Biden retains historic-low refugee cap for now, angering allies
While he scrapped Trump-era categories that narrowed who could be resettled in the U.S., Mr. Biden did not increase the record-low 15,000-spot refugee ceiling.
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Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the Immigration Correspondent at CBS News, where his reporting is featured across multiple programs and platforms, including national broadcast shows, CBS News 24/7, CBSNews.com and the organization's social media accounts.
Montoya-Galvez has received numerous awards for his groundbreaking and in-depth reporting on immigration, including a national Emmy Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and several New York Emmy Awards.
Over several years, he has built one of the leading and most trusted national sources of immigration news, filing breaking news pieces, as well as exclusive reports and in-depth feature stories on the impact of major policy changes.
Montoya-Galvez was the first reporter to obtain and publish the names of the Venezuelan deportees sent by the U.S. to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, with little to no due process. Using that list, he co-produced a "60 Minutes" report that found most of the deported men did not have apparent criminal records, despite the administration's claims that they were all dangerous criminals and gang members. Montoya-Galvez was also the first journalist to interview Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at the CECOT prison.
In 2025 alone, Montoya Galvez broke dozens of other exclusive stories. He disclosed the internal Trump administration plan to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela; landed the first national network sit-down interviews with the current heads of ICE and Border Patrol; and obtained government data showing that illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025 plummeted to the lowest level since 1970 amid Trump's crackdown.
Montoya Galvez's North Star is to cover immigration with nuance and fairness, in a nonpartisan, comprehensive and compelling way that respects the dignity of those at the center of this story
Before joining CBS News, Montoya-Galvez spent over two years as an investigative unit producer and assignment desk editor at Telemundo's television station in New York City. His work at Telemundo earned three New York Emmy Awards. Earlier, he was the founding editor of After the Final Whistle, an online bilingual publication featuring stories that highlight soccer's role in contemporary society.
Montoya-Galvez was born in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, and raised in New Jersey. He earned a bachelor's degree in Media and Journalism Studies and Spanish from Rutgers University.
While he scrapped Trump-era categories that narrowed who could be resettled in the U.S., Mr. Biden did not increase the record-low 15,000-spot refugee ceiling.
Just 0.3% of more than 600,000 migrants expelled by U.S. border officials under a pandemic-era policy have been allowed to pursue U.S. refuge.
Absent from his list of DHS appointments is a director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The plan includes no new funding for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border — which President Biden halted on Inauguration Day.
The Biden administration is on track to open 11 makeshift shelters to accommodate the increasing number of migrant children.
In one overcrowded holding facility in south Texas, there were not enough caregivers to care for 500 migrant children under the age of 12, the report said.
U.S. agents along the southern border carried out approximately 170,000 total apprehensions in March — a 70% increase from the previous month.
The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general found that immigrants received poor medical care and excessive punishment for peacefully protesting.
Attorneys who inspected two emergency housing sites for migrant children in Texas also reported limited or non-existing recreational and educational services.
A federal judge in Texas is set to issue a ruling in a lawsuit filed by Texas' Republican attorney general, who is seeking to have the Obama-era program gradually terminated.
The plan involves repurposing convention centers, camps for oil workers and military bases to house the influx of migrant children.
This guidance is the Biden administration's latest effort to address the soaring number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border.
More than 5,000 of the unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody were stranded in Border Patrol facilities not designed for long-term custody.
The $86.9 million contract comes as the Biden administration moves away from the long-term detention of migrant families.
The bills may represent Democrats' best chance of getting immigration legislation through the evenly divided Senate