Poll: Majority of Swing Voters Oppose Biden’s Surge of Refugees to U.S.

The majority of swing voters oppose President Joe Biden’s increase of refugee resettlement to the United States, a Morning Consult/Politico poll shows.

After the refugee lobby and Democrats denounced Biden’s original plan to keep the Trump-set refugee cap of 15,000 admissions for Fiscal Year 2021, the administration reversed course and announced they would boost the cap to 62,500 admissions.

The cap is merely a numerical limit and not a goal for the State Department to reach. Already, in the month of April, Biden has increased refugee resettlement by 904 percent compared to the same time last year.

The poll reveals that 52 percent of swing voters, those who identify as Independents, said they opposed Biden’s increasing refugee resettlement while less than 3-in-10 swing voters said they supported the move.

Among Trump supporters, expansive refugee resettlement to the U.S. is opposed by a wide majority. Overall, 84 percent of voters who supported Trump in the 2020 presidential election said they opposed an increase in refugee resettlement — 73 percent of which said they “strongly oppose.”

Only seven percent of Trump supporters said they supported increasing refugee resettlement.

Similarly, nearly 8-in-10 registered Republican voters said they oppose increasing refugee resettlement and just 10 percent said they support increasing the annual cap.

Across all registered voters, a plurality of 47 percent said they oppose Biden’s increasing refugee resettlement while 37 percent said they support the move.

Refugee resettlement to the U.S. is a boon for nine federal contractors who have a vested interest in ensuring as many refugees are resettled as possible because their annual federally-funded budgets are contingent on the number of refugees they resettle.

Those contractors include:

Church World Service (CWS), Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC), Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), International Rescue Committee (IRC), U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and World Relief Corporation (WR).

Over the last 20 years, nearly one million refugees have been resettled in the country. This is a number more than double that of residents living in Miami, Florida, and would be the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida, to the country.

Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.

The poll was conducted from May 7 to 9 and included 1,994 registered voters. The margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.