President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the U.S. would use the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to respond to the biggest and fastest-growing refugee crisis to engulf Europe since World War II. But the program took a beating under former President Donald Trump, who set the annual refugee cap at historic lows. With fewer refugees entering the U.S., refugee resettlement agencies, which help refugees find housing and jobs in the U.S., closed their doors.
Biden vowed to rebuild the refugee program during his presidential campaign, but that promise has yet to be fulfilled. In his first year in office, the U.S. accepted 11,400 refugees, the fewest since the program began in 1980. The U.S. is now on track to admit 16,000 refugees by the end of this fiscal year, which falls considerably short of the 125,000 refugee admissions goal that Biden set for his second year.
Considering these numbers, Sunil Varghese of the International Refugee Assistance Project said he is cautious about the administration living up to its plans of welcoming up to 100,000 Ukrainians.
"It's an aspirational goal," Varghese said. "It sends a powerful message … but also we haven't seen the specifics, and what we've seen from the administration, unfortunately, is that the lofty rhetoric isn't often matched with implemented policy."
Making the refugee program the centerpiece of the plans to accept 100,000 Ukrainians comes with hard limits on how quickly the U.S. can rebuild it, according to Varghese. The program is strained and slow, and it could take years, not months, to get it to a point where it could be useful to Ukrainians, he said.
The public focus on Ukraine could serve as a reminder of the refugee program's importance. But just months ago when the public gaze was turned on Afghan refugees, the U.S. did not make new investments to bolster the program, Varghese noted.
"It is possible… [but] I haven't seen it yet," he said.
Yael Schacher of Refugees International said that any improvements to the refugee program would be better than none. Even if the U.S. admits only 20,000 Ukrainians through the program, that would more than double the U.S.' refugee admissions for this year, she said.
"These are the ways we could start rebuilding the Refugee Admissions Program, and Ukrainians can be a part of the puzzle," she said.
She said the U.S. had an opportunity to use the refugee program to resettle Afghans. But Schacher acknowledged that people need to be referred to and vetted for the refugee program in a relatively slow process that perhaps was ill-suited for Afghanistan, where the U.S. had to move quickly to evacuate people.
"I kind of understand why we didn't use the Refugee Admissions Program [for Afghanistan], but by not using it, we created problems now. We kicked the can down the road," she said.
In contrast, Ukrainians can afford to take longer to go through the refugee process, because the European Union has opened its doors to them, affording them another temporary place to shelter.
"If the Biden administration is actually committed to rebuilding this program … we got to get started. Otherwise, we're going to stop using it," Schacher said.
The White House said it was looking into broadening other immigration pathways for Ukrainians. But the already existing programs have to contend with backlogs in the immigration courts, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Department of State that collectively restrict the federal government's ability to timely process asylum claims and visa applications.
The White House also revealed that it's looking into carving out new processes for Ukrainians, but Julia Gelatt of the Migration Policy Institute said the executive branch has relatively little room to get creative under current immigration law. Of the available options, a parole program, which would allow people to temporarily stay and work in the U.S., seems to be the most likely "new pathway," Gelatt said.
Biden had relied on his parole authority to allow tens of thousands of Afghans to enter the U.S. for up to two years. But that decision exposed the limits of parole — roughly 36,000 Afghans brought to the U.S. lack any permanent immigration status once their parole expires, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
While parole is a useful tool to bring people quickly to safety, "it would have the effect of creating another population that's in legal limbo," Gelatt said.
In contrast, the refugee program allows people to apply for green cards if they decide to permanently stay in the U.S.
"The program just isn't in a good way to be ready to respond quickly," she said.
--Editing by Nicole Bleier.
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