President Biden raises refugee admissions cap by tens of thousands, undoing Trump limits

Yesterday comments from Texas Governor Greg Abbot saying President Biden abandoned “the rule of law” at the US - Mexico border were reported on.

To many that’d be an understatement. Earlier this year the Biden border crisis caught the public eye after it was revealed that COVID restrictions on capacity were being ignored by officials at the migrant detention centers in Texas.

From then on it became a crisis in everything but name, intentionally downplayed by the Biden administration on several occasions.

Regardless of their efforts, the border story has routinely made the media rounds. Today being no exception. The Biden White House made an announcement expanding the annual refugee admissions from 15,000 to 62,500.

The former number being the limit set by the previous Trump administration. Just a few weeks ago it seemed as if Biden was set to stay at the 15,000 number to contend with the border crisis problem overall.

The point of interest being the fourth paragraph of the announcement, which reads: “The sad truth is that we will not achieve 62,500 admissions this year. We are working quickly to undo the damage of the last four years. It will take some time, but that work is already underway. We have reopened the program to new refugees. And by changing the regional allocations last month, we have already increased the number of refugees ready for departure to the United States.”

In general today’s announcement comes off as President Biden trying to dictate actions out of his predecessor’s shadow. The way his administration dealt with the border wall project being a glaring example. Something that had hopes of being restarted, only to turn out to be the complete opposite as Biden canceled military funds being directed to the border wall’s construction.

There’s several ways this announcement can be interpreted. With the last sentences alone it alludes to tensions between the Biden administration and states like Arizona, who have clashed in the past with the White House over border policy. A similar story for South Dakota. It could also refer to aspects like the $86 million contract from the White House for housing migrants in hotels.

At the very least the Biden administration has made some distance to where they previously were on the migration issue. It wasn’t that long ago that there was an unofficial media blackout where the Biden administration blocked reporters from seeing inside migrant detention centers.

When the media was finally allowed inside, what they saw shocked them. The prevailing issue of cramped conditions was somewhat alleviated after locations like the Donna, Texas facility expanded in size.