President’s FY15 Budget Includes Increased Support for Refugees

President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2015 includes $1.5 billion to aid Syrian refugees and opposition forces within Syria. The budget also maintains crucial funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement and increases funding for immigrant integration efforts and immigration courts. Through this budget outline, President Obama again called on Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform, which is expected to reduce the deficit by $158 billion in 10 years. Additionally, the new budget proposes a 10% decrease in the so-called “detention bed mandate” which currently requires the Department of Homeland Security to fill 34,000 immigrant detention center beds daily.