Pascrell Urges Charity and Dignity for Refugees

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) today reacted to reports that the Biden administration has yet to raise unconscionably low national refugee admittance caps set by the Trump administration.

“Despite our national deficiencies, for over one hundred years America remained a beacon of liberty for the entire world. That light dimmed over the last four years, and it is incumbent on us to raise the flame of freedom once more,” said Rep. Pascrell. “Restoring the soul of our nation must mean rejecting the false fear of the other. Charity is strength, abandonment weakness. Refugees seeking asylum flee unfathomable poverty, starvation, and war. The measures announced by the administration today are positive but incomplete because they do not increase our ability to help our neighbors in need that was diminished by the Trump administration. Refugee resettlement demand has only grown since the Obama administration set a historic resettlement cap of 110,000 for 2017.

“In 1989, Ronald Reagan of all people warned that if we ever closed our golden door, American leadership in the world would be lost. He was right. Failure to embrace the neediest, most destitute souls does not befit this country of immigrants. We must reopen the door to refugees.”

For years, Rep. Pascrell has been one of the House of Representative’s foremost leaders in calling for American leadership in the refugee crisis and in his criticism of the nation’s slow acceptance of refugees. In May 2018, Pascrell helmed a letter condemning the pitiful refugee resettlement rate set by Trump for FY 2019. In October 2017, Pascrell led 120 of his colleagues in a letter to Trump assailing his decision to set a painfully low cap for refugee admissions for 2018, and rejecting reported changes to the resettlement process to require refugees to meet an assimilation standard. In September 2017, Pascrell condemned the Trump administration’s slashing of America’s acceptance rate of refugees, saying the decision “shows no compassion, no sense of history, and no moral courage.” Leading 109 House members in May 2017, Pascrell wrote to Trump demanding that he rescind his Executive Order suspending the Refugee Admissions Program and increase support for humanitarian aid programs that assist Syrians in crisis. Pascrell attacked Donald Trump’s refugee restrictions announced at the start of his term as “religious discrimination” that turned “a blind eye to the families seeking escape from war and devastation in search of a better life.”

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