President Biden plans to increase the admissions of refugees to 125K in the US

Listen to this article

The administration of President Joe Biden has prepared to inform US Congress and others that the US has planned to increase the admissions of refugees in the country. The White House officials and other sources linked to the matter informed that President Biden plans to announce a plan this week. The new plan will increase the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States to more than eight times the level at which the Trump administration left it. Point to be noted that former president Trump had drastically reduced the refugee admissions cap to only 15,000 before he left office. President Biden’s plan would raise that number to 125,000, an increase of 10,000 over the high ceiling set by former President Barack Obama before he left office.

The White House officials and other sources spoke ahead of the formal announcement. They said President Biden will make his plan public during a visit to the State Department on Thursday. He may also address asylum claims for residents of Hong Kong there, according to one official. Biden would not necessarily override the record low cap of 15,000 that Trump set for the current budget year. Instead, the 125,000 would be proposed for the budget year beginning on 1^st October. The president is required by law to first consult US Congress on his plans before making a determination. It is noteworthy that the backlog of tens of thousands of cases by the Trump administration had made it unlikely Biden’s target of resettling 125,000 refugees could be reached this year.

At least one-third of US resettlement offices were forced to close over the past 4 years with the drop in refugee arrivals and hundreds of workers were let go. Another issue that may be addressed Thursday is a review of vetting procedures. The former Trump administration had put in place extreme background checks that had brought the program to a standstill. The Trump administration also narrowed eligibility this year, restricting which refugees are selected for resettlement to certain categories, including people persecuted because of religion and Iraqis whose assistance to the US put them in danger. President Biden is expected to do away with those categories at some point and have the program return to using the long-standing referral system by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.