A White House aide close to senior policy adviser Stephen Miller “who has advocated strict limits on immigration into the U.S. has been selected for a top State Department post overseeing refugee admissions, according to current and former officials,” reports Nahal Toosi in Politico.

Andrew Veprek was appointed to be the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), a department official confirmed to The Hill, the Capitol Hill newspaper reported.

Current and former officials also describe Veprek’s appointment “as a blow to an already-embattled refugee bureau,” wrote Politico’s Toosi.

“My experience is that he strongly believes that fewer refugees should admitted into the United States and that international migration is something to be stopped, not managed,” former U.S. official told Politico, adding that Veprek’s views about refugees and migrants were impassioned to the point of seeming “vindictive.”

The U.S. Supreme Court recently “curbed the ability of immigrants held in long-term detention during deportation proceedings to argue for their release in a ruling in sync with President Donald Trump’s get-tough approach toward immigration,” Reuters reported.

In the 5-3 decision, the court’s majority “found that federal law says immigrants who face deportation ‘shall be detained’ while their cases are being considered,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “The court’s conservatives rejected the view of federal judges in California who said detained immigrants have a right to a bail hearing after six months in jail,” the LA Times reported.

The high court’s decision is available here.

The Washington Post profiles the town of Rutland, Vermont, “the resettlement hub that never was.”

Rutland was originally scheduled to host a group of 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, but then the Trump refugee ban came along, curtailing the amount of refugees that ultimately relocated to the town.

Ultimately, 14 refugees resettled in Rutland.

The story also details the tensions that have arisen tied to the resettlement of refugees in Rutland.

“Hosting refugees in Rutland had been a contentious idea from the start, tearing open the political tensions of this close-knit city at a time of bitter national debate over race, religion and immigration,” writes Washington Post reporter Abigail Hauslohner.

The Trump administration’s travel ban on refugees entering the U.S. includes “people with potentially deadly — yet treatable — illnesses,” reports Kevin Sieff in the Washington Post (Dec. 26, 2017).

“Some refugees with severe medical conditions have already died while waiting for the admissions to resume, advocates say,” writes Sieff.

The article profiles several refugees who are being directly affected by the U.S. refugee policy.

In a Dec. 28 article, Sieff details his visits to a refugee camp in Kenya.

A research paper published in Science magazine “suggests that weather shocks are spurring people to seek asylum in the European Union,” the New York Times reports.

“The researchers found that over a 15-year period, asylum applications in Europe increased along with ‘hotter-than-normal temperatures’ in the countries where the asylum seekers had come from,” writes Somini Sengupta.

Sengupta notes that under international law, only those who have fled their countries because of war or persecution are entitled to refugee status. “People forced to leave home because of climate change, or who leave because climate change has made it harder for them to make a living, don’t qualify,” she writes.

But refugee advocates “fear that if the 1951 refugee treaty were opened for renegotiation, politicians in various countries would try to weaken the protections that exist now.”

The research paper is available here.

Comparing migrants to Mary and Joseph, Pope Francis urged Roman Catholics to remember the plight of millions of migrants “driven from their land,” during Christmas Eve Mass.

“So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary. We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away, but driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones,” Francis said.

Pope Francis in August released “a 20-point action plan to governments on refugees and migrants to try to galvanize their response to an issue seen by the Vatican as one of the biggest global challenges of the 21st century” (the Guardian, Aug. 21, 2017).

In 2016, Francis created the Vatican’s migrants and refugees section. The section’s website notes that it “helps the Church worldwide to support those who are forcibly displaced by conflict, natural disaster, persecution or extreme poverty; those who are making their difficult way to safety or are stuck; and those who fall victim to human trafficking.”

Australia has accepted the first group of refugees from Central America under a prior agreement made with the Obama Administration.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/first-30-central-american-refugees-arrive-in-australia-after-fleeing-gang-violence-20171216-h05s4p.html

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has agreed to honor a prior agreement reached between President Obama and Australia to accept into the U.S. refugees who were refused entry into Australia, with a key modification ….those accepted will not include refugees from the list of countries included under Trump’s travel ban.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/15/second-cohort-of-nauru-and-manus-refugees-to-be-resettled-in-us

The New York Times examines the plight of refugees who remain on Manus Island.

Here is a recent sampling of articles detailing how states and local communities are helping refugees settle in the U.S.

“Local organizations are fighting for refugees” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Nov. 7, 2017)

“Building new lives: Syrian refugees find support, friendship from churches” (Baltimore Sun, Nov. 7, 2017)

“Refugee and now U.S. citizen, interpreter helping resettle Somalis” (Joplin, Ill., Globe, Nov. 4, 2017)

The Trump administration has given 2,500 Nicaraguans with provisional residency 14 months to leave the United States, announcing this week “that it will not renew the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation that has allowed them to remain in the country for nearly two decades,” reports the Washington Post.

At the same time, the White House “deferred a decision for the much larger group of 57,000 Hondurans who have been living in the United States with the same designation, saying the Department of Homeland Security needed more time to consider their fate,” writes the Post’s Nick Miroff.

“The Trump Administration’s cruel decision affecting deeply-rooted Nicaraguans in the U.S. is part of its effort to roll back TPS in order to advance its mass deportation strategy,” said Frank Sherry, Executive Director of America’s Voice Education Fund, in a statement after the announcement.