President Biden
Joe Biden Four members of the Sikh community among victims in Indianapolis shoot Overnight Health: NIH reverses Trump’s ban on fetal tissue research | Biden invests .7B to fight virus variants CDC panel meets again Friday on J&J On The Money: Moderates’ 0B infrastructure bill is a tough sell with Democrats | Justice Dept sues Trump ally Roger Stone for unpaid taxes MORE On Saturday, he explained his initial decision not to increase the limit on admission to refugees in the United States.
At the end of a golf session, he told reporters in Wilmington, Del., On Saturday he said he could not initially raise the cap because of the burdens facing the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), due to the influx of unaccompanied child migrants to the southern border.
“We’re going to increase the number. The problem was that the refugee section was dealing with the crisis that ended up on the border with young people, “Biden said according to a pool report in the White House.
“We could not do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number, “he continued.
The remark comes a day after the White House reversed the course on the decision to keep the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. in the Trump era. The decision was made after backlash from Democrats who want to see a higher cap.
Biden on Friday signed an order to maintain the 15,000 limit for admission to refugees for fiscal year 2021, a controversial number passed by former President Trump
Donald Trump: Freedom Caucus member condemns GOP group that promotes ‘Anglo-Saxon political traditions’, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s new free speech website to ban certain swear words.administration. It is also well below the 62,500 cap that Biden wanted to introduce for 2021.
Several Democratic lawmakers, including members of the “group”, have taken to Twitter to challenge the Biden government’s decision.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.), called on the president to ‘keep [his] promise “to” welcome immigrants. “
“Maintaining the Trump admin’s xenophobic and racist policies, including the historically low + submerged refugee cap, is wrong,” did she tweet.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), A beneficiary of the refugee program, said on Twitter “it is disgraceful that @POTUS is relying on an important promise to welcome refugees.”
A powerful Senate Democrat, chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee Dick Durbin (Ill.), Said the admission target for Biden administration is unacceptable.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
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Like Biden’s comments on Saturday, Psaki said the initial decision was due to changes made by Trump and ORR’s administration of feeding unaccompanied migrant children to the border.
“Over the past few weeks, he has consulted with his advisers to determine how many refugees can realistically be admitted to the United States so far by October 1,” Psaki said in part. ‘Given the retired refugee admission program we inherited and the burdens on the refugee resettlement office, its initial target of 62,500 seems unlikely.
ORR is the office within the Department of Health and Human Services that is responsible for housing minors.
The Wall Street Journal report that it had already spent $ 1.3 billion of its budget to deal with the influx of migrants, which would probably make it difficult to increase the refugee cap.
Biden aims to increase the refugee cap to 125,000 in its first year in office, and has requested a $ 4.3 billion budget for ORR for 2022 with the goal in mind.