President-elect Joe Biden has announced that he planned to raise the US annual quota for refugees to 125,000.
The policy, one of his first policy pronouncements since winning the election, is a significant change from that of his predecessor, President Donald Trump, who had capped the number of annual refugees permitted into the country at 15,000.
Biden, who takes pride in his own Irish heritage and who it is believed could make Ireland his first overseas visit once he assumes office, announced the new goals while taking part in a virtual celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the Jesuit Refugee Service.
“This is a great organisation. This organisation was founded to serve the needs of some of the most vulnerable among us,” Biden said in a video message to the group. “JRS believes that in the stranger, we actually meet our neighbour and that every society is ultimately judged by how we treat those most in need.”
The announcement came on the same day that the president-elect received a congratulatory phone call from Pope Francis.
JRS executive director Joan Rosenhauer praised Biden’s policy change. “President-elect Biden has promised to welcome and protect refugees, and we are honoured he has made that commitment to us and to the millions of people who have been forced to flee their homes,” she said.
A president has wide discretion in implementing immigration law, and can use executive orders to achieve certain goals like raising the refugee limit. But, unless the Democrats take control of the US Senate, Biden’s more ambitious goals for comprehensive immigration reform could run into difficulty. There are 50 elected Republican senators and 48 Democrats, with Georgia’s two senators to be elected in a run-off in early January. A 50-50 split would give the vice-president the casting vote.
Biden has launched a new transition website which yesterday posted that the “president-elect and vice president-elect appreciated the opportunity to hear from some of our country’s most experienced national security experts about the challenges facing our country and our institutions. The experts briefed them on the diplomatic, defence, and intelligence challenges the administration will inherit on day one, focusing on both the strategic landscape as well as the readiness of our foreign policy and national security departments and agencies.”
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