President Biden recently announced how he intended on raising the current refugee cap from 15,000 to a mega 65,000.
The news comes as the president faced backlash from several members of his own Democratic party who called him out for following in the footsteps of the Trump era. In the same way, the president also confirmed how he plans on setting the goal to 125,000 refugees, with promises to reach the goal towards the end of the following fiscal year.
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But for now, he intends to leave it at 62,500 but that comes with an announcement made by Biden, where he confirmed the ‘sad truth’ of how the nation wouldn’t be meeting the cap for this particular year.
Just last month, the president was slammed when he made attempts to justify his 15,000 refugee figure.
Previously, the Biden administration had made attempts to raise the cap because there was stark criticism coming from all directions, including the Democrat party members themselves. For instance, Representative AOC accused Biden of taking inspiration from Trump’s xenophobic as well as racist policies.
Even with this higher figure, the refugees that will actually be cleared for entry into President Biden’s first fiscal year would just be a tiny fraction of where the cap stands, in comparison to when the Refugee Admissions Program starts during the much talked about Carter administration.
In the year 2019, former US President Donald Trump made heads turn when he slashed the refugee. He made it come down all the way to 18,000. In the 1990s, the number had reached a staggering 150,000. During President Barrack Obama’s reign, the cap stayed relatively flat at about 85,000.
But when Trump entered the picture, he cut it down to 50,000, right after taking oath into the office of the president.
Biden announced the news in a press statement released on Monday by the White House where he boldly mentioned, “This erases the historically low number set up by the previous administration of 15,000. It certainly did not reflect the values of the country that both welcomes as well as supports refugees.