White House Walks Back Order On Refugee Limits After Backlash

The White House is walking back that it will keep the refugee ceiling of 15,000 set by the Trump administration, saying its widely panned announcement earlier Friday was meant only to ease restrictions from countries from which refugees are banned. It said President Biden would raise the cap by May 15.

Updated April 16, 2021 at 4:58 PM ET

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the earlier announcement was made because Biden "was urged to take immediate action to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from many key regions, to enable flights from those regions within days; today's order does that."

She said Biden would "set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15."

The White House has been under increasing pressure from refugee advocates and congressional Democrats to make good on a campaign promise to raise the number to 125,000. A U.S. State Department report to Congress proposed a figure of 62,500 for the fiscal year.

The about-face came after the initial White House response was panned by Democrats, refugee advocates and human rights groups. Many of them cited Biden's election-time pledge to raise the refugee ceiling, which the previous administration had reduced to historic lows.

Refugee rights groups criticized the initial decision.

"We are reaching out to the White House to understand why this figure is a fraction of what the administration committed to in congressional consultations," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of the agencies involved in refugee resettlement in the United States.

Biden's fellow Democrats also blasted the move, with Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, calling the Trump-era level "unacceptable."

"Say it ain't so, President Joe," he said in a statement.

Julian Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, called it "a bad decision," and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said it was "simply unacceptable and unconscionable."

The White House denied accusations that the initial move was motivated by political pressure due to the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border — which in March saw the largest number of migrant encounters in at least 15 years. The administration said the U.S. refugee admissions program was "decimated" under the Trump administration and pledged to increase the admission level in the future as it works to rebuild the system. The White House also pledged to work with Congress if it's needed to increase it sooner due to emergencies.

"America needs to rebuild our refugee resettlement program," national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a tweet explaining the initial response. "We will use all 15,000 slots under the new Determination and work with Congress on increasing admissions and building back to the numbers to which we've committed."

Those remarks were reiterated by Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, who said on Twitter: "This is just the beginning."

The administration said it intended to use all 15,000 slots available, allocating 7,000 for Africa, 1,000 for East Asia, 1,500 for Europe and Central Asia, 3,000 for Latin America and the Caribbean, 1,500 for the Near East and South Asia. Another 1,000 slots were unallocated.

Friday's announcement came as progressive lawmakers, including Jayapal, called on the president to fulfill his campaign pledge.

"Having fought for four years against the Trump Administration's full-scale assault on refugee resettlement in the United States, we were relieved to see you commit to increasing our refugee resettlement numbers so early in your Administration," Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Jayapal, and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., wrote in a letter.

"But until the Emergency Presidential Determination is finalized, our refugee policy remains unacceptably draconian and discriminatory."

Refugee resettlement, a bipartisan issue since President Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980, became a political hot potato during the Trump years. Former President Donald Trump made deep cuts to the maximum number of refugees the U.S. accepts each year, characterizing refugees as a danger to national security. The current level, 15,000, is the lowest since Carter signed the law. In the year before Trump's election, the U.S. resettled 84,995 refugees against a cap of 85,000.

The letter from Democratic lawmakers also referenced refugees who were cleared for resettlement but have been waiting in limbo until the White House formalizes the change in policy.

"We must keep our promises to people who have fled unthinkably brutal conditions in their home countries and live up to our ambition to provide them a safe haven to re-start their lives," the letter added.

Omar, who was one of the first two Muslim American women elected to Congress in 2018, is also the first African refugee to become a member of Congress.

The letter had 35 additional signatures as of Friday morning, including members of the so-called squad: Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

During the presidential campaign, Biden promised to set the yearly cap on refugee admissions to 125,000 and "raise it over time commensurate with our responsibility, our values, and the unprecedented global need."

"The United States' moral leadership on refugee issues was a point of bipartisan consensus for so many decades when I first got here," he said at the State Department in February, pledging to approve an executive order to restore the admissions program to meet global demand. "It's going to take time to rebuild what has been so badly damaged, but that's precisely what we're going to do."

That same month, the U.S. State Department issued a report to Congress proposing an increase in refugee admissions to 62,500 for the fiscal year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday the U.S. has to "recognize [its] moral responsibility" in taking in refugees.

"I think right now we have, well, it's a very few thousand, and we have to increase that number."

Read the full letter below. [Copyright 2021 NPR]