Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs To Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration

The order revokes Executive Orders 13815 and 13888 and a March 2017 presidential memo that had imposed restrictions on refugee admissions and required state and local governments to affirmatively consent before refugees could be resettled in their jurisdictions. It declares federal policy in favor of rebuilding and expanding USRAP, and directs the Departments of State and Homeland Security to take a series of concrete steps: designate senior officials to oversee refugee processing and vetting reform, assign a U.S. Digital Service team to streamline applications, improve fraud detection, expand biometric collection and video-interview capacity, increase hiring authority for adjudicators, publish program policies online, and submit multiple reports and plans on fraud, processing backlogs, SIV program integrity, community sponsorship, and applicant access to case files.

The order also directs a comprehensive review of the Iraqi and Afghan SIV programs, including eligibility procedures, processing delays, Chief of Mission approval practices, and whether additional nationalities should be covered. A separate section requires the National Security Advisor to produce a report within 180 days on climate change and migration, covering international security implications, protection options for climate-displaced people, and potential use of foreign assistance. The order does not itself set a refugee admissions ceiling, change any statute, or immediately alter the rights of individual applicants.

Refugees and asylum-seekers applying to USRAP, Iraqi and Afghan nationals in the SIV pipeline, resettlement agencies and private sponsors, state and local governments that previously held a formal consent role under EO 13888, and the federal agencies — primarily State, DHS, HHS, and DOD — directed to redesign and staff up these programs.

State and local governments immediately lose the formal veto over refugee placement they held under EO 13888. Refugees and SIV applicants may eventually see faster processing, better interview access, and new transparency rights — but those changes depend on agency action plans and future rulemaking the order sets in motion.

The APNSA serves as overall coordinator, designating an NSC Senior Director to align all agencies and vetting partners. State and DHS each name senior officials for their respective lanes, and OMB embeds a U.S. Digital Service team for process and technology work. The National Vetting Governance Board plays a central coordinating role for security vetting reform. Most operative steps are report-and-plan sequences: agencies study, submit recommendations, and then take action — meaning actual procedural changes generally require a further agency decision after each report is delivered. The order is explicitly subject to available appropriations and does not create judicially enforceable rights.