President Joe Biden’s administration resettled more than 3,000 refugees from countries known to export terrorism that had previously been listed on former President Donald Trump’s constitutional travel ban.
In May, President Joe Biden announced he would raise the refugee resettlement cap to 62,500 refugees for Fiscal Year 2021 — more than four times the cap that former President Trump imposed for the year at about 15,000 refugees.
The Fiscal Year started on October 1, 2020, and ran through September 30. The annual cap set by presidents is merely a numerical limit and not intended to be a numerical goal.
In January, Biden signed an executive order that ended Trump’s constitutional travel ban which had prevented almost all immigration to the U.S. from particular countries with a history of exporting terrorism.
President Joe Biden pauses as he speaks about the bombings at the Kabul airport that killed at least 12 U.S. service members, from the East Room of the White House, August 26, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
As a result, more than 3,000 refugees from countries listed on Trump’s travel ban were resettled across the U.S. this past Fiscal Year, including:
- 175 refugees from Iran
- 1,246 refugees from Syria
- 7 refugees from Yemen
- 174 refugees from Somalia
- 3 refugees from Venezuela
- 772 refugees from Myanmar
- 184 refugees from Eritrea
- 513 refugees from Sudan
Thanks to Trump’s reduction in the refugee resettlement program, a little more than 11,400 refugees in total were resettled in Fiscal Year 2021 — a huge cut to Obama era levels and far below Biden’s cap of 62,500.
The total, though, is still a significant population that is larger than Montpelier, Vermont’s population which is fewer than 7,500 residents. About 48 percent of refugees admitted this past Fiscal Year went to battleground states, including:
- 422 refugees to Arizona
- 267 refugees to Colorado
- 216 refugees to Florida
- 385 refugees to Georgia
- 236 refugees to Iowa
- 533 refugees to Michigan
- 268 refugees to Minnesota
- 510 refugees to North Carolina
- 454 refugees to Ohio
- 395 refugees to Pennsylvania
- 914 refugees to Texas
- 273 refugees to Virginia
- 366 refugees to Wisconsin
A bulk of refugees, nearly 3,000, were resettled in California, Kentucky, New York, and Washington.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden is planning to bring more than 10 times as many refugees to the U.S. for Fiscal Year 2022 — which started on October 1 — as he brought in Fiscal Year 2021.
In addition to increasing refugee resettlement, Biden rescinded an order that allowed states and localities to decide whether they wanted refugee resettlement in their communities. The order, signed by Trump, gave Americans veto power over the program that they, for decades, have been shut out of.
Refugees board a bus at Dulles International Airport that will take them to a refugee processing center after being evacuated from Kabul following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on August 31, 2021, in Dulles, Virginia. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Over the last 20 years, nearly one million refugees have been resettled in the country. This is a number more than double that of residents living in Miami, Florida, and would be the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida, to the country.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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