President Trump has ended America’s “participation in the Global Compact on Migration” in keeping with his “America First” promise. The UN deal that the US entered under the Obama Administration declares among other things that participating nations will promote “the inclusion of migrants in host societies, access to basic services for migrants and gender-responsive services,” “access to sexual and reproductive health-care services,” and the acceleration of “refugee admission procedures to the extent possible…”
But the Trump Administration has decided that immigration policy is not something that can be uniform among all nations, and the American people should have a say in the immigration policy of their homeland. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley summed up the decision in saying that “No country has done more than the United States and our generosity will continue,” however “our decisions on immigration policy must always be made by Americans and Americans alone.” Haley said, “The global approach in the New York Declaration is simply not compatible with US sovereignty.”
As the world faced a record-breaking immigration crisis in which 21.3 million people became displaced, many believed the Obama Administration incentivized illegal immigration by adding the US to the compact at a time of global insecurity. In response, America elected a president whose most popular campaign promise was to end illegal immigration and secure the country’s borders from known criminals and terrorists.
According to CNS News, refugee admissions to the United States were down 83 percent in the first two months of the fiscal year2018 compared to the first two months of fiscal year 2017. Trump has proposed a refugee admission ceiling of 45,000 for FY 2018, compared to Obama’s 84,994. Trump has also spared the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the Paris climate agreement, and UNESCO, the UN’s culture and education agency.