The Biden administration formally announced Monday that it is quadrupling Trump’s refugee cap to 62,500 this year, after pushback from Democratic allies.
“Today, I am revising the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year,” President Biden said in a statement. “This erases the historically low number set by the previous administration of 15,000, which did not reflect America’s values as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees. The new admissions cap will also reinforce efforts that are already underway to expand the United States’ capacity to admit refugees, so that we can reach the goal of 125,000 refugee admissions that I intend to set for the coming fiscal year.”
“It is important to take this action today to remove any lingering doubt in the minds of refugees around the world who have suffered so much, and who are anxiously waiting for their new lives to begin,” Biden continued.
“The United States Refugee Admissions Program embodies America’s commitment to protect the most vulnerable, and to stand as a beacon of liberty and refuge to the world,” he added. “It’s a statement about who we are, and who we want to be. So we are going to rebuild what has been broken and push hard to complete the rigorous screening process for those refugees already in the pipeline for admission.”
Biden reversed himself just two weeks after he announced that America would keep the 15,000 person cap set by Donald Trump.
The new allocations for this year are:
- Africa: 22,000
- East Asia: 6,000
- Europe and Central Asia: 4,000
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 5,000
- Near East and South Asia: 13,000
- Unallocated Reserve: 12,500
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