On Thursday, President Biden announced an executive order to officially start the process of raising the annual refugee admissions cap to 125,000 after historically low numbers under President Trump, Brett Samuels reports for The Hill. "It’s going to take time to rebuild what has been so badly damaged. But that’s precisely what we’re going to do," Biden said. 

In addition to rebuilding refugee resettlement infrastructure, Biden is "asking the State Department to consult with Congress ‘about making a down payment’ so his administration could increase the limit to 125,000 during its first full fiscal year, which would run from Oct. 1, 2021, through Sept. 30, 2022."  

The order "shows that strength is rooted in compassion," Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement. "It signals that the United States will do its part, as it has historically done, to help the world’s most vulnerable people, including by welcoming them in the United States." 

For a national security perspective on the importance of raising the refugee ceiling, the Forum’s senior advisor on national security issues, Elizabeth Neumann, authored a report on how robust refugee programs aid national security in December.  

Welcome to Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at  [email protected]. 

DREAM ACT OF 2021 — Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) announced bipartisan legislation on Thursday that would give Dreamers the opportunity to earn permanent legal status, reports Andy J. Semotiuk for Forbes. This is the fourth time Sens. Durbin and Graham have co-sponsored legislation including protections for Dreamers, and this year marks the 20th anniversary of the first introduction of the Dream Act. Earlier this week, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) joined The Texas Opportunity Coalition in support of a legislative solution for Dreamers, per Tom Benning at The Dallas Morning News. And our friends at FWD.us and the Coalition for the American Dream applauded the bipartisan efforts in the Senate to provide permanent protections to Dreamers. See our statement here.  

H-1B CHANGES DELAYED — The Biden administration is delaying the Trump administration’s plan to replace the lottery allocation system for H-1B visas with a wage-based system, Ethan Baron reports for the East Bay Times. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), these visas intended for workers with "specialized skills" will continue to be allocated through the lottery system for the rest of the year. "Delaying the change until the end of this year is intended to give the federal government ‘more time to develop, test, and implement the modifications to the H-1B registration system and selection process,’ the agency said in a brief news release." 

‘A CHANCE TO TELL THE TRUTH’ — In an opinion column for MSNBC, Alicia Menendez explains why Republicans should consider President Biden’s actions on immigration reform a win. To start, she writes, Biden is open to taking a piecemeal approach to his proposed immigration legislation, opening the door for bipartisan cooperation. Instead of doubling down on Trump-era policies "predicated on falsehoods about the ties between immigration, crime and security that have been allowed to fester over decades" —falsehoods that make America less safe — Menendez concludes that "[f]or Republicans and Democrats alike, overhauling immigration is a chance to tell the truth … It’s time to admit that the resistance to reform is not actually about America’s safety and security, that it never has been."   

'BECOME AMERICANS' — In an op-ed for The xxxxxx, our friend and Forum Senior Fellow Linda Chavez makes the case that only immigrants can save U.S. government entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. Citing our new Room to Grow paper published Wednesday, Chavez writes that setting immigration levels to reflect America’s changing demographics is "only the beginning of the reform process." She’s right; while setting immigration levels is a critical step, "the key to any successful immigration proposal is integrating new Americans … We need more immigrants, but we also need to help them become Americans—not just for their sake, but for ours."