Not long after taking office, Mr. Trump lowered the refugee limit to 50,000 of the 110,000 set by Mr. Obama, and issued an executive order banning the entry of people from several predominantly Muslim countries. The following year he set a ceiling of 45,000; less than half arrived amid tighter background checks and restrictions.
Biden quickly began to reverse his predecessor’s immigration policies, but mounting public concern about the rapid increase in unauthorized border crossings on the southwestern border led him to postpone a plan to increase the limit on refugees this year.
The delay forced 700 refugees, who had already been screened and held tickets, to be taken off flights. There was a quick rebuke from human rights activists and fellow Democrats, and within hours the White House announced that the 2021 limit would be raised to 62,500. But it was not clear whether, given the pandemic, the exhaustion of the program by its predecessor and rising numbers at the border, this number would be reached.
As of March 31, according to the latest available data, 20,829 Afghans, plus 52,799 family members, had received special immigrant visas since 2014 under a separate program created by Congress for those who could face reprisals for their work with U.S. troops.
One of the Afghans who was evacuated and arrived in Houston this month, a 32-year-old interpreter who worked with a platoon of the United States Marines, said he managed to escape just days before his town, Gardez, south of Kabul, fell to the Taliban. .
“I’m just worried about so many people left,” said the man, who wanted to be identified only by his English nickname, Harry, for fear of the relatives he left behind. “They hide or move their families from place to place.”
