Blumenthal, Murphy & Colleagues Urge President Biden to Issue Updated Presidential Determination With an Increased Refugee Admissions Target

[WASHINGTON D.C.] – U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) joined Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), and 31 of their Senate colleagues in a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to issue an updated presidential determination with an increased refugee admissions target for the remainder of Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 as soon as possible. The Senators urged President Biden to set the refugee admissions target at 62,500 for this fiscal year, as the Administration originally proposed to Congress in February, and to set a target of at least 125,000 refugee admissions in FY 2022. The Senators’ letter comes after the Administration announced it intended to establish a final increased refugee admissions target for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15, 2021.

“The United States must reject the previous Administration’s cruel legacy of anti-refugee policies and return to our longstanding bipartisan tradition of providing safety to the world’s most vulnerable refugees,” the Senators wrote. “Under the previous Administration, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) suffered from four consecutive years of dramatic decreases in refugee resettlement, resulting in reduced capacity in our refugee resettlement infrastructure. We acknowledge the challenges you inherited with USRAP, and we strongly support the rebuilding and strengthening of USRAP.”

The Senators continued, “We urge you to expeditiously and safely admit all qualified refugees who are waiting to be resettled. We urge you to set a robust increased target for USRAP as soon as possible.”

Along with Blumenthal, Murphy, and Durbin, the letter was signed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chris Coons (D-DE), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Patty Murray (D-WA), Tom Carper (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM).

Since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States resettled an average of more than 80,000 refugees per year. However, the Trump Administration set the annual refugee admissions target at disgracefully low numbers for four years in a row. Last fiscal year, the Administration set a target of only 18,000 refugees and just 11,814 refugees were admitted.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were more than 80 million people displaced worldwide in 2020, a record high. Among this displaced population are 26 million refugees – the highest number in history – half of whom are children. UNHCR estimates that 1.4 million refugees are in urgent need of resettlement.

Full text of the letter is available here.

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