WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Friday signed a presidential determination that sets this year’s refugee admissions level at 15,000 refugees, maintaining a historically low level set by his predecessor but altering Trump-era regional allocations.
Biden had promised in February to raise the admissions cap to 62,500 for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
“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.
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 only admitted 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.
“This new Emergency Presidential Determination is needed to offer protection to vulnerable refugees who could not access the Program under the previous one,” the administration official said.
The announcement drew immediate criticism from advocates. While offering praise for the new regional allocations, they slammed the Biden administration for walking back its earlier promise.
“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.”
Advocates also questioned the Biden administration’s insistence that the refugee resettlement infrastructure needs to be overhauled before more refugees can be admitted.
“It’s kind of backwards, because the way that you build back a program is to actually build it back, not to ignore it,” said Melanie Nezer, senior vice president for public affairs at HIAS, another major resettlement agency.
Initial news of the continued Trump-era refugee levels received a chilly reception in Congress. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who fled Somalia as a refugee during her childhood, called the announcement “shameful” in a tweet where she criticized Biden for “reneging on a key promise to welcome refugees.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., 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.”
Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., who leads the Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over immigration issues, also criticized the announcement.
“This Biden Administration refugee admissions target is unacceptable,” he said in a statement. “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. Say it ain’t so, President Joe.”
The new presidential determination comes after a delay of several weeks that mystified lawmakers and advocates alike. On Friday, several dozen House Democrats, led by Omar, Jayapal and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., demanded that Biden alter what they called an “unacceptably draconian and discriminatory” refugee policy.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi had also criticized the low numbers.
“We have a moral responsibility in the world, as every other country does too, to receive refugees who have a well-founded fear of persecution or harm to return to their own country,” she said Thursday at her weekly news conference.
Advocates expressed frustration the administration waited two months to change regional allocations they say would have made refugee resettlement easier, even with the low overall number.
“It could have been made months ago, and more people could have been let in,” Nezer said.
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(Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.)
