Out of 42,705 applications for refugee status in 2003, 25,309 were accepted, including James Tour and Nyanit Malual, the Sudanese-American couple featured in the accompanying profile. The cap that fiscal year was 70,000.
What’s the difference between refugee status and asylum-seeker status?
Refugees, under the Refugee Act of 1980, are any people who’ve been persecuted or fear persecution for their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinions.
To seek refugee status, applicants must apply from outside the United States. Usually, applicants have already left their home countries – perhaps because of war, violence, or economic hardship. The waiting time for those accepted by the United States is now averaging more than two years. Applicants typically reside in a third country during that time. James Tour and Nyanit Malual applied for refugee status from Egypt after they left Sudan.
To seek asylum status, applicants must be physically present in the United States or at a port of entry to the United States when they apply. During the COVID pandemic, the United States invoked Title 42, a section of the 1994 U.S. Code, that denies entry to persons who pose a risk of spreading a communicable disease. U.S. ports of entry were closed and remain closed to asylum-seekers, although the Biden administration has allowed some exceptions.
Who determines the number of refugee status admissions allowed annually?
The president of the United States. An annual ceiling on number of refugees is set by the president in consultation with Congress. There is no ceiling on the number of asylum-seekers.
President Joe Biden increased the cap for fiscal 2021 from 15,000 to 62,500, but only 11,411 refugees were resettled, about 18% of the cap, the lowest percentage resettled since the 1980 Refugee Act was passed.
What is the refugee admission limit for fiscal 2022?
It is 125,000. However, for several reasons, including the ongoing COVID pandemic, refugee resettlements are unlikely to reach the cap. Also, 134 resettlement sites have been closed since 2017 for lack of funding. In addition, the need to assist Afghan evacuees and Ukrainian refugees has outpaced staffing at the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).
Although historically, the United States has resettled more refugees than any other country, its program has not kept up with the increase of global refugees, up more than 50% over the past five years. There were more than 26 million as of fiscal year 2020. Less than 1% of the total number of displaced people in the world has been resettled to the 37 primary resettlement countries (including the United States) each year, according to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees.
Synopsis
– In fiscal 2016, the United States admitted nearly 85,000 refugees, a number that declined to fewer than 54,000 refugees in fiscal 2017, after President Donald Trump reduced the cap/ceiling on refugee admissions via executive order.
— For fiscal 2018, the refugee admission cap was reduced to 45,000.
— In fiscal 2019, admissions were reduced to 30,000.
— In fiscal 2020, the cap was cut to 18,000.
However, the cap represents the maximum number of refugees that may be resettled in a year, and the Trump administration resettled only 11,814 people in fiscal 2020, leaving 7,000 slots unfilled.
— While Biden increased the fiscal 2021 cap from the proposed 15,000 to 62,500 in May 2021 and set the fiscal 2022 cap at 125,000, refugee-resettlement infrastructure remains depleted and the administration has struggled to reach these targets in terms of actual refugees resettled.
Resources
Report to Congress on proposed refugee admissions for FY 2021
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative as part of our race and equity project. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
Julie Zimmer is a former communications instructor at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa. She is active in the New Hampshire immigration advocacy network. She lives in Peterborough.