used in determining who gets into America and therefore America must take in any Muslim not currently wearing a suicide bomb vest. Or something.
But a reader points out the U.S. State Department’s Religious Minorities refugee program under the Lautenberg Amendment.
Of course, that’s to favor rather than disfavor certain religious minorities. But the principle is still the same.
Since 1989, the U.S. has admitted more than 440,000 refugees processed according to standards of the Lautenberg Amendment, which applies to members of specified religious minorities (Jews, Evangelicals, and certain members of the Ukrainian Catholic or Ukrainian Orthodox Churches) from the countries of the former Soviet Union. In FY 2012, the U.S. admitted 1,129 refugees from 11 countries in Europe and Central Asia, including those under the Lautenberg Amendment in-country processing program.