Joe Biden’s election as president was initially met with relief among many activists and advocates for refugees and asylum seekers. In contrast to Trump’s harshly anti-refugee stance, Biden repeatedly promised during his campaign to raise the refugee resettlement cap, remove the bans on refugees from Muslim countries, and reform America’s broken and unwieldy asylum and resettlement vetting bureaucracy. Biden himself was a co-sponsor of the Refugee Act of 1980, which institutionalized the modern U.S. resettlement system. Just days after assuming office, Biden signaled a commitment to the 125,000 resettlement cap for Fiscal Year 2022, which starts in October 2021, and increasing resettlement to 62,500 for the current fiscal year ending September 30th.
Yet on April 16, the administration announced that it would keep in place the historically low resettlement cap of 15,000 for the current fiscal year. No clear explanation was initially given. Press Secretary Jen Psaki later cited the decimated refugee resettlement infrastructure and capacity concerns, despite the fact that approximately 35,000 refugees have already been cleared for resettlement. The administration’s announcement was met with immediate backlash by refugee advocates and many elected officials, prompting a press release stating that a final resettlement cap would be set by May 15.
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