President Joe Biden announced Friday his administration would be keeping in place the refugee cap implemented under his Republican predecessor at 15,000 people. This breaks with an earlier pledge made by the Biden administration to raise admission.
In February, Biden Secretary of State Tony Blinken told Congress the White House was preparing to raise the cap on refugees to admit more than 60,000 people, up from Trump’s historic low which Vice President Kamala Harris condemned as a senator. The Trump administration’s initial cap at 30,000, was even too low for Harris in 2018.
This Administration continues to turn its back on refugees, now capping the number at 30,000 — the lowest number since the program began in 1980.https://t.co/Ex0xhya2fb
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 18, 2018
Efforts to lower the number of refugees in the United States even provoked the California progressive to characterize the Trump administration as complicit in atrocities abroad similar to the holocaust of the early 20th-century.
During the Holocaust, we failed to let refugees like Anne Frank into our country. We can't let history repeat itself.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 27, 2017
Harris consistently vilified the Trump administration’s decision to lower refugee caps as abandoning moral leadership and pledged to be an advocate for refugees.
Turning our backs on millions of refugees is a dark moment in American history. We have abandoned our moral leadership on the world stage. https://t.co/M9yp98v8WV
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2017
To immigrants and refugees being targeted by Trump:
You are not alone.
We are fighting for you.
We will not abandon you.
Don’t give up. pic.twitter.com/kpp750YMSM— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2017
To our brothers, sisters, and friends in immigrant and refugees communities at home and all across the world — know that you are not alone.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 28, 2017
Biden’s decision not to raise the historically low cap on refugees marks a significant reversal from his campaign pledge to “reassert America’s commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees” as the former vice president signaled early on to be the president of open borders. Despite the cap on refugees remaining at the Trump-era low, a crisis at the southern border from Central and South American migrants who took their cues from Biden’s rhetoric and early actions has escalated to compromising border security and overwhelming detention centers.
U.S. Border Patrol encounters and enforcement actions have already exceeded last year’s numbers just four months into 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Drug seizures have also skyrocketed with a 233 percent increase in Fentanyl confiscation from March of last year while U.S. overdose deaths soar to unseen heights amid the opioid epidemic.
Alarming:
January-March 2021 vs January-March 2020.
The seizure of fentanyl at our southwestern border by CBP has increased by 233%. pic.twitter.com/rVxx0zZxV8
— Mark Bednar (@MarkBednar) April 14, 2021
