Trump vs. Obama Refugee Ban: 9 Things You Need to Know

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Monday, January 30, 2017

5. Under Trump's order, only 18,000 more refugees can be resettled in 2017.

People gather to protest against the United States' acceptance of Syrian refugees at the Washington State capitol in Olympia, Washington, November 20, 2015. | (Photo: Reuters/David Ryder)

Another element to Trump's executive order is the fact that it caps the number of refugees that can be resettled into the U.S. in fiscal year 2017 to just 50,000.

This comes after the Obama administration had resettled about 85,000 refugees in fiscal year 2016, and had set a goal of resettling 110,000 in fiscal year 2017.

As Soerens points out, fiscal year 2017 began last October and the Obama administration had already resettled around 32,000 refugees in the early part of fiscal year 2017.

"That means there are only 18,000 refugees left in the rest of this fiscal year," Soerens said, adding that 50,000 is only the maximum number of refugees that the U.S. could resettle in 2017.

"Just because there is a ceiling doesn't mean there will be 50,000 refugees let in this year," he added. "It is entirely possible that after this moratorium the president may think that it is not safe to continue refugee resettlement and it will just be blocked indefinitely."

Soerens explained that even if the Trump administration resettled exclusively Christian refugees as the remaining 18,000 for fiscal year 2017, that would mean that the U.S. resettled 5,000 fewer Christian refugees in fiscal year 2017 than it did in fiscal year 2016.

"This executive order is definitively not helpful for persecuted Christians," Soerens asserted. "It is going to help fewer persecuted Christians than the status quo before the order."