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WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden will seek to increase annual refugee admissions to 125,000 in the next fiscal year, he said Thursday, an increase of more than eight times after former President Donald Trump lowered the levels to record lows. .
Speaking at the US State Department, Biden also said he would pass an executive order on Thursday to build the country’s capacity to accept refugees in the face of an “unprecedented global need.”
Biden has vowed to restore America’s historic role as a country that welcomes refugees from around the world after four years of cuts in admissions under former President Donald Trump. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are 1.4 million refugees around the world in urgent need of resettlement.
During his presidency, Trump described refugees as a security threat and a burden to American communities as he took a series of measures to restrict legal immigration. Biden faces a refugee program hampered by Trump’s policies, which led to the closure of resettlement offices and disrupted the flow of refugees to the United States, a situation exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden said the goal of 125,000 refugee admissions, up from 15,000 this year under Trump, would be for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2021.
“It’s going to take time to rebuild what has been so damaged,” Biden said. “But that is precisely what we are going to do.”
In an executive order, Biden is expected to ask US agencies to take steps to speed up the processing of refugees and highlight the role of climate change in the displacement of people around the world, according to two people familiar with the planning.
Biden is also expected to rescind a 2019 Trump order that required states and localities to consent to receiving refugees, they said. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Steve Holland and Ted Hesson in Washington; Edited by Franklin Paul and Aurora Ellis)
