By the fall, when the administration presented its final number to Congress, the refugee cap was forty-five thousand, the lowest in the history of the program and below the explicit recommendations made by the State Department, the military, and the vice president’s office. Yet the number itself mattered less than the warped new process that had generated it. By the end of Trump’s term in office, the cap would drop several more times, to fifteen thousand refugees—so low that refugee resettlement agencies had to lay off much of their staff. Miller was perfecting a strategy that would define his
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