Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
How many Muslim refugees were admitted to the US from 2009 to 2017?
Executive Summary
The existing sources do not provide a single, authoritative count of how many Muslim refugees were admitted to the United States specifically from 2009 through 2017; available datasets give totals for broader spans or individual fiscal years but stop short of the requested contiguous 2009–2017 sum. Pew Research reports that the United States admitted “slightly more than 302,000” Muslim refugees between fiscal 2002 and fiscal 2017, while multiple policy and media analyses report year-by-year Muslim admit totals for 2016 (roughly 38,900) and 2017 (roughly 22,600) but lack a complete 2009–2015 breakdown in the provided materials [1] [2] [3]. Because no single source among those reviewed aggregates 2009–2017 Muslim refugee admissions, any precise total for that interval requires compilation from primary fiscal-year refugee data by religion or origin that are not supplied in the analyzed excerpts [1] [4] [3].
1. Why the precise 2009–2017 Muslim-refugee total is missing — a data gap that matters
The reviewed materials demonstrate that public reporting of refugee admissions often appears in different aggregates—by fiscal year, by region, or across long multi-year periods—without consistently disclosing religion-based totals for every year. Pew’s headline figure of about 302,000 Muslim refugees from FY2002–FY2017 gives a long-span benchmark but does not isolate the 2009–2017 window; policy analyses cite high points such as ≈39,000 Muslim arrivals in FY2016 and lower counts in later years but either do not report 2009–2015 or do so only in percentages [1] [2] [3]. This inconsistency reflects that government refugee admission reports prioritize nationality and region, while some researchers and media attempt religious tallies by mapping country of origin to predominant religion; that method produces approximate Muslim counts but is not uniformly published year to year [1] [4].
2. What firm numbers we do have for key years and longer spans
Available figures in the reviewed sources converge on a few concrete points: FY2016 saw roughly 38,900 Muslim refugee admissions, making up a significant share of that year’s total refugee intake, and FY2017 saw roughly 22,600–22,900 Muslim arrivals, reflecting a sharp drop from the prior year [2] [3]. Pew’s summary covering FY2002–FY2017 places cumulative Muslim-refugee admissions at slightly more than 302,000, which sets an upper-bound benchmark for any multi-year aggregation that includes earlier post‑9/11 years [1]. Migration Policy Institute and other analyses document the post‑2016 decline in Muslim refugee admissions that accelerated under subsequent policy shifts, underscoring that year-to-year totals vary widely and that FY2016 was near the peak within the recent era [1].
3. How researchers derive “Muslim” counts and the methodological limits
Researchers and media typically estimate Muslim refugee counts by mapping refugees’ countries of origin to majority-religion profiles or by using data releases that explicitly report religion—approaches with distinct caveats. Mapping by country risks misclassification for refugees from religiously mixed countries or for non-Muslim minorities fleeing Muslim-majority states; explicit religion coding is not consistently available in public refugee datasets and is sometimes reconstructed by secondary analysts [1] [3]. Consequently, estimates such as the Pew 2002–2017 total and the FY‑specific counts for 2016 and 2017 are useful signposts but must be treated as approximations contingent on method, not as a single official authoritative tally for 2009–2017 [1] [2].
4. Contrasting viewpoints and potential agendas in the sources
The sources reflect different perspectives and potential institutional frames: Pew Research offers a broad demographic summary without policy advocacy and reports a long-range total [1]; Migration Policy Institute focuses on policy trends and documented an 87% decline in Muslim refugee arrivals from FY2016 to FY2019 [1]; think tanks and commentaries cited in the analyses sometimes emphasize percentage shifts tied to policy choices, which can be used to support competing narratives about refugee policy effectiveness or security concerns [5] [3]. These contrasting emphases explain why some accounts highlight peak-year Muslim admissions as a policy success and others emphasize subsequent declines as evidence of restrictive policy impacts—both narratives rest on overlapping year-level figures but diverge in selection and interpretation [1] [5].
5. Bottom line and what’s needed to produce a definitive 2009–2017 number
To produce a definitive count for Muslim refugees admitted from 2009–2017 requires compiling fiscal-year refugee admission files and either using religion-coded records where available or transparently applying country-of-origin mapping for each year between 2009 and 2017; none of the reviewed excerpts provides that compiled series [1] [2]. The clearest near-term route is to extract annual refugee admissions by nationality from U.S. State/Refugee Processing Center data, apply a reproducible mapping to majority-Muslim status or use direct religion variables if present, and sum FY2009–FY2017; until that aggregation is produced, the most defensible public statements are the available anchors: ≈38,900 Muslim refugees in FY2016, ≈22,600 in FY2017, and about 302,000 across FY2002–FY2017 [2] [3] [1].