华盛顿——总统乔·拜登取消其前任历史最低限额的计划难民到下个月，在最初的行动只是为了扩大重新安置的资格标准并得到盟国的迅速反击后。
拜登在周五签署的一份紧急决定中表示，总统将接纳多达15，000名难民唐纳德·特朗普今年“出于人道主义考虑，仍然是合理的，否则就是符合国家利益的”但是，如果在本预算年度结束前达到上限，并且紧急难民情况持续存在，那么总统可能会决定提高上限。
这引发了来自国会高层盟友的大量批评，如排名第二的参议院民主党人、伊利诺伊州的迪克·德宾，他称最初的限制“不可接受”
白宫新闻秘书珍·普萨基(Jen Psaki)后来表示，预计拜登将在5月15日前提高难民上限，但她没有透露具体提高了多少。
周六，当记者问及这一上限时，拜登没有提供新的细节。“我们将增加这个数字，”他在特拉华州威尔明顿打完高尔夫球后说。“问题是，难民部分正在解决危机，最终与年轻人走到了一起。我们不能同时做两件事。但现在我们要增加数量。”
拜登使用“危机”一词引起了一些人的不满——并在一些右翼人士中引起了轩然大波——因为白宫在最近几周竭尽全力避免使用带有政治色彩的术语来描述边境局势，而是选择了“挑战”这样的词。但白宫也坚称，无论名称如何，它都在认真对待这件事，但边境和政府关于难民的决定之间的任何联系都不清楚。
普萨基说，拜登一直在与他的顾问协商，以确定从现在到本财政年度结束的10月1日之间，实际上可以接纳多少难民进入美国。“鉴于我们继承的大规模难民接收计划，”她说，拜登现在“不太可能”将这个数字提高到62，500人，正如他两个月前在国会的计划中提出的那样。
但她表示，顾问们敦促拜登“立即采取行动，扭转特朗普禁止来自许多关键地区的难民的政策，使来自这些地区的航班能够在几天内开始;今天的命令做到了。”
新的拨款为来自非洲、中东和中美洲的难民提供了更多的名额，并解除了特朗普对来自索马里、叙利亚和也门的难民的重新安置限制。
政界两边的批评者都指责总统屈服于政治压力，政治压力因孤身移民越过美墨边境的创纪录速度而不断增加。特朗普移民政策的关键设计师斯蒂芬·米勒(Stephen Miller)在推特上表示，保留特朗普的帽子“反映了拜登团队的认识，即边境洪水将导致创纪录的中期损失。”
白宫表示，边境局势是拜登此前没有采取行动的部分原因，尽管边境移民没有像难民一样经历同样的审查过程。
“这是一个因素，”普萨基说，他指出，难民安置办公室“有人员在处理这两个问题，因此我们必须确保有能力处理这两个问题。”
康涅狄格州参议员理查德·布卢门塔尔(Richard Blumenthal)表示，他不相信这一点。
布卢门塔尔说:“这一残酷的政策现在不比特朗普政府时期更容易被接受。”“明确一点:南部边境的庇护程序和难民程序是完全不同的移民制度。将两者混为一谈构成了向恐惧政治的屈服。”
自去年10月1日开始的财政年度以来，只有2000多名难民在美国重新定居。
国务卿安东尼·布林肯(Antony Blinken)于2月12日通知国会，计划将招生上限提高到62，500人，但随后没有总统的决定。该法律不需要国会批准，历届总统都发布了这样的总统决定，在通知国会后不久就设定了难民接纳的上限。
参议院外交关系委员会主席、新泽西州参议员鲍勃·梅嫩德斯星期五在一封信中告诉拜登，他的不作为“破坏了你宣布的扭转前任难民政策的目的”。
梅嫩德斯说，这也使得该项目不太可能达到拜登承诺的下一个预算年度12.5万英镑的目标。
难民安置机构表示，重要的是，即使不可能达到目标，也要提高入学率，以传递一个信息，即美国将再次成为向世界受压迫者提供安全避难所的领导者。
国际救援委员会主席兼首席执行官大卫·米利班德(David Miliband)表示，约35，000名难民已获准前往美国，100，000人仍在等待救援，他们的生活仍处于悬而未决的状态。
“这种领导是非常需要的，”他说。
根据拜登的新分配，7 000个名额留给来自非洲的难民，1 000个来自东亚，1 500个来自欧洲和中亚，3 000个来自拉丁美洲和加勒比，1 500个来自近东和南亚。可根据需要预留约1000个插槽。
与安置机构协调航班的国务院预订了715名难民来美国，预计拜登将在3月份采取行动，但据安置机构称，这些航班被取消，因为根据特朗普的规则，难民没有资格。
大多数难民来自非洲，逃离武装冲突或政治迫害。特朗普将大多数景点限制在逃离宗教迫害的人、帮助过那里的美国军队的伊拉克人以及来自中美洲北部三角的人。
After outcry, Biden plans to lift refugee cap in May
WASHINGTON -- PresidentJoe Bidenplans to lift his predecessor’s historically low cap onrefugeesby next month, after initially moving only to expand the eligibility criteria for resettlements and getting swift blowback from allies in return.
