A Trump administration review of refugees admitted during the Biden years could affect more than 8,700 people resettled in Pennsylvania over that period.
Early last week, the Trump administration would re-examine the cases of nearly 200,000 refugees, many from war-torn countries, who entered the United States from 2021 to 2024.
“For four straight years, the Biden administration accelerated refugee admissions from terror and gang-prone countries, prioritizing sheer numbers over rigorous vetting and strict adherence to legal requirements,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs, in a statement to PennLive.
“This reckless approach undermined the integrity of our immigration system and jeopardized the safety and security of the American people,” said McLaughlin. “Corrective action is now being taken to ensure those who are present in the United States deserve to be here.”
[That announcement came just days before the shooting in Washington, D.C. that killed one member of the National Guard and left the other critically injured. The suspect is an Afghan national admitted in 2021 under the resettlement program. Since the shooting Trump has said he will expand the review of asylum cases and suspend all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals.]
Earlier this year, Afghan refugees resettled in the Harrisburg area lamented a move by the Trump administration ordering deportations and halting green card applications.
Some of those refugees to the United States risked their lives helping American forces and fled Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover.
Specific figures for where refugees were resettled in Pennsylvania were not available.
However, the number of refugees resettled in the state increased from 395 in fiscal year 2021 to 1,109 in FY 2022 to 2,768 in FY 2023 and to 4,446 in FY 2024. In FY 2025, there were 1,504 refugees resettled in Pennsylvania.
The top three states with the most refugees in 2024 were Texas, California and New York, according to U.S. Department of State data. Pennsylvania ranked fifth.
Besides Afghanistan, many of the refugees to U.S. have arrived from Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Associated Press, citing a memo it obtained signed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow, reported that the review would entail re-interviewing “all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025.”
Edlow’s memo also suspended green card approvals for the refugees who came here during the Biden administration.
Naomi Steinberg, vice president of U.S. policy and advocacy at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a refugee resettlement agency, called the review “shockingly ill-conceived,” reported the AP.
“This is a new low in the administration’s consistently cold-hearted treatment of people who are already building new lives and enriching the communities where they have made their homes,” said Steinberg.
Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Washington, D.C., based Center for Immigration Studies, told PennLive in a statement that the review is “a smart move by USCIS given the string of recent vetting failures that have come to light. Strengthening screening procedures isn’t just prudent – it’s necessary to restore integrity to a system that has shown clear vulnerabilities.”