The program that this incoming administration is inheriting is on its last breath, said Danielle Grigsby, director of policy and practice at Refugee Council USA. It s going to require both political will and an early investment in overturning policies to see the program begin to operate as it can and is intended to.
On Tuesday, transition officials reiterated Biden s commitment to restoring the US immigration system but cautioned that it would take time, given the abundance of policy changes over the last four years.
Read More The infrastructure within the government, as well as the infrastructure in the NGO community, has been very badly affected by the last four years, so we re assessing that in order to figure out how quickly the administration can move, a transition official told reporters during a Tuesday press call.
Dec 22, 2020 / 05:54 PM EST
(CNN) President Donald Trump spent years limiting the number of refugees coming to the United States.
President-elect Joe Biden, meanwhile, has pledged to set the annual refugee admissions cap at 125,000. But first, his team will have to contend with the damage left behind.
The refugee cap, which dictates how many refugees may be admitted to the U.S.
, must be approved by the president. But where the cap has often been viewed as a goal to be reached, the actual number of refugees admitted has fallen short under the Trump administration.
“The program that this incoming administration is inheriting is on its last breath,” said Danielle Grigsby, director of policy and practice at Refugee Council USA. “It’s going to require both political will and an early investment in overturning policies to see the program begin to operate as it can and is intended to.”
Biden team prepares to revamp the US refugee admissions program
President Donald Trump spent years limiting the number of refugees coming to the United States. President-elect Joe Biden, meanwhile, has pledged to set the annual refugee admissions cap at 125,000. But first, his team will have to contend with the damage left behind.
The refugee cap, which dictates how many refugees may be admitted to the US
, must be approved by the president. But where the cap has often been viewed as a goal to be reached, the actual number of refugees admitted has fallen short under the Trump administration.
“The program that this incoming administration is inheriting is on its last breath,” said Danielle Grigsby, director of policy and practice at Refugee Council USA. “It’s going to require both political will and an early investment in overturning policies to see the program begin to operate as it can and is intended to.”
President Trump restricted legal immigration through a series of unprecedented regulations and presidential orders during his one term. Once President‐elect Joe Biden takes office, he will have the opportunity to reverse these actions and deregulate what is and was even before Trump an overly burdensome and expensive legal immigration system. This compendium of 30 concise proposals by 15 authors including several of America’s leading immigration law experts can help the Biden administration operate the immigration system as openly and efficiently as the laws allow.
These proposals focus entirely on agency measures to improve the process for legal immigrants. Keeping with Biden’s campaign theme of “building back better,” they look past simply repealing Trump’s misguided executive actions to instead create new, better rules for a fully recovered America. For this reason, these reforms do not address temporary actions needed only to address COVID-19 nor do they specifi