Biden raises refugee cap amid pressure

President Joe Biden’s administration plans to reshape the entire immigration system through comprehensive reform. Initially, President Biden and his team have focused on removing restrictions or strict policies implemented by the previous administration on the immigration sector to pave the way and be able to restructure and modify most existing immigration processes.

The Biden administration’s strategy also includes humanitarian programs available to the most vulnerable immigrant communities such as asylum seekers and refugees. In fact, speaking specifically about the refugee process, President Biden recently raised the annual refugee limit to 62,500 for Fiscal Year 2021 (October-September).

To understand the issue at hand, it is important to explain two things:

• The country’s administration must set an annual refugee cap for each fiscal year. If there is a change of administrations, as is the case for fiscal year 2021, the new administration has the power to modify the refugee limit if it considers it prudent and necessary.
• The Trump administration (2017-2021) set the lowest refugee limit in recent history, 15,000 refugees for fiscal year 2021.

Other than that, it is also worth mentioning that the Biden administration had stated that it would keep Trump’s refugee cap for the remainder of the fiscal year, but promptly backtracked on this statement after receiving countless criticism from activists and immigrant rights advocates, who urged the president to fulfill his promise regarding the refugee limit.

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Refugees admitted to the US will not reach the new limit

Despite President Biden raising the refugee limit, it is quite possible that the number of refugees entering the US during the remainder of fiscal year 2021 will not even exceed the limit set by Trump.

This is mainly because:

• The global Coronavirus pandemic affected immigration case processing, including refugee applications, during the first half of fiscal year 2021, and, therefore, the US has only received a couple thousand refugees so far this fiscal year.
• Certain restrictive policies implemented by former president Trump and the health crisis increased the backlog of pending immigration cases, also affecting refugee case processing.

Adding to that, several activists state that President Biden did not act in time during his first 100 days in office to expedite immigration application processing and increase the refugee limit, further delaying the US’ ability to receive more refugees in the remainder of fiscal year 2021.

In fact, according to activists’ estimate, the country will admit between 10,000 and 15,000 refugees, which means that it may not even exceed Trump’s limit.

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