US President Joe Biden on Tuesday announces the US target for refugee admissions at 125,000 for the next fiscal year 2023.
According to the associated press report, after falling far short of that target this year, refuge advocates have been putting pressure on Biden to raise it even higher to meet the demand and to restore the 40-year-old Refugee Admissions Program.
As stated by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and other emergencies have raised the number of people displaced this year to “the dramatic milestone of 100 million.”
As per the Al Jazeera report, the target number for the fiscal year 2022 was 125,000, which ends on September 30. But despite raising the number Biden administration still struggled to make progress.
Only about 20,000 refugees have been accepted. This figure does not include the approximately 180,000 Ukrainians and Afghans who arrived in the United States through a legal process known as humanitarian parole, as cited by the report.
Earlier in the Trump era, the US recorded the lowest number of refugees i.e. 15,000. After entering office, Biden quadrupled the number of refugee admissions allowed for the remaining months of the fiscal year 2021.
