After criticism, Biden says he will raise U.S. cap on refugee admissions

President Joe Biden said on Saturday he will raise the cap on the number of refugees admitted this year to the United States, a day after he drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers for agreeing to keep the historically low figure in place. Biden signed an order on Friday extending a 15,000 refugee admissions cap issued by his predecessor Donald Trump through the end of September. In signing the order, Biden shelved a plan announced in February to increase the cap to 62,500.

Biden told reporters in Delaware on Saturday after playing golf that he would go beyond the 15,000 limit.

“We are going to increase the number. Problem was the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up at the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once, so now we are going to raise the number,” he said.