This year, President Trump lowered the annual refugee resettlement cap to its lowest ever at about 18,000 total admissions. This is merely a numerical limit and not a goal to be reached by the State Department. Klobuchar has vowed to increase refugee resettlement back to Obama levels, admitting at least 110,000 refugees in the U.S. in her first year in office. As president, Klobuchar would “direct the State Department to restore the refugee admissions cap to at least its pre-Trump administration level,” according to her campaign.
Returning to Obama-level refugee admissions would be a more than 500 percent increase in refugee resettlement to the U.S. compared to Trump’s level of refugee resettlement.
Though thousands of American communities would be inundated with a refugee flow, Klobuchar’s neighborhood of Marcy-Holmes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, would likely have to absorb close to none of those refugees.