Biden administration to raise refugee cap to 125,000 for 2022

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

The Biden administration is planning to raise the refugee cap for fiscal year 2022 to 125,000, in line with the goal President Joe Biden set.

Biden previously conceded that his goal of 125,000 refugee admissions within the first fiscal year of his presidency “will still be hard to hit,” but the expected ceiling indicates how many refugees may be admitted to the US in the coming fiscal year.

The State Department on Monday confirmed CNN’s previous reporting on the administration’s plans to raise the ceiling.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration flip-flopped on raising the ceiling for fiscal year 2021, and after blowback, raised it to 62,500 people.

But from October through August, only 7,637 refugees were admitted to the US, according to the Refugee Processing Center.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Monday that Secretary of State Tony Blinken looks forward to “a meaningful exchange with Members of Congress” on the administration’s proposed cap.

“The Department of State, together with the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, transmitted the President’s Report to Congress on the proposed Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2022 to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate,” Price said, adding: “The Report to Congress recommends an increase in the refugee admissions target from 62,500 in Fiscal Year 2021 to 125,000 in Fiscal Year 2022 to address needs generated by humanitarian crises around the globe.”

The US had for years outpaced other countries in refugee admissions, allowing millions into the country since the Refugee Act of 1980. But the program took a hit under former President Donald Trump, who slashed the number of refugees allowed to come to the US and put a series of limits in place curtailing who was eligible.

Even so, at its lowest point, nearly 12,000 refugees were admitted under Trump.

The challenges, refugee advocates say, have only been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and Biden’s initial hesitancy to sign off on increasing the Trump-era ceiling, which dictates how many refugees are admitted in a given fiscal year.

The admissions ceiling proposed by the Biden administration is broken down into regional allocations, including 40,000 slots for Africa, 15,000 for East Asia, 10,000 for Europe and Central Asia, 15,000 for Latin America and the Caribbean, 35,000 for Near East and South Asia, and a reserve of 10,000.

There are more than 26 million refugees worldwide, according to the United Nations refugee agency. The pandemic has only worsened conditions on the ground for some countries and resulted in a temporary suspension on resettlement travel last year. The UN refugee agency estimates that around 74% of refugees are able to meet just half or less of their basic needs because of the pandemic.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequent Taliban takeover also resulted in tens of thousands of Afghans fleeing from the country. The Biden administration is working on resetting more than 60,000 Afghans in the US, many of whom will be paroled into the US and don’t count toward the refugee ceiling.

This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.

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CNN’s Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.