| GEO World | | US to welcome up to 80,000 refugees over next year | Updated at: 1544 PST, Wednesday, October 01, 2008
 WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush said Tuesday that upto 80,000 refugees from around the world can be accepted in the United States during the next year for humanitarian reasons.
Bush announced the figure in a memo to the secretaries of state and homeland security, as he does each year after consulting Congress in keeping with the law.
The president laid out maximum numbers to be admitted from each region of the globe: 37,000 from Middle East and South Asia, 19,000 from East Asia, 12,000 from Africa, 4,500 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 2,500 from Europe and Central Asia.
The remaining 5,000 can be allocated by the State Department to various regions as the need arises. |  |
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