Biden walks back refugee cap after outrage
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday walked back an announcement that set this year’s refugee admissions level at 15,000, after widespread criticism from resettlement agencies and congressional Democrats over maintaining the historically low cap set by his predecessor.
Hours after the initial White House announcement, press secretary Jen Psaki released a statement saying, “we expect the president to set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15.”
That appeared to contradict the declaration Biden signed earlier, which suggested the administration would raise the number for the current fiscal year only if the 15,000 number had been reached and emergency refugee needs persisted.
Biden had promised in February to raise the admissions cap to 62,500 for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and the initial decision to maintain Trump-era levels sparked outrage from lawmakers and advocates.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, DWash., who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called the decision “unacceptable and unconscionable.”
“After four painful years of fighting Trump’s all-out draconian assault on immigrants, President Biden promised to restore America as a beacon of hope and committed to increasing our refugee resettlement numbers,” Jayapal said in a statement. “By failing to sign an emergency presidential determination to lift Trump’s historically low refugee cap, President Biden has broken his promise to restore our humanity.”
The administration initially said it would maintain the Trump-era numbers because it needed time to rebuild a dismantled refugee resettlement infrastructure.
“Our review of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program we inherited from the previous administration revealed it was even more decimated than we’d thought, requiring a major overhaul in order to build back toward the numbers to which we’ve committed,” a senior administration official said early Friday.
The presidential determination, while maintaining the Trump administration’s overall number, changes the formula for which countries can send refugees. It will restore regional allocations that President Donald Trump had slashed to limit refugee resettlement from some majority Muslim countries.
The U.S. has admitted only 42 refugees from Syria and none from Yemen so far this fiscal year, excluding refugees from nations experiencing some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The announcement also drew criticism from refugee advocates, who had counted on a friendlier policy toward refugees when Biden took office.
“I am outraged,” said Meredith Owens, director of policy and advocacy at Church World Service, a major resettlement agency. “There’s no moral reason to keep a historic low refugee admissions goal of 15,000 in place for the rest of this year, especially when we know that there are thousands of refugees who have already been approved.”