Leftist organizations are increasingly upset that President Joe Biden is not welcoming enough refugees into the United States.
An analysis by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an organization diametrically opposed to former President Donald Trump and his immigration policies, is reprimanding Biden for refusing to change the previous administration’s policies and admit more refugees from around the world.
As the Washington Post notes, Biden delayed signing a presidential determination that would ensure his promised hike of Trump’s 15,000 admitted refugees to the new 125,000 admitted refugees allowed in the U.S. per fiscal year. Instead, more than halfway through the current fiscal year, Biden has officially admitted just 2,050 refugees.
At the current rate, IRC said the Biden administration is severely lagging behind the Trump administration by accepting just over 4,500 refugees, “less than half of the figure admitted in Trump’s final year.”
IRC said the number is unexplained and unjustified, and “directly contradicts the administration’s hopeful rhetoric for migrants frantically making their way to the U.S. and contributing to the Southern border crisis.”
“This fiscal year, just 139 refugees from the Northern Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have been resettled to the U.S. Only 1 Venezuelan refugee has been resettled, despite these nationals representing 72% of all resettlement needs in the Americas,” the report states. “By delaying critical policy changes and stalling the rebuilding of the USRAP, the administration is ignoring a critical tool for addressing the refugee crisis in the hemisphere.”
The criticism from the left comes as the Biden administration struggles to manage the record-setting numbers of illegal aliens crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on a daily basis. According to the most recent U.S. Customs and Border Protection report, border patrol agents took more than 172,000 illegal aliens into custody in March, making it the busiest month for the agency in more than 20 years. Approximately 18,890 of these migrants were unaccompanied teens and children who required housing and costing taxpayers $60 million per week.
