Suhad Munshid left Iraq and resettled in Missoula, Montana, in April — nearly seven years after she applied for a priority refugee visa. The "semi-impossible" application process will probably keep her sister in Iraq from receiving priority status, she said in an interview on Friday.

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"I have my only sister living in Baghdad," she said. "It's really concerning with what is going on, and I have to call her every day to make sure she is OK."

Munshid's brother-in-law worked as a cook for US troops in Iraq in 2006, and her family's home was used as a safe house for soldiers who needed to rest during patrols in Sadr City, a poor neighbourhood in Baghdad. But only after the United States declared in 2011 that the war was over and withdrew most of its troops did Munshid come to believe that she and her family needed to move to the US to escape rampant bombings and increasing instability.

"Every time that I went out, I was not certain that I would make it back home," said Munshid, 36, speaking through an interpreter. She now works at a T.J. Maxx clothing and department store in Missoula, stocking shelves; her husband is a chef at a local Indian restaurant.

In an official notice issued late Friday, President Donald Trump capped the number of worldwide refugees the United States will admit in the 2020 fiscal year at 18,000, a record low.

Of the 18,000 refugees who will be admitted this year, 5000 slots are reserved for people persecuted for their religion, 4000 for high-priority Iraqis and 1500 for Central Americans. The remaining 7500 slots will be open to those applying from elsewhere in the world.

Interviews for applicants — a necessary step in the refugee process — have been slowed and significantly limited since the US Embassy in Baghdad and Consulate in Irbil, Iraq, ordered all nonessential employees out of Iraq for security reasons in May, officials said.

As a result, very few of the estimated 110,000 Iraqis who appear to be eligible for the refugee program have been interviewed.

A State Department spokeswoman said fewer high-priority Iraqi refugees had been admitted to the United States in part because of tougher background checks ordered by Trump last year.

Since the 2008 fiscal year, the United States has accepted 47,331 Iraqi refugees. Of those, 3249 were accepted during the first three years of the Trump administration, the government data show.

Initially, the Pentagon had requested that 6000 slots be given to high-priority Iraqi refugees for the 2020 fiscal year. But others in the Trump administration, wary of a continued threat from the Islamic State, fought to lower the number of Iraqis, viewing them as a security risk.

The New York Times