PRESIDENT TO RAISE CAP ON REFUGEES IN MAY
Amid outcry, Biden wavers on retaining Trump-era limit
Facing swift blowback from allies and aid groups, the White House on Friday said President Joe Biden plans to lift his predecessor’s historically low cap on refugees by next month, after initially moving only to expand the eligibility criteria for resettlements.
In an emergency determination signed by Biden earlier in the day, he stated the admission of up to 15,000 refugees set by former President Donald Trump this year “remains justified by humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national interest.” But if the cap is reached before the end of the current budget year and the emergency refugee situation persists, then a presidential determination may be issued to raise the ceiling.
That set off a deluge of criticism from top allies on Capitol Hill such as the second-ranking Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, who called that initial limit “unacceptable.”
“These refugees can wait years for their chance and go through extensive vetting. Thirty-five thousand are ready.
Facing the greatest refugee crisis in our time there is no reason to limit the number to 15,000,” Durbin said in a statement. “Say it ain’t so, President Joe.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said later that Biden is expected to increase the refugee cap by May 15, though she didn’t say by how much.
Biden has been consulting with his advisers to determine what number of refugees could realistically be admitted to the United States between now and Oct. 1, the end of the fiscal year, Psaki said. “Given the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited,” she said it’s now “unlikely” Biden will be able to boost that number to 62,500, as he had proposed in his plan to Congress two months ago.
But Biden, she said, was urged by advisers to “take immediate action to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from many key regions, to enable flights from those regions to begin within days; today’s order did that.”
The new allocations provide more slots for refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central America and lift Trump’s restrictions on resettlements from Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
Critics from both sides of the political spectrum had accused the president of bowing to political pressure that has been mounting over the record pace of unaccompanied migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Stephen Miller, a key architect of Trump’s immigration policies, tweeted that keeping Trump’s cap “reflects Team Biden’s awareness that the border flood will cause record midterm losses.”
The White House indicated the border situation was partly why Biden had not acted before now, even though migrants at the border do not go through the same vetting process as refugees. “It is a factor,” said Psaki, noting that the Office of Refugee Resettlement “has personnel working on both issues and so we have to ensure that there is capacity and ability to manage both.”
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he didn’t buy that.
“This cruel policy is no more acceptable now than it was during the Trump administration,” Blumenthal said. “To be clear: The asylum process at the southern border and the refugee process are completely separate immigration systems. Conflating the two constitutes caving to the politics of fear.”
Since the fiscal year began last Oct. 1, just over 2,000 refugees have been resettled in the United States.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified Congress on Feb. 12 of a plan to raise the ceiling on admissions to 62,500, but no presidential determination followed. The law does not require congressional approval, and past presidents have issued such presidential determinations that set the cap on refugee admissions shortly after the notification to Congress.
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Biden in a letter Friday that his inaction “undermines your declared purpose to reverse your predecessor’s refugee policies.”
Menendez said it also makes it unlikely that the program can hit its target next budget year of 125,000, which Biden has pledged to do.
Refugee resettlement agencies said it was important that admissions go higher even if it’s not possible to meet the target to send a message that America will be a leader again in offering safe haven to the world’s oppressed.
Some 35,000 refugees have been cleared to go to the United States, and 100,000 remain in the pipeline and their lives remain in limbo, said David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee.
“This leadership is sorely needed,” he said.
Under Biden’s new allocation, 7,000 slots are reserved for refugees from Africa, 1,000 from East Asia, 1,500 from Europe and Central Asia, 3,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean and 1,500 from the Near East and South Asia. A reserve of about 1,000 slots can be used as needed.
The State Department, which coordinates flights with resettlement agencies, booked 715 refugees to come to the United States with the anticipation that Biden would have acted by March, but those flights were canceled since the refugees were not eligible under Trump’s rules, according to resettlement agencies.
Most of the refugees are from Africa and fleeing armed conflict or political persecution. Trump limited most spots to people fleeing religious persecution, Iraqis who have assisted U.S. forces there, and people from Central America’s Northern Triangle.
Before Friday’s announcement, Menendez prepared a letter to Biden, urging him to lift Trump’s refugee cap expeditiously and warning that the delay had already had “serious repercussions.” Menendez called the 15,000 limit that Biden has retained for now “appallingly low.”
Menendez was joined by prominent liberal lawmakers. “There are simply no excuses for today’s disgraceful decision,” tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who lived in a refugee camp in Kenya as a child after her family fled civil war in Somalia.
“Completely and utterly unacceptable,” added Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, DWash., a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India, issued a blistering statement calling Biden’s move “unconscionable.”
The White House acknowledged that the turbulent situation on the border played a role its decisionmaking process, citing the demands it has placed on the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
White House officials said the pandemic and the challenge of rebuilding a system the previous administration shredded were also factors.
But representatives of resettlement agencies working with the government were not convinced by these explanations, pointing out that the refugee system is entirely distinct from the arrangement used to process would-be migrants at the border. Jenny Yang, vice president for advocacy and policy at World Relief, said the White House’s reasons amounted to a “completely faulty excuse.”
The U.S. refugee program is aimed at people displaced from their countries because of severe conditions such as genocide, civil war, and other political, religious or racial persecution. Admission is a multistep process that begins outside the United States. That is in contrast to the asylum program, which allows migrants to apply upon arriving at the border.
Refugees go through a vetting process that can take years. Once approved, they are often paired with organizations that work to arrange transport and resettlement in the United States. Until the Trump era, the United States regularly resettled tens of thousands of refugees annually.
Presidents have broad leeway in administering the program. While they must notify congressional leaders of their plans, they do not need their approval to set annual caps on how many refugees can come.
The United States has accepted more than 3 million refugees since 1980, according to the State Department.