PRESS STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 16, 2021 |
MINUSCULE REFUGEE ADMISSION CAP BLUNTS PROGRESS ON DISMANTLING TRUMP'S DAMAGE TO ASYLUM SYSTEM
CHIRLA expresses consternation at the Biden administration's low refugee admission cap,
as it will blunt the welcome to refugees that our nation had begun to rebuild after Trump
LOS ANGELES -- The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), the largest immigrant rights organization in California, expressed consternation Friday after the Biden administration announced that it would keep the yearly limit on refugee admissions to the country at 15,000, a historically low number originally set by the Trump administration. Please attribute the following statements to Angelica Salas, CHIRLA executive director: "This is a terrible decision. Keeping the low refugee cap punishes tens of thousands of vetted refugees who have been waiting years in the pipeline to enter the U.S. It also damages rebuilding of the resettlement infrastructure dismantled by the Trump administration. The U.S. asylum program to resettle refugees was designed to work with refugee resettlement as part of a comprehensive response to humanitarian crises. The U.S. can and should fully process the cases of people seeking asylum along the southern border. We must welcome the thousands of refugees to whom we have promised safety. We will work to make the Biden administration rescind this decision and revise the FY21 admissions goal to 62,500 for the fiscal year, as it committed to doing. We should welcome as many refugees as possible. The 'grave humanitarian concerns' recently noted by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Congress--which justify this and the promised 125,000 cap for next year--have not simply vanished overnight." Please attribute the following to Anahita Panahi, California refugee organizer for We Are All America: |