Biden To Raise Cap On Refugee Admissions after Democratic Pressure

President Joe Biden said Saturday his administration will increase the refugee cap after the Biden administration announced Friday it would keep the historically low 15,000 cap set by former President Donald Trump through the end of the fiscal year, which ends in September. The Friday announcement was met with pushback from refugee advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers. “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," Biden told reporters Saturday. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday the Biden administration planned to “set a final, increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15," though Psaki didn't say how much the cap would increase. Psaki also said that, “given the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited,” it’s now “unlikely” Biden will be able to boost that number to 62,500, as he had proposed in his plan to Congress in February. Psaki said Friday the order also reversed the Trump policy that banned refugees from many regions such as Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and opens up more slots for refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central America. Critics from across the political spectrum criticized Biden for allegedly giving in to political pressure from Democrats. Coverage from the right tended to highlight the fact that Biden used the term "crisis" to describe the border for the first time on Saturday; some right-rated outlets also said that Psaki attempted to "shift the blame" for the delayed cap increase to the Trump administration. Coverage from the left and center tended to focus on details of the situation at the border.