In an emergency determination signed Friday, Biden stated the admission of up to 15,000 refugees set by PresidentDonald Trumpthis year “remains justified by humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national interest.” But if the cap is reached before the end of the current budget year and the emergency refugee situation persists, then a presidential determination may be issued to raise the ceiling.
That set off a deluge of criticism from top allies on Capitol Hill such as the second-ranking Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, who called that initial limit “unacceptable.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said later that Biden is expected to increase the refugee cap by May 15, though she didn't say by how much.
Asked Saturday by reporters about the cap, Biden didn't offer new details. “We’re going to increase the number," he said after golfing in Wilmington, Delaware. "The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number.”
Biden’s use of the word “crisis” raised some eyebrows — and caused an uproar among some on the right — because the White House had bent over backwards in recent weeks to avoid the politically charged term to describe the situation at the border, opting instead for words like “challenge.” But the White House also insisted that it was taking the matter seriously no matter the nomenclature, but any link between the border and the administration’s decision on refugees was not immediately clear.
Biden has been consulting with his advisers to determine what number of refugees could realistically be admitted to the United States between now and Oct. 1, the end of the fiscal year, Psaki said. “Given the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited,” she said it’s now “unlikely” Biden will be able to boost that number to 62,500, as he had proposed in his plan to Congress two months ago.
But Biden, she said, was urged by advisers to “take immediate action to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from many key regions, to enable flights from those regions to begin within days; today’s order did that."
The new allocations provide more slots for refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central America and lift Trump's restrictions on resettlements from Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
Critics from both sides of the political spectrum had accused the president of bowing to political pressure that has been mounting over the record pace of unaccompanied migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Stephen Miller, a key architect of Trump’s immigration policies, tweeted that keeping Trump's cap “reflects Team Biden’s awareness that the border flood will cause record midterm losses.”
The White House indicated the border situation was partly why Biden had not acted before now, even though migrants at the border do not go through the same vetting process as refugees.
“It is a factor,” said Psaki, noting that the Office of Refugee Resettlement “has personnel working on both issues and so we have to ensure that there is capacity and ability to manage both.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he didn't buy that.
“This cruel policy is no more acceptable now than it was during the Trump administration,” Blumenthal said. “To be clear: the asylum process at the southern border and the refugee process are completely separate immigration systems. Conflating the two constitutes caving to the politics of fear.”
Since the fiscal year began last Oct. 1, just over 2,000 refugees have been resettled in the U.S.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified Congress on Feb. 12 of a plan to raise the ceiling on admissions to 62,500, but no presidential determination followed. The law does not require congressional approval and past presidents have issued such presidential determinations that set the cap on refugee admissions shortly after the notification to Congress.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Biden in a letter Friday that his inaction “undermines your declared purpose to reverse your predecessor’s refugee policies.”
Menendez said it also makes it unlikely that the program can hit its target next budget year of 125,000, which Biden has pledged to do.
Refugee resettlement agencies said it was important that admissions go higher even if it's not possible to meet the target to send a message that America will be a leader again in offering safe haven to the world's oppressed.
Some 35,000 refugees have been cleared to go to the United States, and 100,000 remain in the pipeline and their lives remain in limbo, said David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee.
“This leadership is sorely needed,” he said.
Under Biden's new allocation, 7,000 slots are reserved for refugees from Africa, 1,000 from East Asia, 1,500 from Europe and Central Asia, 3,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean and 1,500 from the Near East and South Asia. A reserve of about 1,000 slots can be used as needed.
The State Department, which coordinates flights with resettlement agencies, booked 715 refugees to come to the United States with the anticipation that Biden would have acted by March, but those flights were canceled since the refugees were not eligible under Trump’s rules, according to resettlement agencies.
Most of the refugees are from Africa and fleeing armed conflict or political persecution. Trump limited most spots to people fleeing religious persecution, Iraqis who have assisted U.S. forces there, and people from Central America’s Northern Triangle.
