2023-09-30 10:32:28
The White House on Friday released goals for how many refugees it intends to admit in the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and from which regions of the world.
AP | The government also removed an “unallocated reservation” from previous years that allowed it to reserve some spaces and use them in any region
As the number of migrants arriving at the US southern border continues to grow, the US government aims to admit more refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean next year.
The White House on Friday released goals for how many refugees it intends to admit in the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and from which regions of the world.
The total is 125,000, the same as last year.
But one major change is that the U.S. government said it aims to admit 35,000 to 50,000 refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean, compared with this year’s goal of 15,000. At the same time, the number of refugees it will admit from Europe and Central Asia dropped from 15,000 to between 2,000 and 3,000 next year.
The government also removed an “unallocated reservation” from previous years that allowed it to reserve some spaces and use them in any region.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the world faces an “unprecedented global displacement crisis in which record numbers of people have been forced to flee war, persecution and instability.”
He said that in addition to expanding programs to resettle refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean, the United States was also focused on helping “key populations of concern,” such as Afghans who helped the Americans in the war, defenders of human rights and other groups.
The decision on next year’s refugee cap comes as the United States is seeing record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border, many of them hoping to seek asylum in the United States. The federal government has come under intense pressure from its Democratic colleagues to address the issue, while coming under harsh criticism from Republicans, who claim the government has done little to secure the border.
The limit is the number of refugees the United States intends to admit from around the world in a given year, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will admit that many. As of August, the United States had admitted only 51,000 of the possible 125,000 for this year.
The Jewish humanitarian organization HIAS said in a press release issued on Friday that it welcomed the figure set by US President Joe Biden, and that it was a “worthy goal”. However, the organization’s president and CEO, Mark Hetfield, said there was still a lot of room between the number of refugees the government said it intended to admit this year and how many actually arrived.
“While the pace of arrivals has increased over the previous fiscal year, there remains much work to be done next year to ensure Presidential Determination is more than just an aspirational number,” Hetfield said.
For decades, the United States admitted more refugees each year than all other countries combined, but Canada surpassed them in 2018.
Admissions under the program hit a record low of 11,411 in 2021 following drastic cuts by former President Donald Trump’s administration. But this year there has been an increase in the number of refugees admitted to the United States following the government’s efforts to increase staff and make more trips to foreign countries to interview potential refugees.
Refugee status is different from other types of protection, such as asylum.
To be admitted as refugees, people must be living outside the United States. They are typically referred to the State Department by the U.N. refugee agency and then interviewed and investigated by U.S. officials while they are still abroad. To apply for asylum, a person must be in the United States.
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