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Tuesday, November 26

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Biden to raise annual refugee ceiling as part of ‘national security objectives’ amid US border surge

 President Joe Biden announced on Monday he plans to increase the number of refugees who can enter the country to 125,000 beginning on October 1, the start of fiscal year 2022.

The move is thought to have no effect on the tens of thousands of people fleeing the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan nor the more than 15,000 Haitians in makeshift camps under a bridge at the port of entry in Del Rio, TX, as neither group is classified as refugees.

In May, Biden raised the refugee admissions cap for the current fiscal year from 15,000 to 62,500. That lower number was set by former President Trump and adhered to by the Biden administration for several months, indicating they too thought it was a good idea to limit refugee intake. However, Biden eventually succumbed to pressure from hard progressives who consistently clamor for open borders and unchecked immigration.

Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement on Monday that Joe Biden has sent to Congress a report detailing his intention to do just that in an effort to “address needs generated by humanitarian crises around the globe,” according to the New York Times.

“A robust refugee admissions program is critical to U.S. foreign policy interests and national security objectives, and is a reflection of core American values,” Price said in the statement.

“The United States has long been a global leader in refugee resettlement. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) reflects our tradition as a nation that has long welcomed immigrants and refugees. It is an important, enduring, and ongoing expression of our commitment to international humanitarian principles and reflects the best of America’s values and compassion.”

By law, presidents must “consult” with Congress before making the decision about how many refugees to allow each year, but the Democrats own the Executive branch and both legislative branches.

Advocates for refugees cheered Monday’s move. But they noted that the Biden administration will not be able to actually resettle that many refugees during the next fiscal year without hiring more employees in the government agencies that do the work to process them, the outlet reported.

Under Biden, only about 7,500 official refugees have been resettled in the United States even though the cap has allowed for 62,500 since he raised it in May.

With the usual amount of hyperbole that emanates from the left, Krish Vignarajah, President of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service said, “Understandably, four years of the Trump administration’s assault on the refugee program coupled with pandemic challenges have hamstrung federal rebuilding efforts,” although incredibly she admitted that “raising the cap without dedicating significant resources, personnel, and policies to streamline the process would be largely symbolic.”

Tens of thousands of Afghans who were flown out of Kabul last month have already arrived in the United States, and many will likely be resettled in communities across the country. Most have been granted the ability to live and work in the United States temporarily under a humanitarian program that does not consider them to be official refugees. Some may eventually apply for asylum to stay in the United States permanently, and the Biden administration is asking Congress to pass a special law to put all of them on a special path to citizenship, wrote the Times.

Many of the Haitians who have crossed the Rio Grande River over the last several days in Texas are also not officially considered refugees. The administration has said they have already begun to quickly process them as illegal border crossers and transport them back to Haiti.

Biden’s decision to raise the refugee cap comes amid an unprecedented crisis at the southern border; a situation so untenable that the FAA has recently created a no-fly zone of sorts so that news cameras flown by drone (namely from Fox News) cannot document the humanitarian quandary, a result of the gross and consistent incompetence of the Biden regime.

DHS secretary Mayorkas admitted as much during a private meeting in August with Border Patrol officials, saying, “You know, if our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable.” He added at the time, “We can’t continue like this, our people in the field can’t continue and our system isn’t built for it.”

The situation in Del Rio, TX is dire, as 100-degree heat and an inability to vet and process the thousands of migrants with a ham-stringed border patrol complement – to say nothing of COVID concerns – may be driving the camp to a flashpoint similar to the Cuban immigrant camp depicted in Brian De Palma’s “Scarface.”

VP Kamala Harris, the chosen point-person on the southern border, remains a phantom.

Irony is completely lost on Joe Biden, and that defect seems to have been transferred to every person in his administration. It was only a few months ago, July 2021, that protests erupted in the island nation of Cuba, with thousands crying out for freedom and liberty. They have arguably as much if not more of a legitimate asylum claim – relief from an oppressive communist regime – than anyone else who is now housed under a bridge in TX, but DHS chief Mayorkas told them not to attempt to flee to the U.S. via the waterway to Florida.

Mayorkas was born in Cuba.

In the Biden regime’s vision for America, more refugees is better, but some refugees are better than others.