Progressive pro-migration groups have pushed President Joe Biden to announce that he wants to dramatically raise the inflow of refugees up to 62,500 by October 1.
Biden’s decision reverses the April 16 announcement of a 15,000 goal for 2021 that was recommended by his advisers, who are concerned that Biden’s poll numbers will be further damaged amid the migration crisis. The 15,000 goal was bitterly denounced by Democrat-affiliated pro-migration groups, including the FWD.us group of investors created by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“I now determine, consistent with my Administration’s prior consultation with the Congress, that raising the number of admissions permissible for FY 2021 to 62,500 is justified by grave humanitarian concerns and is otherwise in the national interest,” Biden announced late Monday.
The high goal “sends the important message that the United States remains a safe harbor for some of the most vulnerable people in the world,” Biden’s statement said.
The decision will also help the government and pro-refugee groups boost the refugee inflow to 125,000 migrants next year. That number would be eight times President Donald Trump’s 2021 goal of 15,000 refugees.
The decision is good news for U.S. business groups because it provides a spike of domestic spending plus tens of thousands of new workers, consumers, and renters. Many of the imported refugees become Democratic voters, in large part, because they rely heavily on government aid for many years.
In contrast, U.S. money that is spent overseas to help refugees in foreign countries can have a much bigger and broader impact because wages and rents are much cheaper outside the United States. But overseas spending does not deliver any clear benefit to progressive non-profits or to U.S. companies.
The White House’s refugee program is distinct from legal immigration programs, so it allows the federal government to increase immigration above the roughly one million inflow set by Congress. However, the money for the program must come from Congress — and could be reduced by determined GOP legislators.
The refugee programs are unpopular among ordinary Americans because they airdrop foreign migrants into Americans’ towns. That population shift helps to push down wages, raise rents, crowd schools, fracture stable communities, shrivel investment in labor-saving machinery, and redirect corporate investment to the coastal states.
The programs are supported by low-wage employers, progressives, landlords, retailers, and organizations that are paid to settle the refugees.
Refugees are put on a fast track to citizenship and can import additional family members via chain migration.
The growing population of Democrat-voting Somalis in the United States is the most obvious impact of the nation’s expensive refugee program. If each migrant brings in just five relatives, then Biden’s new 2021 goal of 62,500 refugees will eventually deliver 350,000 refugees or immigrants, so importing a mid-sized city of consumers and workers for U.S. business.
An April 20 report by the New York Times suggested that Biden’s top officials played a critical role in setting the 15,000 goal that Biden reversed on May 3.
The staffers’ caution was based on the polling damage caused by Biden’s border policy:
But only weeks into Mr. Biden’s presidency, immigration and the border had already become major distractions from his efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and to persuade Congress to invest trillions of dollars into the economy — issues championed by aides like Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, as more central to his presidency.
…
members of Mr. Biden’s staff came up with a compromise they hoped would satisfy the president and resettlement agencies. They would keep the 15,000-refugee limit, but lift Trump-era restrictions that would allow more flights to resume. On Friday, White House officials informed reporters of the new policy.
The opposition to the 15,000 goal included Zuckerberg’s advocacy group: “We strongly urge President Biden to reverse this decision and commit to his prior promises to rebuild America’s refugee program,” said an April 16 quick statement from the FWD.us group, which supports almost any increased inflow of workers, consumers, and renters into the American economy. The statement continued:
At some of our best moments, America has been a beacon of hope and a nation that actively seeks to welcome those seeking refuge—and at some of our worst, we turned our back on those very people in their time of greatest need … today’s decision is not only morally wrong, but will make the forced migration situation from Central America worse.
We strongly urge President Biden to reverse this decision and commit to his prior promises to rebuild America’s refugee program.
The deep public opposition to labor migration is built on the widespread recognition that legal and illegal migration moves money away from most Americans’ pocketbooks and families. Migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to investors, from technology to stoop labor, from red states to blue states, and from the central states to the coastal states such as New York.
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