Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, has filed a FOIA lawsuit with the State Department on June 18 for records on where the Obama administration resettled refugees in 2015 and 2016, leading up to the presidential election.
The lawsuit follows a similar FOIA request filed by Judicial Watch on Feb. 23, 2017, which the State Department allegedly did not respond to. The previous request asked for records on locations where refugees were resettled in 2015 and 2016, records on the criteria used to determine the locations, and records showing names of organizations that promoted the locations.
The report notes that altogether the United States resettled 85,000 refugees in 2016, which in addition to the Syrian refugees included 16,370 from Congo, 12,347 from Burma, 9,880 from Iraq, and 9,020 from Somalia. This was an increase from the close to 70,000 admitted in 2015.
President Donald Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program through his Executive Order 13769 on Jan. 27, 2017. According to Judicial Watch, 29,022 were admitted into the United States in 2017, which was the lowest number since 2002.
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