Insider by Charles Davis 8/16/2021
• President Biden set a refugee admissions cap of 62,500 for fiscal year 2021, which ends this fall.
• But the US is on track to accept fewer than 10,000 refugees.
• Biden is facing pressure to accept far more after the collapse of the Afghan government.
Despite warnings that a Taliban takeover was both imminent and a threat to vulnerable Afghans, particularly women, data from the State Department shows that the US has accepted fewer than 500 refugees from Afghanistan this year.
Just 485 Afghan refugees have been resettled since January, according to the State Department, and 494 since the 2021 fiscal year began last October. Admissions peaked in June, when 162 refugees were accepted, but declined to just 84 in July.
More than 2,700 Afghan refugees were admitted in the US during the 2016 fiscal year under former President Barack Obama. Almost 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan are registered with the United Nations' Refugee Agency.
The paltry numbers come as President Biden faces pressure from many Democrats to do more to help Washington's former partners in Afghanistan following the August 15 collapse of the civilian government — and scenes of desperate people rushing to the international airport in Kabul seeking to escape.
According to the International Rescue Committee, over 300,000 Afghan civilians have been "affiliated" with the US military, but only 16,000 have been issued Special Immigrant Visas (SIV), which is separate from the refugee program.
More:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-accepted-fewer-than-500-afghan-refugees-2021-8
