US President Joe Biden finally decided on Monday to increase the number of refugees admitted to the United States from 15,000 to 62,500 for the current year, after procrastination that had earned him strong criticism in his camp.
Read also: Joe Biden delays his plan to increase the number of refugees admitted to the United States
"Today, I am changing the annual admission threshold for refugees in the United States from 62,500,"
said the tenant of the White House in a statement. For the following year, Joe Biden set a threshold of 125,000 refugees, while stressing that this goal, like that of the current year, would be difficult to achieve due to the need to
"reconstruct"
the admission program of refugees.
"We are working hard to repair the damage of the past four years,"
he said. His decision, in mid-April, to temporarily keep the historically low ceiling of 15,000 people set by Donald Trump had caused an outcry within the Democratic camp. The Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Bob Menendez, denounced a
"terribly low" number.
The deputy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, figure of the left wing of the party, had denounced a choice
"absolutely unacceptable".
“Biden promised to welcome immigrants, and people voted for him based on that promise. Keeping the xenophobic and racist policies of the Trump administration "
is
" just plain wrong, "
she tweeted.
