President Joe Biden on Wednesday formally kept the nation’s cap on refugee admissions at 125,000 for the 2023 budget year, despite pressure from refugee advocates to raise it even higher to meet the need after falling far short of that target this year.
Refugees advocates had been pushing the Biden administration to do more to restore the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. It had suffered deep cuts and had admitted fewer than 20,000 refugees so far this year, or only about 20% of the 125,000 target for 2022, according to the latest count in August.
The budget year ends Sept. 30.
