Biden admits historic low number of refugees, outside of Afghan evacuees

In the 2021 fiscal year, the U.S. admitted its lowest number of refugees in the program's over 40-year history, according to newly released State Department data.

With the fall of the Afghan government, the Biden administration has so far brought roughly 60,000 Afghans to the U.S., with plans for tens of thousands more to arrive in the next year.

But those high numbers belie a broken refugee resettlement program that has been struggling to bring new refugees to the U.S. -- and now, new data shows just how bad the situation is.

In the 2021 fiscal year -- from Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30 of this year -- the U.S. admitted its lowest number of refugees in the program's over 40-year history: just 11,411, according to newly released State Department data.

That means that in the last year, including President Joe Biden's first nine months, the U.S. resettled fewer refugees than former President Donald Trump's final full fiscal year, when 11,814 total refugees were admitted. Biden had pledged to admit up to 62,500 refugees during his young term, while Trump's administration took several steps to dismantle the refugee resettlement program and bring admissions to a halt.