President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he is raising the refugee ceiling significantly for this fiscal year, to a total of 62,500 refugees. The administration previously said that the president would keep the Trump-era cap on refugees, at 15,000, but received blowback from the far-left. A number of congressional Democrats pushed Biden to expand the cap.
“Today, I am revising the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year. 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," Biden said in a statement released Monday. "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." He added that "we will not achieve 62,500 admissions this year."
In response to congressional Democrats' calls to do so, President Biden announces he's increasing the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for the current fiscal year. pic.twitter.com/rq0QPpqTY6
— Zach C. Cohen (@Zachary_Cohen) May 3, 2021
Important detail from Biden's statement: "The sad truth is that we will not achieve 62,500 admissions this year. We are working quickly to undo the damage of the last four years. It will take some time, but that work is already underway."
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) May 3, 2021
As of March 31, only 2,050 refugees had been admitted thus far during this fiscal year.