Roughly 230,000 refugees admitted into the United States under the Biden administration will face new scrutiny as part of a re-vetting process, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
DHS oversees the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which plans to review all refugees who were let in under former President Joe Biden. The review was prompted by the Biden administration’s lenient immigration policies and rules, as well as widespread reports of fraud.
Both Reuters and The Associated Press reportedly obtained a memo detailing the plans. The order would apply to 233,000 refugees who were resettled between Jan. 20, 2021, and Feb. 20, 2025, according to the memo.
“This reckless approach undermined the integrity of our immigration system and jeopardized the safety and security of the American people,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Corrective action is now being taken to ensure those who are present in the United States deserve to be here.”
Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, signed the memo dated Nov. 21. The agency will conduct a comprehensive review and re-interview of all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025.
Edlow said that during the Biden years “expediency” and “quantity” were prioritized over “detailed screening and vetting.”
USCIS expects to have a priority list for re-interviews within 90 days, Edlow wrote, with a focus on why refugee status was granted in the first place.
“Testimony will include, but is not limited to, the circumstances establishing past persecution or a well-founded fear for principal refugees, the persecutor bar, and any other potential inadmissibilities,” he wrote.
The AP also reported the memo has immediately suspended applications for permanent legal status, or green card approvals, for refugees who came to the U.S. during the stated time period.
Per the memo, during the re-vetting process, anyone found not to have met the original refugee standards will have their status revoked. USCIS also said it might check others who fall outside the Biden window.
Individuals who have already received their green card are also having their cases reviewed.
“USCIS is ready to uphold the law and ensure the refugee program is not abused,” Edlow wrote.
Refugees admitted to the U.S. must apply for a green card one year after they arrive in the country and usually five years after that they can apply for citizenship.
The Biden administration admitted 185,640 refugees from October 2021 through September 2024. Refugee admissions topped 100,000 last year, with the largest numbers coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria, the AP reported.
President Donald Trump suspended the refugee resettlement program when he took office as part of his crackdown on legal and illegal immigration. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order prompted an immediate lawsuit filed in Seattle by individual refugees and major refugee aid groups.
Congress created the program in 1980 as a form of legal migration to the U.S. for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution. In October, the Trump administration capped entries for fiscal year 2026 at 7,500 for mostly white South Africans, which marks a record-low since the program began, Reuters reported.
Refugee advocates and immigration groups immediately rebuked news of the review process. They call it “unnecessary and cruel” to people who fled from war and persecution in their home countries.
“This policy would needlessly retraumatize refugees who have survived unimaginable horrors, have waited decades in some cases for resettlement, and have just begun to rebuild their lives in the United States, creating bonds with local communities, workplaces and faith groups,” Kelly Razzouk, a vice president at the International Rescue Committee, told The Washington Times in another report.
As with most Trump policies, the review will likely be met with a lawsuit from immigration advocates. They maintain it’s another example of the administration’s “cold-hearted treatment” of people seeking a better life in the U.S., the AP reported.
Sharif Aly, President of the International Refugee Assistance Project, an advocacy group that joined the lawsuit seeking to overturn the administration’s suspension of refugee admissions, issued a statement late Monday and said refugees are “already the most highly vetted immigrants in the United States.”
“Besides the enormous cruelty of this undertaking, it would also be a tremendous waste of government resources to review and re-interview 200,000 people who have been living peacefully in our communities for years,” Aly said.
Refugees are foreign nationals who seek protection from war or political persecution. They are similar to asylum-seekers, who request similar protection after entering the United States.
Refugees have to prove that they are fleeing actual persecution based on their religion, political beliefs or some other credible fear, and they have to pass screening for security threats.
But the program has loopholes and recent reports of fraud and national security threats, The Washington Times reported.
Abdulrahman Mohammed Hafedh Alqaysi, a one-time refugee from Iraq, was sentenced last month to 12 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists.
Another Iraqi, Aws Muwafaq Abduljabbar, ran an operation to steal files of hundreds of refugee applicants. He used the stolen files to help coach refugee applicants on how to frame and fabricate stories that would get their application approved, per The Washington Times.
After Abduljabbar’s scam came to light, authorities put a stop to a special refugee program for Iraqis who aided the U.S. war effort while federal officials investigated the breach.
Trump officials have blasted Biden and his administration for allowing millions of unvetted migrants and other immigrant groups to flood the United States. They have accused them of recklessly prioritizing numbers over safety, particularly with the CBP One app and other refugee, Temporary Protected Status and parole programs.
While the CHNV (Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan) program isn’t a refuge program, but more of a humanitarian one, it offered a legal pathway for up to 30,000 nationals from those countries per month to live and work in the U.S. for up to two years, provided they had a U.S.-based sponsor.
