News > Immigration In The United States
Action Alert: Tell President Biden to Act Now to Admit Refugees
Posted on Apr 12 2021
President Biden promised to immediately increase the number of refugees allowed to resettle into the United States. He has not yet done that. Midway through the 2021 fiscal year, only 2,050 refugees have been admitted to the United States, a new historical low. The International Rescue Committee reports:
“While the Biden administration has taken important steps to rebuild the USRAP – issuing the President’s February Executive Order 14013, submitting a revised proposed Emergency Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for FY21, and conducting the required consultations with Congress – there has now been an unexplained and unjustified eight-week delay in issuing the revised refugee admissions policy. This delay means that highly restrictive and discriminatory Trump era policies remain firmly in place. As a result, tens of thousands of already-cleared refugees remain barred from resettlement and over 700 resettlement flights have been cancelled, leaving vulnerable refugees in uncertain limbo.”
Call President Biden at the White House comment line: 202-456-1111. Urge him to act NOW to protect and welcome refugees.
Suggested message: Please act today to sign the updated presidential determination for FY 2021, which would increase the refugee ceiling to 62,500. Your signature is needed to allow refugees, who have in many cases already been waiting for years or even decades, to finally find protection in the U.S.
Without your signature, these refugees risk losing everything as scheduled flights to bring them here are being cancelled. This delay is directly impacting the lives and safety of refugees around the world. Please act immediately to protect and save lives.
For more information:
Mary Elizabeth Margolis, the Acting Managing Director of Voice for Refuge Action Fund, writes in The Hill:
“To his credit, after inauguration President Biden quickly signaled his intent to follow through on his commitment to support refugee resettlement. Through executive action, he rescinded the previous administration’s wrongful refugee bans and laid the foundation to strengthen refugee protections and increase refugee admissions. President Biden also announced his plan to increase the refugee admissions goal, known as the presidential determination, for the remainder of this fiscal year to 62,500 — from the historic low of 15,000 — and then to 125,000 for Fiscal Year 2022. This change would also end the Trump-era guidelines harmfully restricting which refugees could be resettled, which had made even meeting the tiny existing goal nearly impossible. ….
“It has been almost two months since his announcement and more than one month since the consultations, and President Biden has still not signed on the dotted line to allow more refugees to travel.
“Seven hundred flights have been canceled, and there is now an indefinite suspension on booking travel for refugees who are not in the restrictive categories. Each week that passes, security checks that are required for travel expire. Families who have been waiting years for loved ones to finally arrive are being dealt another blow to their hopes, and potentially significant delays to their cases.”
Marcia Brown explains in American Prospect:
“Unlike asylum, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), established in 1980, requires refugees to go through years of screening and background checks. The president determines the refugee cap and admissions goals each year. Trump’s presidential determination specified eligibility by category rather than by region, which is more typical. Only refugees who faced religious persecution, Iraqis who aided the U.S. military, and embassy-referred refugees were eligible for resettlement. This left out thousands of refugees who were already processed….
“With the new cap proposed in February, all that remains for a new presidential determination is the president’s signature.
“It takes on average three years to process, vet, and ready refugees for resettlement. According to Kekic, there’s a roughly six-week window in that three years where the paperwork is all up to date, as it changes daily. For those on the recently canceled flights, it may take months or years to update all the paperwork. ‘When you’re living in a refugee camp and you’re given a glimpse of what could be and then that’s taken away, it’s if not equivalent to their suffering in the first place, then close to it,’ Kekic said.”
Some 124 elected officials from 35 states joined refugee families and supporters in an April 6 letter to President Biden, urging action for refugees.