Op-ed: PRM: The Obscure State Department Bureau That Fosters Global Illegal Migration
The second Trump administration must bring to heel State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
By Phillip Linderman on September 3, 2024
It is remarkable how many well-informed conservative foreign policy strategists have never even heard of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). Even those who closely follow immigration and border issues rarely understand the role PRM plays in accommodating and promoting the worldwide movement of illegal migrants.
PRM should not be confused with State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, which is in charge of issuing visas to foreigners to enter the United States and is known in Foggy Bottom as “CA.” Because so many interest groups constantly want more visas to be issued, CA gets its fair share of scrutiny from the media, lobbyists, and members of Congress. The PRM bureau has nothing to do with visas, and so it often flies under the conservative policy radar.
PRM manages, along with DHS, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Under Biden-Harris, PRM currently resettles around 125,000 refugees annually. Trump had cut admissions down to 15,000.
While 125,000 a year is not an insignificant number of admissions—and Biden-Harris want it to massively grow—the figure is still small potatoes compared to the millions of illegal and quasi-legal migrants that this administration has admitted into the country.
https://cis.org/Linderman/Oped-PRM-Obscure-State-Department-Bureau-Fosters-Global-Illegal-Migration
