For Immediate Release                                                        Contact: Dan Gordon, 617-651-0841                                  April 16, 2021 

Biden Maintains Refugee Ceiling

Washington, D.C. — Today President Biden announced he would maintain the refugee resettlement ceiling for the current fiscal year to its historic low of 15,000.

"This is incredibly disappointing. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world and we can’t do better?" said Ali Noorani, President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. "Refugee resettlement has nothing to do with what is happening at the border. There exists a national network of organizations, churches and state offices who have decades of experience resettling refugees."

Just this morning, evangelical leaders urged the president to raise the ceiling. "Rhetoric is no refuge for the persecuted — we need action," Russell Moore, President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said in part.

Other evangelicals have called on President Biden to keep his commitment to reopen refugee resettlement and raise the refugee ceiling, including 3,800 evangelical women via petition.

###