President Biden has had to slow or even stop some the things he was thought to be set to do on immigration…
His admin has moved to increase it’s capacity to process unaccompanied minors…Something the Trump admin took a lot of heat on…
But Biden’s people have had to actually keep a good amount of the Trump immigration policy actions….
Bad press and increased traffic to the border by immigrants’ are causing Biden issues and political negative attacks by Republicans and even few Democrats ….
President Biden on Friday signed an order speeding refugee admissions but maintaining fiscal year 2021 admissions at 15,000, a cap set by the Trump administration and a number far below the 62,500 figure proposed to Congress earlier this year.
The order would also open up slots to refugees from regions excluded by Trump, including parts of Africa and the Middle East.
But it does not raise the ceiling, as Democrats including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the United States as a refugee, had urged him to do.
It also represents a retreat for the Biden administration.
The State Department in February issued a report to Congress that proposed raising the number of refugee admissions to 62,500 for the current fiscal year. Biden pledged to over time raise the number of refugees the U.S. accepts to 125,000.
A senior administration official called the Trump refugee policy “restrictive” and cast the new order as an improvement, saying it “is needed to offer protection to vulnerable refugees who could not access the program under the previous one.”
The refugee program, which resettles migrants from their home countries — as opposed to asylum seekers, who generally present themselves at the border — is designed to extract at-risk individuals from areas affected by conflict or natural disasters….
*Update….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing swift blowback from allies and aid groups, the White House on Friday said President Joe Biden plans to lift his predecessor’s historically low cap on refugees by next month, after initially moving only to expand the eligibility criteria for resettlements.
In an emergency determination signed by Biden earlier in the day, he stated the admission of up to 15,000 refugees set by former President Donald Trump this year “remains justified by humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national interest.” But if the cap is reached before the end of the current budget year and the emergency refugee situation persists, then a presidential determination may be issued to raise the ceiling….
AP
This post updated as Biden under pressure will now increase the refugee numbers…