The Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2022
Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State
President Biden today affirmed the United States’ deeply-held commitment to welcoming refugees by issuing the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions, which raises the refugee admissions target to 125,000 for Fiscal Year 2022. The United States is, and will continue to be, a global leader in international humanitarian response, including in refugee resettlement. Not only are we the largest single humanitarian donor, but we also seek to promote stability in regions experiencing crisis, advance protection and durable solutions for refugees, and facilitate international collaboration to address global refugee and humanitarian crises. In Fiscal Year 2020, the United States provided more than $10.5 billion in humanitarian assistance, including assistance for refugees.
In my consultations with Members of Congress, I underscored that the State Department is committed to rebuilding our U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in line with our long tradition of offering hope and safe haven to those fleeing persecution. We are diligently working to rebuild the infrastructure of the program, including by strengthening our refugee processing systems, providing for new funding at the local and state levels to enhance the capacity of our domestic resettlement partners, and expanding community sponsorship programs.
In our history as a nation, we have resettled more than 3.1 million refugees, and we are now also in the midst of safely welcoming in the United States tens of thousands of previously at-risk Afghans, reflections of our core American values to provide refuge to those in need. We recognize the tremendous social, economic, and cultural contributions refugees make to communities across the United States, and we are committed to rebuilding a robust U.S. Refugee Admissions Program while ensuring its integrity and protecting our national security interests. A robust refugee admissions program is a cornerstone of the President’s commitment to rebuilding a safe, orderly, and humane migration system.
